“When I was writing The Pluto Project, for example, one of the main challenges I had in revision was making the two main female characters different from one another. While I was first writing the book, I didn’t really distinguish clearly between their characters. My editor helped me see that the two girls were really very different—one of them, Alice, was very smart, unsentimental, and a great match for the main character, Alan, while the other, Juliet (the one Alan likes) is committed, passionate, but not exceptionally bright. Once I realized my editor was right, I found lots of places where I had given Juliet dialog that really belonged to Alice, and I began to see that the brilliant ideas Juliet had really needed to come from other characters. And doing that made the book much richer, because it adds to the story that Alan (who really values wit and intelligence) should find himself attracted to someone for her passion and not for her brains. Plus, it makes the book more real, to have supporting characters who are really their own people.”
To read the full interview with the author of The Pluto Project check out her website http://www.melissaglennhaber.com/oaqs.php
