Birth Order: Adding Depth to the Characters You Write, a short guide

by Cheryl Sterling

Does your hero run a large corporation? Is he a mover and shaker in the business world? Or is he in a creative field such as advertising or entertainment? Does he negotiate well? Speak first and regret it afterward? Maybe he’s the life of every party.

Whatever his occupation, you can bet his birth order had an effect on his personality and career choice. First born children generally share characteristics, as do last borns and middle borns. Not all attributes apply to each birth order, but on average studies have shown them to be more true than not.

Knowing where your character falls in the birth order will lend you insights into his character and allow you to add depth and layers to your book.

16 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2016

About the author

Cheryl Sterling is an American author of several paranormal and contemporary romance novels and short stories. Her first novel, What Do You Say to a Naked Elf?, was a finalist in the TARA contest and was later sold to Leisure Books, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing.
Cheryl is a co-founder and past president of Grand Rapids Region Writers Group in Grand Rapids, MI. She has conducted several workshops that focused on the writing craft and co-chaired their first “I’ve Always Wanted to Write a Book” regional conference.
In her spare time (she’s retired, so there’s that, but she writes a lot, so, never mind), she reads. All genres (except suspense and horror because she reserves the right to mess with readers’ minds). She loves history (lots of ideas to steal borrow), sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, regencies (who knew so many eligible Dukes were around?), anything Doctor Who, and/or quantum entanglement.
Her passion is learning and improving her craft, but mostly, she is a teacher.
Cheryl currently lives in Phoenix with her husband and their cat, Coco Xena.