Where Do Your Characters Come From?

This month we have a very basic topic --how do you go about developing your characters for a story? How much time do you spend or does it just happen in the writing process? What inspires it?

Oh, characters – my favorite subject! Of all the components that go into creating a story, of whatever length, it’s the characters that get my juices flowing. I’ve always been lucky in that my characters simply present themselves to me. I can see them, I know their names, and then I go from there.

Even though I have this very visual start I still complete my basic character outline. I start with looking for images that are as like my characters as possible. Even though I mostly write historical I will comb through glossy magazines, stock photo sites like Dreamstime.com and 123rf.com for these images. If the face is right I can imagine the costume they would be wearing. As an example, Lord Lucius Clifton, Earl of Avondale, looked remarkably like French actor Vincent Cassel whose movie list is extensive but might be more 

recognizable for his roles in Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen and Black Swan. He was also, for a time, the face of an Yves Saint Laurent's men's fragrance.

I know their family backgrounds, their relationships, their strengths and weaknesses, their likes and dislikes, hopes and fears. I know where they went to school (unless they were tutored at home), I know who were their childhood friends and what influences they had when they were growing up. I do not do this for my whole cast of characters, only the major characters which makes life much easier for me by the time I start writing.

Lord Randolph and Lady Serena Buxton, the characters in my Cold Gold novella set in California, would not let go so I continued to write about them. Plus, I had queries from readers as to what happened to them when they returned to England and did they ever have children? Sorry, if you want the answers to those questions you’ll have to read the books. That first story was set in 1907, the subsequent tale, On Borrowed Time, was set in 1913 and the final part of what turned into a trilogy was Shell Shocked set in 1918. Those novellas appeared in one volume as The Buxton Chronicles.

Such is the way my mind works, when I started writing my first Regency, His Dark Enchantress, I wondered if there was a way I could link Serena back to the Cliftons: Lucius, Earl of Avondale and his younger sister, Juliana. Juliana was so intrusive while I was writing Enchantress that I promised her a book of her own which I did with His Ocean Vixen. I linked Serena’s family tree back through a whole set of characters and marriages that I may, or may not, one day choose to bring to life on the page.

These characters are like my best friends. Once they are in my life I’m reluctant to let them go. Although I have used the same characters in several of my books, each is written as a stand-alone. My current work-in-progress is another Regency, the third in my Berkeley Square series and this has been so easy to start because I have all the information I need on these characters, Lady Olivia Darnley and Lord Peter Skeffington who first appeared in His Dark Enchantress.

Do they surprise me sometimes? Always. Just as in life, something always crops up that throws them a curveball and presents a fear for them to overcome. As I write, I’m always looking for the opportunity to up the ante for them. Sometimes I just plain don’t like the characters I create but always try to give them some kind of credibility by including snippets of their backstory to at least explain why they are the villain or villainess of the piece.

Check with these authors to see what they have to say on the subject of their characters.

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/ 
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-YV
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/ 
Marie Laval http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Does Your Writing Move You to Tears?

What a good topic with which to March into spring! Please excuse the poor pun, but that’s where my head is at this morning as I’m already a little freaked with how fast this year is already moving.

Our March Round Robin topic is: Are you ever emotionally drained by writing certain scenes, and how real are your characters to you?

The simple answer to that, for me, is yes, and very real. To elaborate, I truly believe that if an author is not moved by the characters they create, then how can that author expect his or her readers to fully engage with those characters and finish reading the book?

I’m blessed, I think, by the fact that my characters come to me quite easily. I will have an image of them and usually their names, too. What happens to them after that depends on what they tell me, and that’s a statement that I believe only another author can truly appreciate.

In my very first western contemporary romance, my heroine’s grandmother had been active in the French underground movement during World War II. Please don’t ask me how I went from a ranch in southern Alberta to a damp basement in Paris where resistance fighters were making Molotov cocktails. It was all Charmaine St. Claire’s fault. As that was my first attempt at a contemporary novel, to say I was confused is putting it mildly, which is probably the reason that has become ‘the book under the bed’. If it ever sees the light of day, it will probably be a trilogy as, if I write Charmaine’s story, then I have to write her husband Robert’s story, too, before I ever get back on track with the contemporary story which started it all.

I didn’t set out to write trilogies or a linked series, but my characters became so real to me I didn’t want to let them go. Why waste a perfectly good character? I cried when I wrote the reason Lord Randolph Buxton didn’t want to father children in Cold Gold, the first book of The Buxton Chronicles. I ached for Pinkerton agent Stuart Montgomery’s unrequited love in the second book and cried again in the third book when Lady Serena Buxton, after shouldering so many worries during World War I then has to contend with Randolph’s shell shock when he returns from the front.

I don’t remember actually crying when writing either His Dark Enchantress or His Ocean Vixen, my

two Regency romances. Both books see the heroines in some quite dire situations and I felt their pain when writing some of those scenes. I’m not sure if I imbued my characters with my own emotions, or if they influenced me. I only know I wrote several scenes for both books with clenched teeth and sweating palms as I put my heroines through paces I would never choose for myself.

And to help restore my shattered nerves after writing an emotional scene I might, just might, resort to a glass of Writers Tears Irish whiskey!

Visit these authors and see how they deal with emotional scenes and what they might use as a pick-me-up.

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Dr. Bob Rich htt http://wp.me/p3Xihq-Wo
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Kay Sisk http://www.kaysisk.com/blog
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Don't Waste Your Words by Victoria Chatham

To summarize for the round-robin topic: How does wording choice develop a story's character? How do you use and select your words?

I suspect all authors have had those wonderful moments of pure inspiration. That brilliant phrase that jolts you awake at 3 a.m. a line of dialogue sparkling with wit or characters so real you can feel them. You write as fast as you can to transcribe the images into words on the page. But what words do you use?

My word usage depends very much not only on the characters themselves but in what period I have set them. Contemporary settings require the use of very different words to those I would use in a historical setting. When I build a character, I consider what their family was like and what education they received, whether formal or not. Is my character a 19^th century Lord or Lady? Or is he a cowboy? Two sets of characters but requiring totally different words to describe them. The skill here is to pick the right words and only constant practice can serve, both from reading and extending your own vocabulary as you read.

We all know the devil is in the details, especially if you do not want a one-dimensional character. Picking a detail and embellishing it to paint a word picture takes time and balance. In my first ever attempt at a romance novel, a contemporary set in England, I wrote that ‘rain fell on London like a dirty sheet’. However, my critique partner pointed out that a dirty sheet was hardly romantic.

The same applied to ‘sunshine slid down the wall like melting butter’. My critiquer’s comment? Ugh, messy imagery. So what you as the writer might think descriptive may actually convey something entirely different to your reader. And just so you know, both phrases were deleted. Choosing the right words to convey what you see is the art and skill of writing. but then there is also the danger of going too far and boring your reader if you have tried to be too clever. When teaching an introductory creative class I encourage my students to use similes, but sparingly.

Tools I use for choosing words are Marc McCutcheon’s excellent book ‘Building Believable Characters’ which includes forty-eight words for describing noses. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have penned several books together beginning with ‘The Emotion Thesaurus’. Both books offer lists of words if you find yourself coming up short on a character’s details. If I feel I am coming close to repeating myself, I look for synonyms. Is there another word I can use without being a lazy writer? By that, I mean the buzzwords and phrases that crop up time and again particularly in romance novels.

In one book I read by a very well known NYT best-selling author, the heroine ‘shattered’ so many times I thought the poor girl, like Humpty Dumpty, could never be put together again. ‘Going over the edge’ and ‘her toes curled in her slippers’ are also done to death clichés. There are times when a cliché is the exact right combination of words to use, at others less so.

As writers we have vivid imaginations, it’s where a story comes from. But then comes the task of putting those stories into words and making the most of what tools we have to string those words together in a way that best entertains our readers.

I hope you’ll visit these other fine writers for their opinions.

A.J. Maguire http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Marci Baunhttp://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fielandhttp://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Beverley Batemanhttp://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Richhttp://wp.me/p3Xihq-OB
Rachael Kosinskihttp://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Judith Copekhttp://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Helena Fairfaxhttp://www.helenafairfax.com
Rhobin Courtrighthttp://www.rhobinleecourtright.com