Climbing into Bed with Strangers

The other day over on Facebook, I was involved in a brief discussion with an author who, as part of a novel proposal package, was writing her synopsis before working on the sample chapters.

Yikes, I responded, though I've done it myself upon occasion. To me that always feels as if I'm climbing into bed with strangers. I like moseying through my opening chapters first: a snippet here, a deletion there, a rewrite coming from another angle. It's how I get to know the characters so I'm comfortable enough with predicting what they'll do to put together an outline of their journey in the synopsis. In the opening pages, the story's themes and tone gradually reveal themselves to me as well.

It's not the way I always write, and as I've previously discussed on the blog, I rely on an ever-evolving number of prewriting strategies to focus my energies on the characters and their relationships. None of these methods, or anyone's methods (including starting off with a synopsis) is the perfect, inviolable, correct way, any more than any one of them is wrong.

Instead, it's all about making the process work for you, in the service of fleshing out the most compelling characters and the most engaging story possible.

So how do you get to know your characters? Or do you prefer "jumping into bed with strangers" and letting all the arms and legs sort themselves out? ;)

Write What (or Who) You Know, Part I

I've never been sold on the old saw, "Write what you know," but I have to admit it has its moments. Faced with difficult and convoluted plotting (which only on the rarest of occasions reflects my own experience, thank goodness) I tend to mix and match aspects of my own personality and/or the personalities of people I've known, to create a new mash-up that takes on a new life of its own.

When I begin a character with the personality of a real person, I find it's a great, shorthand method of getting a handle on my fictional creation. After the book's released, I'm always a little nervous that the real person may recognize herself in the character she's inspired, but so far, that's never happened. For one thing, I'm very careful to change identifying features. For another, the book's plot and other fictional characters substantially alter the "based-on" characters until I'm the only one aware of the connection.

Many of my books are inspired by real-life events "ripped from the headlines" (to borrow a term. At their starting point, I read or hear about some provocative/horrifying/outrageous/frightening situation and wonder "What if that happened to me? How would I react?" Consequently, many of my books' protagonists have the same life concerns (raising a kiddo, worries over aging parents, anxiety over bills or jobs) I've experienced. They also, especially in the case of the heroines, tend to live in settings and have careers with which I'm familiar. I've written a couple of stories featuring teachers (my previous career - and I can tell you, it gives me much joy to poke fun at school boards or gossipy PTO moms from a safe distance), one with a traveling hospice nurse (my sister's job), and another with an asthmatic female firefighter (my husband's a firefighter and I have asthma, so I'd always wondered how awful it would be to be a committed firefighter who finds herself developing that condition).

None of my characters really are me, but they often share my observations, secret sarcastic thoughts, and weird fixations (i.e. Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream and hand-carved Oaxacan animals). The heroes often react in ways in keeping with the macho guys I've known and loved (no affected pretty boys or metrosexuals need apply) and tend toward overtly manly careers rather than desk jobs.

These are the people I understand, the people whose heads I can most easily get inside of. Which is critical, because as I develop the story, I'm about to dump them into serious hot water. (A marketing-oriented friend recently asked me to define my novels' core message. "That's easy," I told her, "It's 'Regular people in deep sh*t.'")

Faced with extraordinary circumstances, I'm always more comfortable with a little familiarity. And I find those particular characters are often my most memorable and compelling.

So what about the rest of you? Do you interweave familiar settings, events from your own life, or character aspects with elements from your own imagination? If so, how do you handle the blending of the real and the imaginary?

Pictured: Woman Standing In Front Of A Mirror 1841
by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

What My Wheels Are Saying

Ever think about what a character's car has to say about him/her? I'm blogging on the subject today over at To Be Read. Please stop by and check it out. Or better yet, say hello. I'd love the company.

"Ms. Author, Your Character's on Line One

Have you ever noticed that some characters just show up? Fully formed, they burst out of your skull, much like Athena exploded, fully armed and everything, out of Zeus gi-normous headache (which served that womanizing s.o.b. right for swallowing her pregnant mother, if you ask me).

I love it when a character simply bursts onto the scene. Although the other type, the shy ones you only gradually discover, have their appeal, those fictional folks who simply show up make life so much easier, since they arrive packing their own voices, mannerisms, and the willingness to smack down the author who tries to hammer them into a plot where they won't fit.

Sometimes, this type of character is a hero (the hunkalicious desert recluse, Zeke Pike from my latest, Triple Exposure, and Beth Ann Decker from Head On). Other times, it's a secondary character (Patsy from Triple Exposure and Estelle Hooks from The Salt Maiden. Once in a while, it's a villain who comes to breathe down my neck, raising chill bumps and making me want to shower after each scene spent in their heads (the killer from Head On). Whichever the case may be, I feel a special affection (or a special horror) for these folks long after the book is written.

But I often wonder how they come to be. Do they live everyday lives on some alternate plane only to accidentally step inside the (hellish, since I write suspense) wardrobe of my story? Are they subconsciously-formed conglomerates of folks I've known or read about or imagined? Or did they grow from the vines of those watermelon seeds I was warned not to swallow as a kid?

What about you? Do any (or all) of your characters simply show up? Any thoughts on the mystery of how that happens, or on how we as authors can see that it happens more frequently?

How Some Folks Would Do

"A story always involves, in a dramatic way, the mystery of personality. I lent some stories to a country lady who lives down the road from me, and when she returned them, she said, “Well, them stories just gone and shown you how some folks would do,” and I thought to myself that that was right; when you write stories, you have to be content to start exactly there - showing how some specific folks will do, will do in spite of everything."
-- Flannery O'Connor

Ms. O'Connor and her neighbor make a great point, don't they? A truly wonderful story isn't so much about cleverly-constructed subtext, allusion, or the "Emperor's New Prose." It's about characters so real and recognizable their every action rings true, characters that help us draw parallels from our own lives and recognize the buried truths there.

I thought of these words after watching No Country for Old Men late last night. Fabulous movie (based on Cormac McCarthy's much-lauded novel) and *wonderfully* acted, set in the same starkly-beautiful West Texas locales where my last couple of novels have taken place. But for me, the minor characters were what really made it, the humble clerks, the mother-in-law, the ill-fated Good Samaritan. Folks so "regular" they sparked immediate recognition, even laughter, so interestingly unique, in their ordinary way, that they jumped (and occasional splattered - it's a violent story) off the screen.


The movie was not only great, it was an excellent reminder. It's all about the characters. And how some folks would do.

Love Me, Love My Story

That's what our characters might tell us, and I believe they're right. When a reader falls in love with one of our main characters, he/she will follow that fictional person almost anywhere, through anything, because the reader cares intensely what happens to this "loved one."

Making a character attractive to the reader is about for more than physical beauty, or making the character a super-nice person who rescues fuzzy bunnies and delivers meals to the housebound elderly. Very attractive, fascinating characters can be plain/homely (a little plainness, in fact, can increase relatability; most of us aren't Miss America), snarky, weak (think of Kyra Sedgwick's character in The Closer, with her sugar addiction), selfish, or even lethal and still likable. So what are some of the "Pied Piper qualities" that keep us turning pages? Here are five that work for me.

1. A fascinating/refreshing/entertaining point of view. This character sees the world in a somewhat off-kilter fashion, and we can't wait to get her take on life's realities. We'd like to hang out with this person in real life. It might be a little dangerous, but at least we wouldn't be bored.
2. Unpredictability (within reason). This character surprises us continually while still remaining true to himself.
3. A moral core. The characters morals may be off, in terms of the reader's, but the character adheres to her own values, at least some of which are admirable and uphold our own morality. Though the person's actions may be wrong, her reasons work for us.
4. Recognizability. We've met folks at least a little like this person, so we believe in him. Or at least willingness suspend our disbelief.
5. Larger than life. This person says and does the things we wish we'd have the brains and guts (or the chutzpah) to attempt for ourselves. She lives life in vibrant color and tends to act rather than be acted upon. This person is the antithesis of the boring dust-mote character (as I call them), who floats through like as a passive victim.

So what makes you fall in love with (or want to hang out with) a particular character? Which characters in books, movies, or television, have been most attractive to you?

It's All Relative

As I've prepared lectures for an online class I'm teaching (Emotionally Engage from the Very First Page), I've been doing a lot of analytical thinking about what makes certain stories and in particular certain characters reach out and grab me by the gut. I can easily list characters with whom I immediately bonded and would follow anywhere (sometimes through some pretty damned unlikely plots.) Among the standouts: Gus McCrae (Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry), Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz), Stephanie Plum (One for the Money, Janet Evanovich), Harry Potter (If you don't know, I'm not telling). Sure, there have been books whose plots, premises, and writing styles gripped me -- books that were wildly successful by anybody's standards. (Although I thorougly enjoyed The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, I really didn't care about the protagonists as people.) But the ones whose *characters* captured my imagination are the ones I recall most vividly, and not coincidentally, these characters have garnered the fervid devotion of countless fans.

So how does an author create instant rapport with a larger-than-life character in a tough-to-imagine situation? I believe it's all about relating to emotions with which the average reader can easily identify. Odd Thomas is a young short-order cook who sees dead people and works for justice on their behalf. Pretty tough to relate to on the surface, but he succeeds as a character because Koontz so quickly establishes his humility (his greatest aspiration is tire sales), his intense, teenage love for his girlfriend, and especially his earnest vulnerability. The wry, self-deprecating wit helps, too, and in no time flat, the reader is rooting for this kid.

J.K. Rowling works similar magic with Harry Potter. On the surface, this kiddo shouldn't be relatable. He not only has magical powers, they're unprecendented even in his special world. But Rowling quickly establishes sympathy by setting up Harry as this downtrodden Cinderfella who's the object of much bullying and makes us feel his both his wonder and confusion as the truth begins to be revealed.

Everyone has felt picked on. Nearly everyone has felt the hopeless intensity of young love. And rooting for the underdog -- the little person who somehow finds the guts to fight back -- is practically hard-wired into our DNA.

For me, the lesson in this is to look at my book's opening and ask myself what universal emotions am I using to help my reader relate to someone in one hell of a pickle. If I fail to do so, I could still have a good story. But with that extra boost, I will have something far, far greater.

Does anyone have a great tip for helping the reader relate to the book's characters? I'm always looking for a sharper blade in my arsenal.