Where do your characters come from?
That's the most frequently asked question I get about my stories. "Where did the characters come from? Are they people you've met, or people you see in the news, or are they composites of lots of folks?"
As my little (4'10") grandma used to tell me with a wink, the answer is complicated. Some characters are much like people I've known, either physically or emotionally or simply the way they think about things. I used to know an old man back in Vermont who was as direct as a straight line, and he never spoke more than five words in any one sentence. Blunt, to the point and unvarnished. I've used him a lot. Old time Vermonters are much like that. Darlene Pitts, the sheriff's secretary and dispatcher and Alma Stewart, the secretary at the town hall, have a lot of that old man in them.
Most of the characters I see in my head. No, don't get Dr. Serafina Messina the town psychiatrist to come and see me. I imagine them, I really don't think they're real. And (ahem) if I did think they were real, I wouldn't be telling you...or her. Like Jebediah Smith and Ezekiel Peters. I can see Jeb and Zeke as clear as if they were standing here next to me playing a video game. Well, they are the town's premier connoisseurs of video games, owning the Smith and Peters Super Video Store, so what would be far-fetched about that? By the way, have you noticed that when you see a scene with Jeb and Zeke playing a video game that it always has something to do with the plot of the story? Check it out.
Other characters, like the Dragonriders, barbarians and wizards in Dragon World come from the rich imagination I developed reading The Hobbit, Anne McCaffrey and their amazing colleagues. I have to admit, I love a lot of the Young Adult novels right now. Great writing, rich, marvelously creative characters and intense plots. So with the characters in the wild, rugged world of Rupar, I plugged in the qualities I most wanted each of them to have and gave them all a fierce, fiesty edge. After all, they are larger than life and heroes or master villains, for Heaven's sake!
The main characters in The Falls, (lean a bit closer, I don't want to say this too loud, it's a secret), come from myself, my close friends or my relatives. I see myself in several characters...bits and pieces of me you understand. I see my kids, my wife, my sister...and a number of people who I know well. I won't tell you which ones are which, that would be like giving away the ingredients to a prize-winning chili. But if you look hard enough, you should begin to figure it out.
So, for those of you that are writers, I ask you: where do your characters come from?
May the dragons watch over you...
A lot of my characters have bits and pieces of real people in them. But I have one real person (name, characteristics, everything) in the first book. As soon as my husband heard that he wanted to be in the book. I didn't use his real name but everyone who knows him can tell the character is him. Which he got a big kick out of. Of course I knew he would want his character to get ever more important as the series went on which would be a real PIA. So if you look at my second cover and see the man with a knife in his chest - husband posed for that and his character got that LOL
ReplyDeleteLove it! I have had several people want to know if they are such and such character. I always smile inscrutably and whisper...that would be telling.
ReplyDelete