Tag: character creation

Characters, where do they come from?

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

Shandra Higheagle Mystery, this month.

After my post last month about Getting to Know my Character, I had a reader ask me to write about how I create, develop, and name characters.

I guess I’ll start with my Shandra Higheagle series. In the case of this series, my brother gave me the idea for a unique murder weapon. He is an artist and was working at a bronze foundry, welding bronze statues and putting the patina on them. He told me about a large statue of a warrior with a spear and how the spear from the warrior’s hand up could be removed. It was made that way for transportation.

Once that idea was in my head, I knew the first book had to be set in the world of art to have the statue come into play. I decided my main character would be an artist. Since I am captivated by Indigenous culture and have a friend in that world who was willing to help me understand things I would need to know, I made Shandra a potter who made vases that are sold in art galleries. She is also half Nez Perce from the Colville Reservation and half Caucasian. To make it easier for me to write from her perspective, I had her Nez Perce father die when she was four and her mother took her away from that side of her family. She grew up off a reservation on a cattle ranch in Montana with a stepfather who kept her Nez Perce origins hidden.

That gave me a good way to reacquaint her with her Nez Perce heritage as I learned things. I didn’t try to appropriate her culture, just share her learning and experience. I had the help of my friend, who lives on the Colville Reservation, to help me with the books that are set there and how the people there live.

I set the books in a fictional ski resort area in Idaho. We had traveled through Kellogg, ID, a few years earlier, and I thought it was a wonderful place for an artist to reside. It gave Shandra a mountain where she would gather clay and purify it to make her vases. I had learned about an artist who made his own clay in Wallowa County from my brother. He set up a time for me to meet with the artist and learn all about the gathering and purifying of the clay. While I was there, he showed me several of his pieces that were in various stages of the processes he used.

Once I had all about Shandra settled, I started working on secondary characters. Her dog, Sheba, who is large and scared of her own shadow. A woman who helps her with her clay and taking care of the land that she purchased. Crazy Lil came with the ranch like a stray cat. She grew up on the ranch, lost it when her parents died, and went to work for the person who bought it. When they sold to Shandra, Crazy Lil didn’t move on and became Shandra’s right-hand woman. She’s a bit on the cantankerous side and is leery of Ryan, the detective who takes a shine to Shandra.

Then I added friends. A woman who owns an art gallery in Huckleberry. Naomi is married and she and her husband, Ted, sell Shandra’s vases and know a good deal about her. Ruthie is a Black woman who owns a diner in Huckleberry. She and Shandra bonded over Shandra’s love of cheeseburgers and caramel shakes. Her other good friend is Miranda Aducci, whose family owns the Italian Restaurant in Huckleberry. There are several other unique characters like the albino doctor who is trying to find a cure for the disease that killed all the males in his family in their 50s, and Maxwell Treat whose family owns the local mortuary.

When Shandra is considered a suspect for the death of a gallery owner in the first book, she butts heads with Ryan Greer, the detective for the county. This brings in a man who was a cop in a large city and came back to where he grew up because his large Irish family all live in and around the county. His cultural beliefs about little people help him to come to terms with Shandra’s dreams with her deceased grandmother before she realizes that they are helpful.  

Detective Ryan Greer came to me as I was building the beginning scene in my head. I made him Irish and gave him a good Irish name. His mother is Irish and taught her family all about her homeland. His siblings all have Irish names.

My vision of Shandra

Shandra’s name just came to me as I was putting together what she looked like to me. Of course, I wanted a last name that sounded Native American. Sheba’s name came from a big black fluffy dog my daughter had while growing up. Crazy Lil, was just something I typed the first time I brought her into the book. That’s the way all the secondary characters’ names come to me in each book.

As I type a scene and add a new character, I have in my mind what they look like and I add a name that seems to suit them, or the purpose they have for the story. That sounds kind of vague but that’s the way my mind works.

I always have the main character, the victim, and the suspects fleshed out when I start a book, but the secondary characters that are new to the series pop up as they enter my head.

I’m sure readers are interested in how I came up with my Gabriel Hawke and Dela Alvaro characters in their series. I’ll tell you about them in next month’s post.

I wanted to give you the info about my new Cuddle Farm Mystery Series. There will be a blog tour for the first book, Merry Merry Merry Murder, from October 10th-23rd. there will be character posts and posts about how I came up with the series on multiple different blogs if you want to hear about the book from Cocoa, the border collie, Cupcake, the pygmy goat, Lulu, the chiweenie, and Betty, a secondary character who is one of the main character’s best friends.

 You can purchase Merry Merry Merry Murder ebook from the usual vendors or you can purchase the ebook from my website.

“Where comfort and cheer meet scandalous secrets—A holiday mystery set in a small town.”

In the close-knit town of Auburn, Oregon, Andi Clark’s therapy animals bring comfort to the community, especially during the holiday season. When a young girl seeks solace from Athena, Andi’s therapy dog, after witnessing an unsettling scene behind the sleigh, it marks the beginning of a much darker holiday.

As the town gathers for the Tree Lighting Ceremony, a scream shatters the festive atmosphere. Cocoa, Andi’s loyal Border Collie, pulls her toward a chilling sight: a woman standing over the lifeless body of the girl’s mother, strangled with Christmas lights.

Determined to help the grieving girl and her town recover from the shock, Andi, her therapy animals, and her niece, a county deputy, take it upon themselves to investigate. As they uncover secrets and untangle clues, they stay one step ahead of the new sheriff and worry that the killer lurking in their midst could be someone they know.

Purchase now from my website: https://www.patyjager.net/product/merry-merry-merry-murder-ebook/

Purchase from a universal buy link: https://books2read.com/u/mZ6qpJ

I See Characters

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

Every writer puts a bit of the people around them into their characters. We can’t help it. A friend has a quirk that we like and we give it to a character. A relative has a situation that would make for a great subplot, we use it. Even though we are writing fiction, bringing in the bits of real life that we see brings those fictional characters to life.

Last month while working at a NIWA (Northwest Independent Writers Association) booth selling my book and those of other authors in the organization, some unusual characters came by and talked to us. One of my strengths is being a good listener. Only there does come a point with some people when even I started getting antsy and wish the person would move on. Either physically or with their topic.

One person who has stopped by our booth the last two years that I’ve been there is a man who likes to discuss how the government is listening into everything that is going on and how he believes the aliens will soon return to save the planet. He gets very adamant about why he lives off-grid and how we are all being tracked. I’m thinking someone with his perspective on life will show up in one of my books.

Another young man, well, young to me, I believe he might have been late twenties or early thirties. He had a British accent, wore his hair in a shoulder-length bob, and had on a typical t-shirt a male his age would wear and then he had on a skirt that was tight enough across his hips that you could tell he was male if his voice hadn’t given him away. He had a dog on a leash. As he talked to us, he constantly pushed the hair away from his face, adjusted his glasses, and kept his dog from wrapping the leash around his legs. He was quiet, talked a little about the books and how he’d thought about writing, but he didn’t have a clear vision of what he wanted to write.

The third person who captured my attention and sent a chill up my back was a woman. She walked up to the booth dressed in a long flowy skirt, matching sweater, and a silk scarf around her neck. She looked like the wife of a businessman or a professional herself. Her smile was wide, her eyes lit up with the smile and she said, “Hello. I’m here to spread love. Elon Musk and I are building a world filled with love. Come join us and together we can make the world a better place.” I smiled and said, “That’s nice. The world could use more love.” She asked about a couple of the books, then reiterated that she and Elon needed help to spread the love. I nodded and smiled and then- the creepy part. Her eyelids started fluttering, her eyes kind of rolled up, and her smile disappeared. When she stared at me anger simmered in her eyes and she said, “I know where the bodies are buried. I do. I know where the bodies are buried.” I had no words for that response from her. Then as quickly as she’d changed, the smile was back and she said, “I have more love to spread, ” and walked away.

I was speechless for a few minutes. The other member of NIWA who was in the booth with me had been on the phone while I was talking to the woman. I sat down, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and wrote down everything she said and how she looked.

And that woman is a secondary character in my September release, Down and Dirty, book 6 in the Spotted Pony Casino mystery series.

It is encounters like this that give writers the fodder for their stories.

Digging into a Character by Paty Jager

~ patyjag ~ 8 Comments

Wenaha
View from my ride-along

I’m currently working on a the first book of a new mystery series. This new series is making me grow as a writer which is what I hope each book does, but this series and character in particular is really making me stretch my brain which isn’t getting any younger.

I picked not only a male protagonist but I made him Native American ( one of my signatures of what I write) and I put him in a profession I know nothing about. Whew! Talk about working in a totally new environment!

Through the years writing romance before I got the nerve to try my hand at mystery, I wrote from both the male an female points of view and in my Shandra Higheagle series I write from a male point of view with Detective Ryan Greer. But this book is told completely from the male point of view- from Fish and Wildlife State Trooper Gabriel Hawke’s point of view.

Not only do I have to think like a male, I have to think a bit Native American and as a lawman would. Having been around my son-in-law who is a detective with the State Police, I’ve learned that even when they appear to be off duty and hanging around, they are still seeing things and picking up on things that the rest of us shrug off.

Trying to keep my character “on the alert” yet laid back and letting things happen as they should has been a tricky balance. Using his upbringing and his drive as counterpoints has also been tricky.  He has worked hard to get out of the reservation and to have the job he does-protecting his ancestors land. But at the same time because he is protecting his ancestors land he has a deep connection to his Native American roots. While he is full blood Native American he still feels as if his feet are in two worlds. He is upholding the Whiteman’s law as a lawman, but at the same time keeping vigilance over his Native roots.

This first book is taking me longer to write than I thought it would but I had to put it on hold while I did a ride-along with a Fish and Wildlife State Trooper in the Eagle Cap Wilderness where my character works.  The day I spent with the game warden was eye opening in the scope of duties they must preform. Because it is a large remote area, not only do they have to do their game duties but they also serve as a state trooper and while they are on the trail of a poacher or trespasser and there is a call that comes in about a shooting or domestic dispute they have to respond even if it is across the county from where they are at the moment.

20180326_111247
Elk refuge where we were looking for trespassers

The best part about the ride-along was getting the troopers perspective on his job and learning some of the little nuances that I can add to books to give the character the flavor of a real life person.

When the first Gabriel Hawke book is ready to go to my critique partners and beta readers it will be interesting to see if I managed to get the male character correct.

The first thing that pulls me into a book is the characters. What about you?

SH Mug Art

Small Change, Big Change

~ Amber Foxx ~ 8 Comments

When I started improvising my current work in progress, I had a seed for a plot in mind, but it changed directions because of one small thing. My first-round chapter-by-chapter critique partner told me that the name I was using for a character’s business, Minerva Press, is a real publishing house. No big deal, I thought. It would be simple to change it. She would name her small press after a lesser-known goddess. Having already established that this character was part Finnish, I picked Loviatar, a Finnish goddess, from the pantheon of my search results, though I had no idea why anyone would name a business after her. She’s a dark goddess, the blind daughter of death, the bringer of scourges into the world.

Rather than reject this goddess, I kept reading about her. Something told me to stick with her.

One article mentioned that that Loviatar is popular with black metal musicians. What, I wondered, is black metal? At the time, I didn’t know the difference between black metal, heavy metal, death metal, thrash metal, melodic death metal and Viking metal, or that most of these genres even existed. The next thing I knew, I was watching such bands on YouTube and digging into Nordic black metal and the world view of that culture, finding some unexpected connections with (not kidding) the Romantic Movement and Shelley’s views on Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost. My character is a poet, and faculty advisor to a poetry club. With the name of her small press, her backstory changed. Her situation of danger changed. The motives of her enemies changed. The only thing that didn’t change is my taste in music; I didn’t become a fan of black metal when she did.

I may have a title for the story that’s evolving: Dark Goddess.

Strangely, many of the plot elements fit better into the new version of the story than the old one. Clues that I’d planted, puzzling myself, fell into place. If I’d finished the first draft before sharing chapters, it would be a different story. Maybe I still would have liked it, but it would have been lighter, less complicated, and more predictable. And I don’t ever want to be predictable. Even to myself!

 

Books, Book Clubs, and Surprises

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 6 Comments

by Janis Patterson

We all know that a writer’s work is far from glamorous. We work weird hours, usually in pajamas or sweats or grotty jeans. Deadlines make us crazy, ill-behaving characters even crazier. Sometimes people just don’t understand that the people in our heads can be more real than those live people beside us. However, sometimes something lovely and sparkly and so incredibly ego-boosting happens and we feel as pampered and admired as movie stars.

Earlier this week a friend welcomed me to speak at her book club about my Egyptian murder mystery A KILLING AT EL KAB. We had arranged the date several weeks before, and each member bought the book to read by the meeting time. The ladies bought snacks based on some of the meals described in the book. I figured since they were so invested in the story, I’d go above and beyond and bring in a little theatre. (Yes, I’m a long-time and admitted ham…)

I wore the beautiful silvery-blue galabeyah I had tailored in Egypt and several pieces of Egyptian jewelry, including my incredibly ornate Berber silver necklace. I took two other titles (THE EGYPTIAN FILE and THE JERUSALEM CONNECTION) to give away as door prizes. I took my big 17” laptop (the same one I hauled all over Egypt last year) to show a small collection of 50 or so pictures out of the 2,500 or so.

It was a most pleasurable evening! The ladies wanted to know about how the book came to be, and were suitably impressed that The Husband and I had been invited to stay at a dig house – which NEVER happens to civilians. They were overawed that our host, the Director of the Belgian Archaeological Mission to El Kab worked his way through three dense layers of Egyptian bureaucracy to get us official permission to come. Remember, the Egyptians invented bureaucracy – that’s why they had all those statues of scribes!

Several of the ladies were interested in the process of writing a book, as if there were any kind of single answer to that! I told them how I wrote – which in the best of times is a skimble-skamble kind of affair – all the while telling them every writer had their own way. I wish I were more organized; I wish I were more disciplined; however – if I haven’t become either by this time it’s probably not going to happen, so I just go on the best way I can. Then one of the ladies asked how I created my characters; specifically, why had I chosen to make Sandra, the protagonist, a fake psychic.

Okay, there comes a time when everyone must reveal their dirty little secrets. I told the ladies about several ways writers created characters – interviews, lists, etc. – and then confessed mine. As expected, they were startled as I told them I didn’t create characters. Oh, I had tried – I had made lists, decided what my characters’ grandmother’s maiden name was, what flavor of jell-o they liked, etc, until I had a nice long description of what the character was. A description that was never used, because the character became a dead thing, a creation without life that simply lay there flaccidly on the page.

What I do, I said, is nothing. My characters simply march in, demand to be written about, and let me get to know them as we go along. Once I had two characters – a major one and a minor one – who fought viciously through the whole book. In the last third, the major character was talking to another major character, and just happened to drop the little bit of news that he and the minor character were divorced.

Well, that startled me, right along with the entire rest of the book’s cast. And the ladies. Some of them – mostly the ones who were ex-schoolteachers – were appalled. I shrugged, said that was the way I was built, and that if the writer wasn’t surprised, the readers wouldn’t be surprised.

The ladies were certainly surprised, but I guess they’ll get over it. Maybe they already have – they’ve asked me to come back next year!