This month the question was posed: "How do you create your characters--their quirks, habits, values, and what part they will play in your story? Do you have a process, or do they come to you instinctively?
I know it sounds bizarre, and a bit like a psychological issue, but the characters just start talking in my head. Often they yell at me, trying to get my attention. Other times they just rattle on and on, telling me about their lives and what happens to them. Then when I sit down to write their lives into a book, they tell me enough to make them seem like real people--to me, and hopefully to readers as well. Other times they come to me in dreams. My head is often a crowded place! So I guess I create them instinctively.
Stand-alones
I have 2 books that are not in a series. Each of them was written after the heroine appeared in my dreams.
I know it sounds bizarre, and a bit like a psychological issue, but the characters just start talking in my head. Often they yell at me, trying to get my attention. Other times they just rattle on and on, telling me about their lives and what happens to them. Then when I sit down to write their lives into a book, they tell me enough to make them seem like real people--to me, and hopefully to readers as well. Other times they come to me in dreams. My head is often a crowded place! So I guess I create them instinctively.
Stand-alones
I have 2 books that are not in a series. Each of them was written after the heroine appeared in my dreams.
I dreamed about Melanie's meeting with Marcus in a bar. When I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time in a local bar that was just blocks from my apartment. I watched her choking, and him saving her life with the Heimlich maneuver. I also dreamed of her going to the bar every night, hoping to meet him again, to really thank him for saving her life.
I based a lot of her on the much-younger version of me. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed my college experience! And if you read this book, notice what she says she's trying to get her college to let her get a minor in--that was MY line back then! LOL.
I based a lot of her on the much-younger version of me. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed my college experience! And if you read this book, notice what she says she's trying to get her college to let her get a minor in--that was MY line back then! LOL.
Creating the heroine in The Right Choice was a totally different experience. I suppose there it a little of me in every character I write. But Pamela is totally unlike me, since I don't let anyone else tell me how to live, or what choices I should make. But then I didn't grow up in her family.
In my dream, I watched her running away from her groom because he answered his phone WHILE she was walking down the aisle! She wants to really matter to someone, so they'll concentrate only on her. The boy she met in high school, her first boyfriend, loved her that way. She kept up her relationship with him all through college, sneaking home to visit him, without telling her parents she was in town. But they want her to marry a lawyer--like her dad--not a car mechanic. Once I knew she was anxious to please her social-climbing mom and her successful dad, I had to really delve into her character by listening to her telling me about her life, in order to understand her enough to write her story.
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I think all authors are people-watchers. We observe and listen, then without realizing it, we store all of those details in our heads. Recently someone told me they had read that when we dream, the faces we see are ones we've already seen somehow, in real life. Some are people we know, some are random strangers we've passed on the street. Some are famous people we've seen in media. But we don't ever make-up a face--we only remember it.
I think that's similar to my process is for creating whole people who appear to be real enough for you to meet them on the street. Even my vampires and my werewolves are realistic--they just have another component to them that most don't. Some people have diseases, like diabetes, or severe allergies, which prescribe what they eat. Just extrapolate a bit, and you have a vampire who survives on blood. Other's have secrets they don't share with strangers. Only when you get to know them, do you discover that, say, they have disfiguring scars on their bodies, usually hidden by clothing--or they can turn into an animal at will. LOL.
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By the way, all 4 of my books at eXtasy are still on sale for 40% off, so for only $3.00 each! So if you want to read my stand-alones, or my two werewolf sagas (both are over 300 pages! A steal for less than 10¢ per page!), then head over to my author page there, and read the blurbs, and the reviews. Then you can decide for yourself if the people I created out of thin air, are realistic. I fall in love with all of my heroes while I write their stories--I hope you will also!
www.extasybooks.com/fiona-mcgier
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Since this is a blog hop, check out what the other authors have to say!
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2022/08/27/hatching-people/
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Robin Courtright http://rhobincourtright.com
In my dream, I watched her running away from her groom because he answered his phone WHILE she was walking down the aisle! She wants to really matter to someone, so they'll concentrate only on her. The boy she met in high school, her first boyfriend, loved her that way. She kept up her relationship with him all through college, sneaking home to visit him, without telling her parents she was in town. But they want her to marry a lawyer--like her dad--not a car mechanic. Once I knew she was anxious to please her social-climbing mom and her successful dad, I had to really delve into her character by listening to her telling me about her life, in order to understand her enough to write her story.
**************
I think all authors are people-watchers. We observe and listen, then without realizing it, we store all of those details in our heads. Recently someone told me they had read that when we dream, the faces we see are ones we've already seen somehow, in real life. Some are people we know, some are random strangers we've passed on the street. Some are famous people we've seen in media. But we don't ever make-up a face--we only remember it.
I think that's similar to my process is for creating whole people who appear to be real enough for you to meet them on the street. Even my vampires and my werewolves are realistic--they just have another component to them that most don't. Some people have diseases, like diabetes, or severe allergies, which prescribe what they eat. Just extrapolate a bit, and you have a vampire who survives on blood. Other's have secrets they don't share with strangers. Only when you get to know them, do you discover that, say, they have disfiguring scars on their bodies, usually hidden by clothing--or they can turn into an animal at will. LOL.
**************
By the way, all 4 of my books at eXtasy are still on sale for 40% off, so for only $3.00 each! So if you want to read my stand-alones, or my two werewolf sagas (both are over 300 pages! A steal for less than 10¢ per page!), then head over to my author page there, and read the blurbs, and the reviews. Then you can decide for yourself if the people I created out of thin air, are realistic. I fall in love with all of my heroes while I write their stories--I hope you will also!
www.extasybooks.com/fiona-mcgier
****************************
Since this is a blog hop, check out what the other authors have to say!
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2022/08/27/hatching-people/
Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Robin Courtright http://rhobincourtright.com
