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CAPTURING CHARACTERS
Voices. Do you hear voices when you write? Do you eavesdrop on imaginary conversations or receive orders from a person you thought you created? Do your characters exist on a mystical plane, allowing you glimpses of their world? Do they wait patiently for you to capture their lives on paper or do they clamor for your attention?
Do authors exist merely for them? Who is really in control?
No wonder ordinary human beings refer to authors as "crazy writers". Do you question your own sanity when part way through a story your character refuses to obey your commands? Can fictional characters alter a well-planned plot? Do you listen to your characters?
Imagine my dilemma writing WEB OF LOVE when Aloa insisted a man tried to drown her. Who? Where? Why? I admit it made a great mid-book complication.
In DISAPPEARANCE OF EMILY, my detective discovers Emily held hostage in an attic, instead of murdered in the woods as I had originally intended. It added a new layer to the mystery. The novel, SUMMER OF FIRE , evolved from only a title, but then the characters took over. Kalina announced herself as the heroine and introduced her legless brother Steven. Randy, the hero, appeared and claimed it was his fault that Steven had lost both his legs in battle. Suddenly, Kalina was fighting to save her business while dealing with two war-scarred vets against a background of flaming forests. Without determined characters who shared their story, that novel could have remained merely a title.
Collaboration with my frequent co-writer, Ann Miller House from West Texas, proves no protection from demanding characters. In COMANCHE MOON, old Will kept popping up in my scenes and Ann kept taking him out. So he transferred his attention to her, evenually carving out a role in the gun-smuggling and forcing Ann to create a spellbinding scene where Will recounts the Comanche Moon legend to Destiny. In another novel, we planned a chase scene through the underground tunnels in Houston. Instead our hero and heroine insisted on a shoot-out at sea. The tales go on and on, as I'm sure yours do.
Writers depend upon our characters to fire our imagination. It can happen in every novel and every short story. Sometimes, characters are content to let us write along, occasionally interrupting to set us straight. Sometimes they pester us. Always they guide our storytelling.
Authors expect characters to spark to life, to carry on conversations as if they were real and to display independent actions or startling responses. You needn't be alarmed when your characters come alive. Worry when they don't.
AUTHORS
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