Without the characters

When discussing characters, I thought I'd start with a couple of my story ideas that didn't work. Oh they sounded real good, at least to me, but went nowhere although I am not convinced they never will.

My favorite is a reincarnation story that I thought would be challenging and fun to write. I figured it would be a bit of a murder mystery which fits my ‘romances with an edge’ theme.

The story would incorporate three past lives I planned to use which at least one is possibly one of mine. I found in used bookstores the necessary material for the historic periods I would need (this was before internet changing research so much). Where a romance is a bit of a fantasy, a fairy tale, I like mine to be set in a real period and place, although I might use made up names for a town, but it will always be where there are real towns and describe their feel.

I knew how the story would progress. The female protagonist would have nightmares and is looking for a reason for them. She wouldn't be a believer in reincarnation, but her dreams would become more and more vivid as she got deeper into remembering these other lifetimes. And she needs to remember.

Her motive then for going backward from today would have to be a life that wasn't all she wanted and one more thing-- a threat around her where the answer could be found in one of the people in her current life and an ongoing relationship from the past one—so a bit metaphysical, investigative and, of course, there’d be a love as, along with an age-old enemy, there would have to be her soul mate. The story would be told in 'flashbacks' and today. What could go wrong?

What went wrong is I never had her character. I tried different possibilities for who she was but nothing worked and when I'd start to write, it would just be those words strung together with no form. After a couple of tries, I gave it up because if I couldn't find her, there was nothing else I cared about, but who knows I might go back to it someday if she comes to me.

After I had spent time at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, I had another idea for a story that went nowhere of an Anasazi woman and a traveling trader, a Pacific Northwest Native American. Perfect combination of a place I love, the Southwest, and boy have you ever seen some of those Pacific Northwest Native American men from say up in the Queen Charlotte Islands? Perfect for a romance-- a totally yummy hero and quite a problem for two cultures trying to come together, one adventuring and more warlike while the other, where the story takes place, is on the cusp of change. I would have placed it when the Anasazi culture was turning violent itself and falling apart, right before they disappeared from their mesas and left behind a mystery as to why.

What went wrong? Well for one thing I had always written about women with whom I could relate. What did I know about that woman? I could make her be like me but that didn't feel right culturally. The end result was it went nowhere-- although I have the research materials for that also... Maybe someday.

So I can have the plot more or less but if I don't have the characters, it's all for nothing. I have to virtually fall in love with my heroes and feel my heroines are worthy of them with something interesting about them also.

This is just personal preference, but in most of my stories, one of my lead characters will be almost mythic, larger than life, while the other will be grounded and more a stand-in for the reader. It can be the man or the woman for either role. One stands for the fantasy, the dream. The other is possibly the one to whom the average reader relates.

The characters are, to me anyway, most important and without them, the rest is just words. I’ve read a lot of romances, from those years of learning the genre, and some are pathetic for how stereotyped they are, how they manipulate the reader. Call a heroine Fancy and frankly I’m through reading.

A really good story should have characters that are not plastic. Sure there has to be some fantasy to them; but if they are like anybody else, what was the purpose of the book again? Readers of romances want an emotional lift.

Where it comes to characters, there are only so many ‘types’ out there, but what makes them work is what is added to the type. Strong detective type guy but then what else is about him to make him not seem like you've read about him too many times? Schoolmarm? Ho hum-- but a schoolteacher who is an amateur detective, now it’s going somewhere.

From where do mine come? Well they aren't real people. They aren't movie stars. Only once have I written one where I later knew who that character was for real, but I didn't know the person when I wrote it; so can't say if that was coincidence or what.

I think music helps me not only get the energy for heroes/heroines but also plots. For me, it has to be soundtracks with no words. I don't need music to write non-fiction, but when it comes to romances, I want the oomph it can provide. It’s amazing how I find new ways of saying something based on music. Find some really heroic, compassionate, or romantic music and a writer is in business.

Once I had a story that was going nowhere for the hero even with the plot firmly in my mind, then I began to play the soundtrack for Phantom of the Opera (plot nothing like my story) and the emotional passion of that music practically wrote his character and the rest of the story-- the fastest I have ever written 80,000 or so words-- in one month.

Besides the hero and heroine there are sidekicks (several of whom I ended up liking so much that they got their own romance eventually); and of course, a lot of fun to write are the villains. Some of mine have been definite psychopaths; but even then I want them to have believable motivation—crazy as the motives might seem to anybody who wasn’t pathological.

I absolutely love writing interesting villains and the dialogue between them and the main characters; but they aren't the heart of the stories. They are, however, what I think gives the plot the edge, the zing. I can't spend that long with unsavory people, certainly not as much as it'd take to write a story just about them. My inability do that probably limits me as a writer, but it's simply not how I can live my real life. And writing should improve daily life or it's not a good thing to do.

Characters, who can come from anywhere, really are where it all starts and if a writer can create characters who are exciting, interesting, complex, and can grow through their experiences, I think it's the heart of the story. Without them, along with some great villains and secondary characters, it goes nowhere even with what seems like a good plot at least not for me.