Chasing Characters

 

From 2007, this is a photo that Ranch Boss took, illustrating the inspirations I draw around when writing. In this case-- art (3 prints, 1 original oil), an old saddle, music, rocking chair, and out the window toward the creek. Music needs to be soundtracks with no lyrics to produce energy and not distractions.

Now, comes the next stage for a creative path where it comes to writing fiction, which could lead to short stories, articles, even YouTube fiction, or go onto a novelette, novella or full length novel. When looking for distractions to someone's personal life, where life is less than what they want, fiction writing/reading can be one way. 

Where it comes to creating, I have tried many paths, the ones where I spent the most time were painting, sculpture, and writing-- the latter where I think I've learned the most as I've done it over the most years-- from a kid to at this time of my life. 

My books are not bestsellers; so if that is your goal, maybe look elsewhere. If it is to find yourself carried away from your daily grind and find a creative work that inspires you, read on. I don't have a formula but rather a way of life, a rewarding part of my experiences. My hope is to inspire readers to find that also. For me, it has been writing adventure romances, both historical and contemporary.

People sometimes ask writers if they use real people in their stories. It is one of the risks of being a friend to an author. I do use real people but always mixed in with other aspects. It's nice to create characters a combination of fantasy and reality. Having known a variety of 'people types' through my many years, I can draw on a type, without turning it into a 'stereotype'. 

What to me is interesting about types is how in real life (or what we call real), people can be a type but there are more aspects to who they are. I think this works best in writing also. 

An example, I have one secondary character in my Arizona historicals where he made a great juxtaposition to the hot hero (in my romances all the heroes are hot even if they didn't appear to be on the first sighting of them), who teased about him being his mother since he'd never known a real one. That secondary turned out to make a hero for his own book (a novella), later in time, and readers got to see a second side to him that was there all along and they could reread and find it. Uh, yes, he was what can be considered old at almost sixty, but that didn't mean the fire was out. 

image purchased from Canstock to fit that character as I saw him

Humans have roles they often play in life, and hence it is with characters in books. Making characters feel real but still interesting  (let's face it, a lot of us are not that interesting as we go about our lives) is part of what makes time with those people enjoyable to readers and writers-- maybe escapism, which we can all use now and again. 

As a writer. I spend more time with my characters than any reader ever will-- which is why I want them to be interesting, especially when fleshing out the personalities of secondary characters. Make these people feel they could have lived and through them, we get to experience a different life.

As writers, we observe what is around us, which involves the terrain but also the community. I am very much a dreamer, as in a nighttime dreamer. My dreams are full of characters and experiences over which I have no control-- that I know of anyway. I find it amazing, when I wake up, what my brain or the muse has put together for a vivid night full of activity. Many nights, it's like watching a movie until dawn. 

Rarely do I have nightmares. I think that's because I don't watch horror movies or stories where violence is in the offing from the time I have turned on the remote. I know it can be a very successful genre like with Stephen King type writers. I just cannot spend that long with such danger. On the other hand, I love suspense in my stories and a good villain makes for a very interesting writing experience for me and worthy challenge for the protagonists. I guess there is a thin line. ???

Besides accumulating characters for books, there can be a lot of time between the original idea for a story and beginning to write it. I believe while we want it to feel real, we also want it to be an escape from daily reality. There is that thin line again. 

A big part of that working involves having meaningful main protagonists; for a romance, that means love interests, which my books mean hero and heroine (if we can still use those terms). So, next blog will involve those main characters, the ones that keep people reading and make them feel good for the adventure they just went on.

One of our photos in Montana and another example of what I love out here.Those black dots that you see in the distance are cattle. Up close, it's a herd of antelope. Some prey species travel individually and some in herds or flocks.

Characters interesting to write about

It might look as though I got rid of Twitter. With all the controversy and changes going around, it'd be easy to assume that. Well, I still have it with no interest in getting something new. I try to limit how much I have on Social Media. What I did do though is move the Blogger Twitter link  to way down the page. I used to have the ability to share my last Tweet here and I used that as an in-between way to share pictures.Whoever is running it now changed that where someone has to go to Twitter to see my Tweet. If this continues, I will dump the Twitter link here, as I have no interest in being an ad for them. I'm waiting to see if it's permanent...

 

My topic for today was supposed to be about choosing characters for books I write. In this case, since I write romances, it's male and female leads. I have no problem with those who write same sex romances. I just have no personal feel for it. I write what I know something about- well not all the gun fights, etc. But where it comes to relationships.

When I met Ranch Boss, we were in college. I won't go into details, but I felt I loved him that first day. I had a few caveats though-- like he needed to have a sense of humor. Turns out he did, and our sense of humor has gotten us through more than a few bad times. So, I do believe in love at first sight, but it takes something more to make it work through a lot relationship. I look for that in my book characters.

Then I tried to think-- which characters should I share here that anyone else might find of interest.....

Obviously, I have no idea but I will throw a few ideas out there for how I selected the personalities I did for my books. Since there are thirty of these, it's not that easy to narrow them down to a few.

This book is currently not out there, as it, along with the 8 Arizona historicals, is being rewritten and edited with a new title-- although close to the original one. In Echo from the Past, Holly showed up in the book ahead of this one, Rose's Gifts. She was a university friend of Grace's (who was first introduced in The Beckoning Flame). Holly got her degree in anthropology with her desire to be an archaeologist. She's beautiful, smart and dedicated to solving a mystery from her own dreams. She's a strong woman. Well, all of my female characters are strong women-- but none defined as feisty, a term I actually dislike. She has money and goals. None of which were to find a husband. 

The hero of that book is trying to run from his past as a part of an infamous outlaw family. He tried first to change his name (showed up in an earlier historical romance--first titled Arizona Sunset but will be Beyond the Broken Road, when it reappears sooner than later, we hope. He's found a new path to make a living in the wild desert world, still facing sometimes that outlaw family. Handsome, but of course, but also intelligent with a sense of ethics. I pretty much prefer heroes like that for my books. He's an alpha but not a bully.

Neither of those two are looking for a mate. Life is simpler without-- or is it!

I could go on with various characters but those two project a lot of my ideas. Strong people, who face whatever is required-- whether it's part of their goals or not. My heroines generally have career goals, especially the contemporary but even the historicals. I rarely write really young heroines or heroes as I like to delve into people with some life experience.

 

 

Changing Times Also--

 by Rain Trueax

 

Growing up, westerns were my favorite series TV and movies. The good guys used guns and they always won in the end over the bad guys. There was no problem figuring out who was who. As I have mentioned, right now I am watching no TV; but even before, I didn't go to the channels with the old westerns. Maybe someday I will, but right now they don't draw me to them.

There were a lot of television westerns that I loved back in the day. One of them was called Gunsmoke, about the marshal of Dodge City, Kansas and the woman he loved. Oh, I know the woman he loved never came to fruition while in the shows, but it was there in the expressions and the looks Matt and Kitty gave each other. If it had been in a different time, maybe it would have, but in those days the hero either had to marry the heroine or it needed to stay suggested. The emphasis was always on the marshal and his job.

What I came across on YouTube is, how many people had created the love story we all craved to have seen, the one we imagined. There are a lot of these videos. They go back ten years or even more where the music is put to clips from the shows. Here's one--

Behind Closed Doors

Gunsmoke ran from 1955 to 1975, following an earlier radio show. In the last year, Kitty had left the show. Maybe the star got tired of never getting her marshal.  

This question is whether the heroine and hero never connecting (many in those days) led many western writers to want to create romances where happily ever after was required. If I had begun publishing my own books back in the 50s, would it have influenced not allowing a marshal to have as a lover, a saloon owner (or bordello madam). Could they kiss? Not a chance. 

My first books were written in the 60s but I didn't have the sex in them either-- the rough drafts that is, as in those years I wrote but didn't publish. By the mid 1970s, the word for romance novels changed and steamy was part of the plots. Personally, I think it was good for women to read such books where healthy sexuality was a part of a serious romance (well, some weren't probably so healthy back then). 

My first historical western where the hero was a marshal was Book 2 in the Arizona series. The marshal had been in book 1 as had the future heroine. How to make their story challenging led to a lot of research as to what being a US Marshal meant back in those days. Many towns, like Tucson, had a marshal and a sheriff. The marshal's job was more federally political while the sheriff was run more by local partisan politics. But, both were political.

The Marshal's Lady (original titled Tucson Moon) dealt with a man and woman with very opposite ideas on guns for instance. He used one as part of his responsibilities. She despised them. What really brought them together, to work past this, was the arrival of his estranged nine year-old daughter when he had no idea how to be a father. The heroine stepped in with her sympathy for the girl and from there romance grew.

Unlike Gunsmoke, I had no compunction against bringing these two together sexually, but it had to make sense that it could happen and it had to take into account the nature of the times politically and culturally. Because it was set in Southern Arizona, I enjoyed writing it as it moved outside of Tucson and involved characters from my first Arizona book.

If you are interested in such a story, politics was very much part of it, as it  is of our world today, it's at Amazon and other eBook sites. 

One other thing: I got a notice from Blogger that they will no longer be notifying those, who signed up for RSS, as of July 21st this year. I don't know how most of you find your blogs but if you counted on an email or phone announcement, you might want to reconsider and do what I do (I never signed up for this service). When I have blogs I want to read I bookmark them and check when I know a new one is likely. In the case of Rainy Day Thought, that would be Wednesdays for Diane as she weaves her way through widowhood and her career as a painter and Saturdays when I write about whatever has struck my mind that week. Always new entries on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

 

Oh, and don't forget The Marshal's Lady for a taste of what life was like back in the 1880s and a book where a happily ever after is going to happen-- even after many struggles (of course). Although the link is just for Amazon, the book is at Barnes and Noble, Apple, Kobo, etc.

The Marshal's Lady