Saturday, May 27, 2017

Why you are not in my book.

Writing characters can be tricky. What do they look like? What is their backstory? What is their function in this story? How would they react to rejection? Danger? Challenge?

I have written characters that remind me of people I knew almost thirty years ago (I met many interesting people when I was in college). I have written characters that remind me of people I've known more recently. But when I say "remind me of", this means "their appearance reminds me of this person" or "their voice reminds me of this person" or their personality or maybe even just one cherished belief of theirs reminds me of that person. My characters develop as a combination of looking like someone I know (because I have trouble constructing a visual appearance in my head), sounding like another person (because that's how I hear that character in my mind), the interests/vocation of yet another person (because that's an interesting hobby), the emotional intelligence of yet another person ...

This is why you're not in your book. Someone with a characteristic or two of yours may be in the book. But the character is not you, reacts differently than you, makes different choices than you.

So when I write the standard writer's disclaimer -- the "Any resemblance to people living or dead is truly unintentional" that's what it means.

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Also, tomorrow I'm going to the wilds of Wisconsin for a couple days to see my dad and eat in Mad City (Momos! I get to have Momos!). I might manage to get online then; I might not. I'm hoping to write, however; but you're not one of my characters.

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