Free will characters

We got such good reader response from her first guest blog that I asked Gayle Carline to give us another, which she has graciously done. Her most recent book is The Hot Mess. You can view the trailer here.

~ Jim

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When I started writing stories, I had this idea that, much like God, I would create characters I could manipulate in whatever situation I invented. Imagine my surprise when they resisted. The hardest part of learning to write fiction was to understand that my characters would not always obey me.

Perhaps I should have remembered the story of Adam and Eve and free will.

Not surprisingly, when I talk to non-writers about one of my “make-believe” people giving me grief over a scene, they smile nervously and back out of the room. Who can blame them?

For the record, just because I treat my characters as if they are real does not mean that I’m crazy. Looney as a toon, maybe, but not crazy.

I thought I’d give you all a little exercise to show you how characters are born in a writer’s imagination and how they shape the story, as opposed to the story shaping them. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Ready?

Think of someone you know. It could be a family member or a really close friend. Write down five of their personality traits. Maybe they’re fun-loving or sincere or even tend to be negative. Write down five things they like to do, like listen to music or swim or read. Now, write five things you can’t imagine them ever doing. What, they’d never run off to Vegas with an exotic dancer?

This is the way an author’s mind works. When I write about a character, I’ve already established their likes and dislikes, and their moral boundaries. If it’s a minor character, I do this with a few notes. Major characters, however, get a lot of attention. One of my favorite things to do is to write a journal as them. I write about their histories, their hopes and dreams, and establish their voices.

Usually none of their journals makes it into the story line, but now I know what they will and will not do, and I know how they talk, which makes it easier to write their dialogue.

My protagonist in the Peri Minneopa Mysteries is a 50-year-old woman who has retired from the housecleaning business and gotten her private investigator’s license. She is a smart cookie who is not a thrill seeker, however she is stubborn. This is the quality I utilize when I want her to go where she doesn’t belong.

A perfect example of her rebellion against my writing is a scene from Hit or Missus. Peri is following a wealthy, possibly cheating wife, and needs to go into a posh country club to get information. A subplot of this story is that Peri is having some self-esteem issues due to getting older, so as she walks toward the entrance, she looks at her reflection and sees that she is wrinkled and frumpy and perhaps inappropriate for the country club set.

I wrote and rewrote this scene several times, because I kept making her turn around and get back in her car and it wasn’t working. Finally, I realized my mistake. Peri’s stubborn streak would make her dig in her heels, lift her chin, and march forward into that club.

Which is what she did, promising herself to go shopping later.

Writers, what tools do you use to bring your characters to life? And Readers, do you mind if we’re a little nuts?

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Gayle Carline was a software engineer for over 20 years until she chewed her way out of the cubicle and became a freelance writer. She quickly became a regular contributor to California Riding Magazine and has been writing a weekly humor column for the Placentia News-Times since 2005.

These days, Gayle’s time is divided between writing mysteries and humor. Her Peri Minneopa Mystery series stars a housecleaner-turned-detective who solves crimes in southern California. She has also released two collections of her column readers' favorite essays. But what she really wants to do is direct…