Stray Cats and Nine
Lives author Geoffery Mehl interviews one of his characters today.
E. B. Davis
Geoff: Hello and welcome to an illustration of how
casual sketches can help develop characters and practice character voice. Today
we’re at a local supermarket, interviewing one of our favorite characters, Lucy
Tramanian—
Lucy: Hi, everybody! Wait a sec. So here’s the thing. Just once it
would be really cool if I interviewed you
instead.
Geoff: But you’re the character, and I’m your writer.
Lucy: Ah, so, like being at your beck and call, day in and day, out
makes me somehow unqualified?
Geoff: Not at all. It makes you special. Nobody cares about the
writer. It’s always about characters.
Lucy: Hm. You’ve got that right. Without us, you’d be staring at a
blank screen, sucking coffee, clicking on web pages, checking your sales for
about the tenth time of the day. I know
this, because I’m really, really good at hacking, and I’ve been all over your
hard drive. But still, c’mon, I’ve never had the chance to interview.
Geoff: Okay, go for it.
Lucy: How much space have we got?
Geoff: Couple of pages, a few hundred words.
Lucy: You’re kidding. Sheesh, they must really be on a tight budget. I
can fix that with their hosting service, you know. Just a few clicks of the
mouse…
Geoff: Don’t cause trouble today. Just play the game.
Lucy: Yeah, yeah. Okay. First, how come we always do this stuff in the
produce department of a supermarket?
Geoff: Because the idea is that when you’re designing a character, you
take them out for test drives in innocuous places like, say, shopping for
rutabagas. You converse about trivial stuff, you get acquainted with voice.
Lucy: I am so tired of the
rutabaga example you use all the time. The entire cast thinks doughnuts and
coffee would be better. Even the editors downstairs agree. I mean, like,
there’s not even a rutabaga here. Just a bunch of onions. None of us even like
onions. Tommy uses them in omelets sometimes, but I know for a fact that Mandy
just tolerates it and Charlie and Sergei could care less.
Geoff: So is this some sort of a grievance thing or are you
interviewing?
Lucy: Coffee, black, and a doughnut. With pink
frosting and sprinkles. Or I cut you loose, and all the
readers are gonna
snicker.
Geoff: Can I sigh?
Lucy: Only in third person and then probably in italics. Let’s get
some doughnuts, and I promise not to screw up the next scene. Questions—okay,
so when did you start doing this stuff?
Geoff: Right after a really good talk by Anne Perry. She’s –
Lucy: I know, and she’s also a much better writer than you. God, I
would just kill to be one of her characters. Well, fictionally, of course.
Geoff: You’d probably have to. With me, you get to do that
three-hundred-word-a-minute typing of code while the gibberish just flows
across the screen.
Lucy: That is such a lame cliché! Next time, I want to use the delete
and backspace key as much you do. So,
I’ve got to know. How’d you come up with me in the first place? A brilliant flash of revelation? Months and
months of careful planning? Based on someone you love and adore?
Geoff: Actually I was stuck on a plot point, knowing one minor
character, who was so-so at low-level hacking, could not possibly have set up
the theft of that Gulfstream jet.
Lucy: That was sweet, wasn’t
it? I’m thinking about dusting off my old Nyx character for the next in the
series, the one you dreamed up in that casino scene with Lester Finn.
Geoff: Nyx, the goddess of night. Not bad for a walk-on part that
turned into a major character.
Lucy: Yep, that’s true. And I got to point a gun at Tommy in the
pouring rain. I mean, how cool was that? He laughs about it now. How we doing
on space?
Geoff: Nearly done. We’ve got to leave room for a bio. So there’s just
about enough room to say —
Lucy: It’s been very cool, rush right over Amazon to buy the guy’s
books, Stray Cats and Nine Lives, which you can get for three
bucks each. Like, how cheap do you want it? Plus, make a point of stopping by
to our little blog, Vapor Trail, over
at geoffmehl.com. Which, I heard, you’ve turned into a free
magazine, stuffed with all the stories we tell.
Geoff: I have. An e-zine, all the better stuff from the website, just
for signing on the mailing list.
Lucy: Do we get a salary bonus for that? I mean, these are great doughnuts and the
coffee’s not bad for the sort of stuff you find guesting at a blog. But honest,
money is handy in our business.
Geoff: Say goodbye, Luce.
Lucy: Bye-bye! I’d wave, but you can’t do that in first-person
interviews. Thanks for reading us!
Director: And... we’re clear. That’s a wrap. Thank you, everyone.
Lucy: You wouldn’t happen to know which way to the green room for Live
with Kelly, would you? She does much better interviews.
Geoff: Go out the door, turn right. It’s just down the hall.
Lucy: Thanks. Catch ya later, boss.
Lucy Tramanian, age 29, aka Nyx, is
one of the most feared white hat hackers in the world and also manages the
financial empire of Tommy Kane and Mandy Owens. Where she went to school and
details about her youth are unknown. Until recently, she resided on an island
owned by Mandy in the Bahamas and has control of a private bank in Grand
Cayman. Her current whereabouts are a secret. Geoffrey Mehl (older) is her
writer, a former journalist and marketing executive who lives in northeastern
Pennsylvania.