WHAT DRIVES YOUR CHARACTERS?

 By Korina Moss

What drives your fictional characters? No, I’m talking literally. What kind of cars do they drive? It’s a simple enough question, but for most writers, there’s nothing standard or automatic about it. The kind of car a person chooses can say quite a bit about them. 

The protagonist of my Cheese Shop Mystery series, Willa Bauer, drives a used second-generation CR-V (a car that came out between 2002-2006). It’s practical, reliable, and not fussy—all qualities that Willa possesses and likes in others. She bought it used years ago, which shows her practicality and her focus on saving her money to open a cheese shop. It’s also quite old, so she probably ought to think about getting a replacement, but she’s going to drive it until the wheels fall off (figuratively, of course). This shows that her life balance may be a little off-kilter sometimes, and that she’s a risk taker who perhaps ought to be more careful. 

All this characterization in just the mention of a car? Not by itself—it’s simply one of the building blocks of your character. More than gobs of backstory, corroborating who they are through the choices they make, as well as their actions and reactions, helps to create fully formed characters to whom readers can connect.  

Writers, tell me the type of car one of your characters drives. (Or do they bike or skateboard, like Mrs. Schultz and Archie, two of my secondary characters?) Readers, what do you think the car you drive says about you?  

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COMING OCTOBER 22ND

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley, including the Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead, and the Agatha Award finalist for Best Contemporary Novel, Case of the Bleus. Her books have been featured in USA Today, PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, AARP, and Fresh Fiction. To learn more, visit her website korinamossauthor.com where you can subscribe to her free monthly #teamcheese newsletter. Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Four Ways to Lose a Reader (especially with an increasingly impatient reader like me)

By James M. Jackson

Over the last few months, I have become an increasingly impatient reader. I blame it on COVID-19.

Stress applied over a long time affects each of us differently. For many, it strips away layers of adaptive behaviors and exposes our core values. Generous people often become even more generous; those who view the world as a series of threats become even more fearful. My theory is we seek to find comfort. The generous feel better about themselves by giving of themselves. The fearful feel better by preparing against the possibility of others trying to take away what they have. They stockpile necessities, or purchase weapons, or retreat to a like-minded community. These coping mechanisms leave us more comfortable.

One of my many weaknesses is that I want to control my life. In the best of times, it’s a fool’s mission. During a pandemic, it’s nuts. Early in the novel coronavirus outbreak, I found myself obsessed with the news: where the infection was striking, how countries were coping, how people were coping. I reverted to math geek mode and performed my own projections of what would happen in the US. Based on comparisons to what had already happened in other countries and the measures we were or were not taking, I (rightly as it turns out) concluded the public US estimates of fatalities were way too optimistic. Developing my own story allowed me to feel a bit of control over the uncontrollable—but that is a different story.

We Writers Who Kill create mysteries, suspense, thrillers, and we are readers. I read for two vastly different purposes: to gain information (knowledge, insight) or to escape into another world. During the last months another of my weaknesses has demonstrated it belongs as one of my core values. I have become very impatient.

On the information side, I no longer tolerate those who twist facts to support a view rather than use facts to develop a view. Given we are in election season, there is much that draws my ire. While I could cite chapter and verse of yesterday’s or today’s perversions, what is more interesting to me is how I have reacted when reading to escape this world.

Pre-COVID-19, I would cut authors a fair amount of slack. Provided their characters were reasonably interesting and the story moved forward, I’d stay for the ride. I’ve always been more attracted to stories with action rather than those with luscious prose describing in exuberant detail setting or mood or character reflections. So, it didn’t surprise me that my escapism reading became exclusively action-oriented novels. What did surprise me was how impatient I was with mediocre writing. Hitting any of these four stumbling blocks more than once sent me searching for another book.

1. Lack of defined motivation.

Real people do things for a reason. They might not understand their reasons; they may even intentionally misstate them. But they have them. The same holds true for fictional characters that engage me. Nothing stops my reading faster than a character doing something that seems to make no sense for them. My response is What? Why?

Which can be a great thing in the hands of a skilled author if they make me want to understand the why behind what just happened. That why can even be the question the novel seeks to answer. To satisfy me, I expect something to tell me there is a reason, and that I must keep reading to discover it.

Authors have many tools at their disposal to gain my trust. Foreshadowing might be enough. The character could ask herself the same question: why did I do that? Or soon after, she could reflect on the action with remorse, horror, surprise—letting me know they, too, are confused and need to find the answer (for both of us). Another approach is to use a different character via dialog or point of view to provide insight that the reader does not yet have.

I like surprises, and they’ll keep me reading. But if I sense the character acted as they did because the story “required” it, my finger starts twitching to find a new read. And if this is not the first instance of the author’s needs justifying an action, then I’m gone.

2. Data dump

I have limited interest in long passages where nothing happens. These take two forms. Authors falling in love with their words and insisting on sharing their brilliance with their readers. Or data dumps of information the author thinks are necessary to understand the story.

Backstory is a frequent culprit. We often think of backstory providing a character’s history. In small doses it can be useful, especially to provide motivation! Often the skilled author can find ways to weave the salient information into the present. A little bit goes a long way.

Authors can also bore me to the point of leaving their story with too much location backstory. Do I need to know for a present-day story that the village of Broken Wheel, Indiana was founded because Josiah Everyman’s wagon wheel broke on the thirty-seventh day of his intended journey from Utica, New York to the newly opened territory of Oregon? Maybe, if it impacts the present. However, reading paragraphs about how Josiah decamped, leaving the wagon with its broken wheel in the middle of the trail, began selling off his supplies, realized how lucrative that could be, and instead of farming, started a general store, over the years added a tavern, lost it all in the panic of 1837, and all that is left today of the store is an historical marker that the protagonist’s dog pees on twice a day on its walks, has me scanning for something to happen.

And don’t get me started on beginning every scene with a detailed description of the weather.

3. Poor copyediting

We hate in others what we dislike in ourselves. In my early drafts I overuse certain words, every character nods, or chuckles, or winks—it’s always something new because I avoid my previous issues like the plague—except for using overused phrases, which for me are easier to include than taking candy from a baby. I can start eighteen paragraphs in a row using the same construction, create word echoes that make me think I have a personal vendetta against a thesaurus, and use homonyms like their free presence rapped under a Christmas tree.

I try very hard to correct these errors before publication. So, when I see multiple examples in something I’m reading, I figure if the author doesn’t care to make it right, why should I care to read it? Even when the story is otherwise compelling, copy editing abuses accumulate to the point where I can’t stand it.

4. Inept transitions between scenes

I do much of my reading in the evening before going to sleep. With great books, every scene ends leaving me with questions I want answered. And each scene begins in a way that draws me in. I must force myself to put the story down to sleep (or give up on sleep and finish the book!).

With good books, I continue reading until I become tired. Then I’ll read to the next “white space.” When I have time to read, I’m anxious to pick up where I have left off.

A clue that I’m not fully engaged in a book is if it drops out of my hands because I’ve fallen asleep. Or, I say to myself at the end of a scene– hey, if the character is going to take a nap, I will too! And finally I realize I need a new book.

And finally a question for you

Have your reading habits changed? I’d love to hear how and why in the comments.

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James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. Furthermore, a novella is the most recent addition to the series. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

ON WORDS PROFANE AND NOT PROFANE by Nancy Eady

Profanity – Blasphemous or obscene language

Obscenity - An extremely offensive word or expression

From en.oxforddictionaries.com

            Among the controversies of the day, one issue rarely discussed any more is the use of obscene or profane language in fiction. Writers must decide what type of language their characters use. After all, a kindergarten teacher probably won’t use the same language as an inner-city cop working undercover on a drug case - if either of them spoke like the other, it wouldn’t be believable. The problem writers have is balancing realistic language with our readers' tolerance level. 

            That being said, I do NOT like books, TV shows or movies where profanity is used just to use it. On the other hand, neither will I refuse to read a book because some of the characters use the kind of four letter words my mother never expected to hear from my mouth. And, if I’m going to be completely honest, never have I hit my hand with a hammer or suffered some other painful injury and yelled, “Verily, verily, I hurt.” The day I slammed my hand in the door, not only my immediate neighbors but the ones three and four streets away received a rudimentary education in four letter words. Unfortunately, I slammed the door with my hand inside, and the rest of me outside, so the sound carried quite well.

            Mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, multiple genres, diverse settings, different language. For example, our own Jim Jackson has recently published his latest Seamus McCree novel, False Bottom. As Jim explains in his upcoming interview with Elaine Douts this Wednesday, “I tell gritty stories and many of my characters curse. I won’t change them.” That makes sense as the following quote from his character, the self-styled Happy Reaper, demonstrates:

He kept the radio tuned to news radio WBZ for anything useful related to Jerome Rozelle’s attack on Elisabeth. If he heard one more fucking political message, he’d shoot the jerks as a public service. Once he completed this job, he was vacationing abroad until the election was over. In his biography, Mark Twain had attributed to Prime Minister Disraeli the statement that there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. When today’s politicians spoke, it was a question only of which lie they chose. He supposed that since he didn’t vote, he shouldn’t complain—still, if political ads weren’t cruel and unusual punishment, what was?

James M. Jackson, False Bottom, Kindle Loc. 3521

            Equally, it makes sense in other settings and stories, the characters don’t curse. For example, my novel, Gambits and Games, (still seeking a home, by the way) is set in the small-town South where some men still apologize if they use curse words in front of a woman. (Really, they do; as recently as two weeks ago, I sat in a meeting where some strong language was used, only to have the sentence followed up immediately with an apology to me.)

            For example, my protagonist, Penny, makes the following observations about a politician as she walks into the courtroom:

A pit opened in my stomach when I saw Jim Krey, the state’s Attorney General, sitting at the prosecution table. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t stoop to handle a local prosecution. I wondered if he wanted to use William to punish me, but then dismissed the thought. Jim Krey had made it obvious for years he considered me beneath his and his family’s notice. A stranger observing him at the counsel table would see only a conscientious public servant. I knew better.

However, the unwritten rules of court etiquette in Alabama require opposing counsel to greet one another cordially, so as William sat, Boyd and I walked over to the prosecution table.

            But the fact that my characters in this book don’t use a lot of swear words doesn’t mean that down the road I won’t write another novel or story where characters do.

            The language our characters use gives the readers a clue both to the world the characters inhabit and to their own personality traits. The language the characters use both to speak with and to think with is an artistic choice the writer makes to help accomplish those twin goals.

            What is your tolerance for profanity? Would you refuse to read a book based upon the language used or not used? Have you read a book that is outside of your comfort zone where the language contains more or less swear words than you would normally encounter, and if so, what did you take away from the experience?

What a Character!

I accepted a blog hop invitation from Christine Finlayson (if you missed her discussion of her protagonist Maya Rivers, you can find it here.) It occurred to me after I accepted the invitation that I had already written quite a bit about Seamus McCree. I provided his quick bio on my website, and I published an interview with him in my first newsletter. So, what to say?

When I invented Seamus, I chose his first name for two reasons. Seamus is the Irish equivalent of James, and while I was writing his story he would temporarily be my alter ego. Also, the name is a homonym of the slang word (derived from Yiddish) for a detective (shamus), which I thought would be a little inside joke mystery readers might enjoy. With Seamus as a first name, he should have an Irish background. Since I had spent some time in Boston, that was a logical birthplace for my creation.

Seamus needed a last name. I know what happens when you do an internet search on “Jim Jackson.” I am someplace within the 3.9 million results, but not on page one. I wanted a surname that would allow him a bit more visibility. McCree served the purpose: it’s an uncommon Irish family name, and even rarer when combined with Seamus.

And that, dear readers, is how he earned his name. The Seamus McCree I described in the bio and newsletter is not your typical hero. However, more important than my intentions is how he came across to readers. To discover that, I decided to read Amazon reviews for Bad Policy, the first in the series.

Here are some reader comments:

Seamus McCree is a fascinating protagonist, more complex than the usual thriller tough guy: He's got a no-nonsense attitude and can keep his cool even when the police are questioning him about a homicide, but he also sings in the church choir; he has few illusions about life but knows how to relax with a good meal or a good book; he refuses to keep a gun in his house but doesn't hesitate to use one when he has to. His family connections and painful past add further depth to his character.

Seamus McCree, one of the most well-rounded, likeable heroes to come along in awhile.

Financial investigator Seamus McCree is smart, rich, and in big trouble. He's also a caring dad and son. I usually read cozies with female protagonists, but Jackson's male character is well drawn, caring, and likeable.

I had become [so] very attached to the character and his world that I had this inexplicable urge to call him and have a chat. I don't remember the last time a character seemed so real to me. The only bad news was that when I finished I realized I miss him terribly and can't wait to see him again.

Seamus McCree (don't you love that name?) is from Boston and has Mafia ties, and he has anger issues. But he's a different sort of PI. He isn't independent but works for a security company doing financial analyses; he has a family—son and mother—he really cares about; he doesn't carry a gun, though he knows how to use one. Oh yeah, he's got a nice backup of security in the bank and investments—most fictional PIs live from check to check.

If those comments intrigue you, pick up Bad Policy or Cabin Fever at your favorite bookstore or online venue. Regardless of what you think about Seamus, check out characters by two of my southern writer friends, Polly Iyer and Tina Whittle.

When psychic Diana Racine’s old friend is murdered in New Orleans, her love, Lieutenant Ernie Lucier, brings her in to consult on the case. What she sees when she touches the dead man’s body is another man with silver eyes, a gang tattoo, and a bullet in the middle of his forehead.

Before long, Diana and Lucier are drawn into a web of murders that stretches far into the past. The deeper they get into the investigation, the more it appears the deaths are the work of a group of vigilantes on a moral crusade. Vigilantes wearing the blue of the NOPD who won’t let anything or anyone stand in their way.

Here’s the link to Polly’s blog and if you want more information about her and her books, here's her website: http://PollyIyer.com

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It’s taken almost a year, but Tai Randolph finally has her new life together. She’s running a semi-successful Atlanta gun shop catering to Civil War re-enactors. Her relationship with the sexy if somewhat security-obsessed Trey Seaver is going smoothly. Most importantly, there’s not a single corpse on her horizon.

Then a tornado scatters the skeletal remains of a Confederate hero, and Tai discovers a jumble of bones in the Kennesaw Mountain underbrush. Unfortunately, these are no relics. Tai realizes there’s a murderer on the loose, a clever killer who has tried to conceal the crimes of the present in the stories of the past. As she risks her own life to unravel two mysteries, Tai rediscovers her dangerous taste for murder and mayhem.

Here's the link to Tai's post. Here's the link to To learn more about Tai and Trey and Tina Whittle, visit the website: http://www.tinawhittle.com

Dale Deserves a Good Death

One of the nice things about arranging Salad Bowl Saturday guest blogs is I get to meet and learn about new (to me) authors. Larry Thacker is just such a person and in today's guest blog he talks about his creative process for his current WIP.

~ Jim

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Dale is probably dead. In my novel-in-progress (insert fresh level of hell), Dale has been missing for only a few weeks. In reality, however, he’s been missing and presumed dead for five years. It’s not that Dale doesn’t deserve more attention. He does, and I think of him often. It’s just that it took four and a half years and three major edits to figure out why he’s dead (or probably dead) and how it happened (if it happened). Sound familiar?

The idea and motivation for Black Mountain Light surprised me. I am often a poet first, non-fiction essayist second, and short story writer third. An aspiring novelist is somewhere in betwixt all the competing genre warfare that is my mental distraction of writing. It is this chaotic juggling of projects that both blesses and curses the mind.

Part NaNoWriMo self-dare, part enviro-political rant, part faintly-disguised memoir, the first rush of writing was blissful and carefree and novel. As the story unfolded over endless café marathons (of course), it was clear that someone was going to die. When it ended up being Dale, the main character’s newly met cousin, I was glad to have figured out who it was going to be. It was easy at first to commit those lines and possibly strike a character from existence in the midst of a long, involved story, but I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. More importantly, I didn’t realize what I was getting my characters into.

Having him go missing granted me time for consideration, didn’t it? As you might expect, that was a mistake, hoping that the answers for “how and why” would eventually come to me in my delay. A few did, but in disappointing ways. It was probably this frustration that forced me to push and pull the story from the back burner so often over the last few years.

I’m sorry, Dale, but other projects got in the way. Or, I let them get in the way. Yes, I fully understand that if you’re going to “fully commit” to your side of the deal that you deserve a decent, believable cause for suddenly going missing. Something unique. As little cliché as possible. Some perfect falling of tragic dominos. Something frustrating and conflict-ridden. Properly motivated. All the good stuff. A well-earned shedding of blood. Where I fled in avoidance of your situation was other writing. Things that felt easier. Less like an impossible literary Rubik’s Cube that your situation was becoming.

Luckily, it was in my retreat to other projects that led me to a satisfying plot hinge. The novel was originally birthed from a non-fiction piece I’d written, entitled “Looking for ghosts, finding mountaintop removal.” By the time I was finishing a draft of the novel, my mind was too far removed from my original inspiration. I finally revisited that piece with some edits. The emotion I’d felt six years ago, the energy driving me, was obviously different, rooted in real experiences and frustration of the time. This reexamination helped me better empathize with Dale’s life, which he deserves. The “how and why” became clear to me.

If I can suggest to fellow writers anything useful from this continuing experience, it would be to challenge yourself to juggle a few projects at a time. While wrestling a number of writing projects may feel chaotic, don’t be too quick to dismiss your bouncing around as a form of energetic, but ultimately lazy, avoidance. Epiphany may be waiting in that intimidating mix of writing genres vying for your attention. A line from a poem may scream a novel’s worth of back-story. A novel project might be better served as a handful of short stories. A piece of flash fiction might seed volumes of stories. In my case, a personal non-fiction piece morphed into a novel I simply must complete. Dale deserves better.
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Larry Thacker is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia and the poetry collection, Voice Hunting. He serves as Associate Dean of Students at Lincoln Memorial University.

Like him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mountain-Mysteries-The-Mystic-Traditions-of-Appalachia/232474970119461

Teaser for Black Mountain Light. Alder Henry is pulled between a fatherless post-modern Appalachian life and an obsession with the alluring folkloric mysteries of the mountain home he barely knows. Alder stumbles upon the depressed coal town of Zenith, Virginia, when tracking details of the  elusive "Black Mountain Lights" phenomenon along the border of Virginia and Kentucky. What he discovers is an odd community suffering a slow cultural death at the hands of unrestrained mountaintop removal mining practices. His unwitting journey leads him on a path of pains in self-discovery, of meaningful love, blind violence, and family reconnection.

Writing a Blue Streak

Hi, my name is Sarah, and if you ever read one of my mysteries, chances are you’ll see an F-bomb by page five.

This is not for shock value, or to give me street cred, or to make you think cutesy blonde me is trying way too hard at being taken seriously.

No, I’m not trying to be vulgar when I write a four-letter word in my manuscripts.

I’m trying to be real.

Mystery writers strive to make sure our murders, motives and investigations are accurate and logical—and I don’t think the language we use should be any different. If you’re going to have a character absorbing and investigating a murder, there’s most definitely an appropriate time for profanity.

Up until recently, every main character I’ve written has been either a cop or a journalist. And if there were two dignified professions going head-to-head in a national bowl of “how to curse on the job,” it would be those two.

An example: I once had an executive editor so enamored with the F-word that he used it as often as normal people would say “and” or “the” or “I.”

Yes, I’m effing serious.

And though my life experience doesn’t exactly parallel my fictional reality, I honestly think it’s ridiculous to pretend that in the heat of an investigation—either of the journalistic or criminalistic variety—words you wouldn’t say in front of Grandma wouldn’t slip out. Or be thought. Or be uttered by at least a side character.

As the bumper sticker says, stuff happens.

That’s not to say I believe in throwing those words around willy-nilly. Profanity is like salt: use too much and it loses its impact. It blends in with the ether, and the meaning and spark behind it are gone.

But I do think that, as necessary, a curse word is a good thing because it brings a dose of reality to your fictional universe in the same way real places or items or events do.

That said, I’ve been thinking a lot about curse words lately. And how the use of them—or the lack thereof—is important in the creation of character’s particular voice.

Right now, I’ve got two projects going at the same time involving three first-person narrators. This makes me sound like a sadist, but I’m not, I promise. I just like a good challenge. And, boy, have I given myself one.

One of the projects has alternating first-person, past-tense narrators: an FBI agent from Boston and an agent with Wyoming’s DCI. Here, not only do we have two investigators, but we have a man and a woman, both from different areas of the country, and both needing to have distinct voices.

When drawing up how they should “sound,” I decided that the slightly jaded male FBI agent would cuss more often than the female agent. I’m not saying she won’t curse at all—because, again, I don’t think that’s true-to-life—but in my mind, he’s got much more of a potty mouth than her, and is much more in line with the other characters I’ve written. (Note: I don’t think women cuss any less than men.)

The other project is a first-person, present-tense, young adult mystery I’m co-authoring. It’s my first foray into YA, and, though teenagers curse in real life, the worst of that language is most often kept to a minimum in print. If you drop the F-bomb, there better be a darn good reason.

Writing all these characters at once has made me really consider when and how and why to use profanity and different ways to do it and still stay true to the character, story and what I’m trying to accomplish with voice and structure and tone.

Do you allow your characters to curse? Why or why not?

The Strange and Wonderful Places We "See" Our Characters

I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone.

I crashed my car into the bridge. I watched, I let it burn.

I threw your sh*t into a bag and pushed it down the stairs.

I crashed my car into the bridge.

I don’t care, I love it.

I don’t care.

Those words aren’t my own, but yet I feel like I own them.

Or at least my manuscript does.

Let me explain.

When I’m deep into the first draft of a manuscript, I start seeing references to it everywhere. It’s like how when intuition tells you you’re being followed and yet all you see are shadows: There’s something familiar there, something striking, something that makes your spine tingle. But you can’t quite put your finger on it. Still, it speaks to the deepest part of you.

And that’s where those words come in. They’re the opening lyrics to the song “I Love It” by the Swedish dance duo Icona Pop. That’s them up there, looking all cool and hip in their video.

And, for some reason, they’re speaking my language. My story’s language.

I heard “I Love It” on the radio and immediately thought: Holy cow, that’s my WIP! As soon as I got home, I pulled up the video on my laptop and put it on repeat about twenty times. And each time it looped through, I felt even more conviction.

This song was my main character’s anthem. It’s her song. It’s the story’s song.

Even though my work in progress had absolutely nothing to do with Sweden or musicians or dancing. Heck, even the lyrics don’t make literal sense. There’s no car crashing into a bridge, no break-up with wedding dresses and iPads tumbling to the ground floor.

Nope. None of that.

Here’s the pitch: Big-deal New York sports writer A.J. Beckett inadvertently quits her job in a power-play gone wrong and ends up boomeranging back to her very first writing gig: Covering high school football in her Nebraska hometown for $50 a game. When the local high school’s backup quarterback ends up face-down in a creek, A.J. goes searching for answers and soon finds the rosy glow of memories she has surrounding her childhood influencers — from the legendary football coach to the editor who hired her a second time — is blinding her from a very ugly truth.

Now you’re probably really confused: “What the heck does Nebraska high school football have to do with a car crash and a fight and is there a love story in there somewhere? Are you insane?”

So, a peek into my brain: I see A.J. quitting her job like a car crash — it’s sudden and violent and totally turns her world to ashes, leaving her with nothing but an embarrassing trip home and, subsequently, a stint doing the exact last thing a successful person wants to do: Her first ever job. And for that, and many other reasons, the idea of “I don’t care. I love it,” is a huge theme — that we can do what we love anywhere, even if it’s in a lowly Nebraska pig town.

You see? Not so crazy, right? (I hope.)

So tell me, where does your main character/story/theme magically appear in real life?

Writing Character Descriptions

A new writer recently joined my local writers group. She is enthusiastic and very happy to have found us. One of the brief things she wrote showed promise, however what she read next was the beginning chapter of her romance book set in the old west. It had what I considered a problem. She went overboard in describing the heroine leaving little to the reader’s imagination. It was even worse with the hero, who was incredibly handsome with rippling muscles, etc. The fact that it started in a brothel and this author had submitted it to a Christian publisher, had us laughing, but no one wanted to dampen a new member’s enthusiasm with criticism of the character descriptions. Maybe it is what readers of romance books want. I don’t know because I haven’t read a romance since I was quite young and in love with the idea of love. I know that a member of one of my book clubs would have been rolling her eyes and making acerbic comments. She hated a thriller by David Baldacci because the leading character was drop dead gorgeous. She hates any book with beautiful women.

In this same book club we just discussed Twelve Drummers Drumming by C.C. Benison. It was a reread for me and confusing as it might seem, I was also reading his second in the series Eleven Pipers Piping. His protagonist is an Episcopalian priest named Father Tom Christmas.  He much prefers being called just vicar or Tom. So you can see Benison plays up the Christmas aspect in his titles. Tom is a widower with a nine year old daughter. He recently applied for and got the position of vicar in a small English village to get away from a bigger city after his wife had been murdered (all back story).  He moved to this small village so his daughter would be safer. Of course, in cozy mysteries, we know that murder happens even in small towns.  

I enjoyed both books and liked the main character very much. The housekeeper was a real treat. Scattered throughout the book her letters to her mother put a whole new light on what is going on in town and with the new vicar. But while thinking about describing characters, I realized I had no idea what color hair or eyes Tom Christmas has. I know he’s probably somewhere in his thirties considering his background. I know he’s reasonably attractive because various women are attracted to him, but when it’s pointed out, he shrugs it off saying it’s the vicar affect. Some women are attracted to the dog collar vicars wear. His daughter has dark hair, but so did  his wife, so that doesn’t help. I know details about other characters, but none are overdone. 

His housekeeper is an important character, but I don’t know exactly what she looks like, either. She’s older, she’s a gossip, she is very opinionated and that’s all the reader needs to know to picture this woman in their own mind.  Another minor character is the Japanese wife of the owner of the restaurant. She is an artist, has long dark hair and is slim. It’s enough.

It’s not that Benison doesn’t use any character descriptions. He does, but they’re minimal and sprinkled throughout like a lightly seasoned food offering. For instance, Eric Swan has bushy red eyebrows like fox tails.  Enid Pattimore, the town hypochondriac, wears these little plugs in her nose because she has a lot of nose bleeds. We know she’s older because her son is middle-aged.  Incidentally, because of the titles, my book club discussed the fact that there would only be twelve books in the series. Since the murderer of Tom’s wife hadn’t been discovered yet in either book, we thought it might not happen until the twelfth book. I said it would be someone with the last name of Partridge. I doubt that he lives in a pear tree, though.

In my opinion, the best written books go lightly on character descriptions, and spread them throughout the book subtly. It’s not that the writer shouldn’t describe hair color or eyes, but they shouldn’t come in a big blob all at once. I’ll gag if it’s something like: Brad drove up in a Porsche. He was tall, dark and handsome with piercing black eyes that mesmerized all the women he met. His voice was seductive. His muscles rippled and his skin was a golden tan showing he worked outdoors. He had a tattooed heart on his upper arm with the initals S.E.X.  You can see why I don’t write romances. It was hard writing this description without laughing. By the way, I couldn't find a handsome guy with a Porsche so this will have to do. Couldn't find one with those initials, either.

As a reader, how much description do you want of characters?

As a writer, how much description do you use when describing your characters?

Who’s Your Ultimate Literary Underdog?

The literary canon is full of underdogs. We all love to root for them. Believe in them. Feel dejected when they’re cut down, vindicated when they win. AND THEY WILL WIN.

In mystery, many times our main character sleuths are the resident underdog. They’re flawed. They have tough home lives. They get in deep doo-doo with their bosses and are tossed from their cases.

And we love it.

I most definitely enjoy reading (and writing) about somebody who keeps taking hits and gets right back up, teeth gritted and ready for more. These are the people we hope to be when faced with our own personal struggles. And spending time in their worlds, watching them fight, learning from their mistakes and triumphs is the best sort of living vicariously. At least for me, anyway.

Thus, I wanted to share my favorite literary underdogs — the people whom I love to root for time and time again. That said, I don’t have these listed in any particular order, because I love them all, and I also don’t think it’s fair to compare them, given some are in series that have ended, while others are in stories that have yet to be finished.

1.     Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones and various other books by George R.R. Martin (above).

I know I’m not the only one who thinks Jon Snow is a fabulous underdog. Scores of people who watch the Game of Thrones TV show have flocked to rooting for him (I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that he’s MUCH prettier on the TV show than he’s described in the books.). Why is he so beloved? Jon’s a good-hearted character who is a stranger in his own home: He’s a high-born bastard, raised without rights in his noble father’s castle right alongside true-blooded brothers and sisters. His super-sized sense of honor and lack of actual nobility make him crave a place to belong and we want it for him, too, as he takes one hit after another, but keeps true to his honest nature and heart. Note: Game of Thrones is full of other fabulous underdogs, including (but not limited to): Tyrion, Brienne and Arya.

2.     Faith Mitchell, Fallen and various other books by Karin Slaughter

Speaking of several underdogs living in one series, Karin Slaughter really needs to write a how-to book on creating underdog characters because she does it so well, and her books, accordingly, are full of them. Besides Faith, there are two other main character underdogs Slaughter writes regularly about in the same series, Will Trent and Sara Linton. However, I’m singling out Faith here because she’s got a background you usually don’t see in fictional detectives. Pregnant at 14, she’s now a diabetic in her early 30s, working for the GBI while trying to wrangle a teenage son and newborn daughter as a single mother. Though she’s the child of a cop (her mother), she didn’t use nepotism to get ahead and, thus, she’s had to work extremely hard to be successful — and it’s totally endearing.

3.     Matthew Corbett, Speaks the Nightbird and various other books by Robert McCammon

I cannot tell you how much I love Matthew Corbett. Don’t know who he is? He is only the James Bond of the pre-Revolutionary British Colonies. I’m sure that doesn’t make him sound like much of an underdog, but believe me, he is. Orphaned and left in a home for boys, Corbett’s wimpy build and low social status give him a pretty horrible start in life. But his curiosity, smarts and knack for solving tricky puzzles win him employment and notice from New York City’s elite as a professional problem solver. He’s never the fastest or the strongest person in the room, but like Bond, I’d never bet against him.

4.     Lisbeth Salander, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and two other books by Stieg Larsson

I realize Ms. Salander is a tad bit polarizing. Most of the folks I know love her, others were so appalled by the rape scene that they couldn’t and wouldn’t read more (including her payback to her rapist). That said, I think Lisbeth is an important underdog in that she is an empowered underdog. One moment, she’s dealing with people who think she’s crazy, the next she’s kicking butt a la Jack Reacher (despite everyone constantly underestimating her). She’s got daddy issues, mommy issues, sister issues, sexual issues. But she certainly believes in and acts on her own type of justice. Even when she’s breaking the law, it’s impossible not to root for her.

5.     Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and various books by J.K. Rowling

Oh, Harry. I mentioned in my last post that Harry Potter was my first YA love. Rowling’s books are like chocolate cake for the soul, sweet and satisfying and warm. Harry, like Jon Snow, is an underdog with a very important family background, stuck in a life that pretty much sucks. When we first meet him, he’s living in a closet under the stairs, for Pete’s sake. It doesn’t get much better when he gets to Hogwarts because of jealousy surrounding his apparent fame as “The Boy Who Lived.” In fact, for most of the first few books, other kids are insanely mean to him, and his actions are constantly misunderstood, making things worse. But by the end of the seven books, he’s done exactly what we want every underdog to do: Save the day.

Note: It actually could be a much longer list, as the only true mystery/thriller anti-underdog I could think of was Jack Reacher. But even he looks like a loser to the outside world when he’s not kicking butt — a homeless, jobless drifter with only a toothbrush to his name — and he constantly has to deal with others’ preconceived perceptions because of it.

Who are your favorite literary underdogs and why?