Following a Character into a Book

by Linda Rodriguez

Lately, I’ve been intensely writing a new book. That’s a fairly common thing around here. Several times a year I follow a character into a short story or book. After the first draft is finished, I still refer to the much more I know about that character from writing that first draft as I revise and edit and edit, still following those characters as I chip away whatever doesn’t matter to them or what doesn’t fit. In a way, you could say that I spend most of my professional time chasing after characters, and you’d be correct.

Some people have the idea that plot is the be-all and end-all of the mystery writer, but I see it as story. I can write a book based on a clever plot with all kinds of surprises and twists, but if the reader doesn’t care about the characters or if the actions taking place don’t ring true for the characters, it’s no good. And yes, I know there are books like this that are published and sometimes very successful, but I still think it’s really story we need in the mystery, a story where the actions rise organically out of the characters and their motivations, where we care about the characters and what they’re trying to do because we know why it’s so important to them to succeed in their attempts.

When I’m looking for story, I start with character. As I start to know that character better, she or he leads me directly into story. A nice complex, twisty narrative with surprises and suspense comes from following all the major characters as they lead me on their path toward their goals in the story and come into conflict with each other or help each other or, sometimes, both.

When I run into problems with story as I’m writing a book, I go back to the characters involved with the aspect of the story that’s giving me a hard time. I sit down and have them write their situation, feelings, and problems with the story’s direction in first person as if they were writing diary entries or letters to me to tell me why they won’t do what I think they should do. Always I find that there’s something I’ve overlooked with that (those) character(s). I’ve been trying to steer the plot in a direction that’s false to the character(s), and I have to learn more about each character in order to find out the direction the story needs to go.

I’ve always been glad I take the time to do this, even as I whine about taking that time in the middle of a book with a deadline facing me. Often it leads to big changes—once I even had to change the villain into a possible love interest—but it always makes for a stronger, more vital story. And that’s what I’m after.

Right now, I’m chasing another set of characters into a book that I’ve tentatively set up to go one way, but I know that, as I get deeper into this story following these characters, I may find we’ve gone a different way into a whole different and much richer story. It’s the ultimate adventure, following a character into a book.

Linda Rodriguez's Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear January 17, 2018. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and her books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Meeting a Character to Include in a Book

Grace Meadows with her orchids. I took home the yellow one.

Last fall Joan, a friend of my sister Elaine, took us to visit a delightful ninety year old woman in a small town not too far from where Elaine’s friend lives. It was there we met Grace Meadows; the woman who would be moved to my fictional town of Portage Falls in the latest book I’m currently working on.

Grace lives in a brick home that was once a school house, and is surrounded by gardens. When we visited in the fall, most of the flowers had been frost killed, but not all, and the bones of the gardens, with the added little things to attract your attention, had us eagerly looking forward to coming back when everything was in bloom and her vegetable garden planted, too. Her property is at least an acre or more, and although one of her sons lives close enough to do the mowing for her, she does all the weeding and planting of these gardens.

Grace is showing us one of her clivias.

Even more fascinating were the two greenhouses she’d added to the side of her house that were filled with orchids, clivias and a variety of other flowers – many that had been outside for the summer in pots and brought in for the winter. She had huge pots of geraniums, begonias, a bougainvillea, a small lemon tree with lemons on it and other blooming plants that would normally be outside if the weather hadn’t started freezing. Because of the time of the year, the orchids (not the cheap ones I buy at Aldi’s and Home Depot) and clivias were not blooming.  I had never heard of clivias. She told us they were from South Africa and rather expensive. She paid seventy-five dollars for her first one and by saving the seeds and/or dividing them as they got bigger, she now had table after table with shelves on the wall behind them with the clivias in the first green house. The second greenhouse had varieties of orchids – miniature ones and tall ones along with the other mixture of plants.  Grace sells her orchids and clivias so I bought one of each and she gave me a small one, too. Apparently, it takes some years for clivias to bloom.

Before we bought our plants, Grace had us come in where she served us warm apple dumplings fresh from the oven with vanilla ice cream and coffee. It was so good especially after being outside in rather chilly weather.

Some of the orchids I got from Grace.

However, as amazing a gardener Grace is, it wasn’t the end of what appealed to me. Grace is an avid reader of books, especially mysteries. I learned that when either I mentioned I wrote mysteries or after someone else told her. Grace brought out a thick three-ring binder with each page in the binder having the name of a writer where she listed all his or her books she’d read and a brief synopsis of the book. I forget all the authors she’s read, but Dick Francis stands out in my mind. Because Grace no longer drives, her son picks up four or five books from the local library every week for her to read.

The following week, I sent Grace an autographed copy of my first book, and she sent me a thank you letter and told me how much she enjoyed it. A little over a month later I sent her an autographed copy of my second book, and she sent another thank you and said she can’t afford to buy them. Of course, I let her know I didn’t expect money for them.

A clivia Grace gave me getting ready to bloom 

On a Saturday towards the end of February, we again went back to visit Grace because she’d let Joan know the orchids and clivias were now blooming. This time three other women were there, too. Joan and one of the other women had brought sandwiches, cut up fruit and desserts so we had an English tea with a white table cloth, napkins, pretty plates, and we drank tea as we visited. I enjoyed getting acquainted with the three new people I met. I found out one of them belongs to a mystery book club with thirty members in Canton. She said the man in charge usually picks the books, but she thought the women would probably like lighter books without all the graphic details of murders in the books he picked. She was going to talk to him at their next book club and see if I could come and talk to their book club. It’s a distance away, but I told her I would. I’m waiting to see if he’ll go along with it. A younger woman talked about her three children, and when I found out they all loved to read including the nine-year old twins, I mailed an autographed copy of my middle-grade book to them, too

Another of my orchids in my library

I also told Grace that I had moved her and her home to my little town of Portage Falls, and that amused her. I said she now had a young female police officer moving in upstairs. I was so pleased when she told me both her sons and their wives loved my books and one couple had tried to look me up at Bouchercon when they saw in the booklet that I was there. Of course, in a crowd of that size they didn’t find me. It’s funny how you can pick up fans from the slightest contacts with others. In fact, Joan, the woman who introduced us to Grace, has recently returned from a five week cruise she conducted around Africa.  Last fall I gave her the second in my series when she told me she’d read and loved my first book. She took the one I gave her to read on the cruise. When she finished it, she lent it to a women she’d met on the cruise. The woman wasn’t quite done with it and hated to stop, so Joan let her take it home to her home somewhere in the Midwest.

Elaine shows us the fertilizer Grace uses for her healthy plants. 

When we went out to the greenhouse after eating, to pick out orchids or clivias, Grace wouldn’t let me pay for the two orchids and one clivia I picked out. In fact, she wanted me to have first choice. I think it’s her way of paying for the books I’m giving her, and the books I’m going to send her to donate to her local library. One of the advantages of being independently published is I have books on hand to give away when I want to. Yes, I paid for them, but to me giving them to people who will enjoy them is worth more than the money I would make. And maybe if they like them, they’ll go to Amazon and buy others although that’s not my priority. Meanwhile, Grace now has her own fans with the three women who are critiquing my work.

Have you ever met someone who just had to become a character?

Did you change their name?

Would you like to visit Grace Meadows?