Giving birth to fictional characters

My novel Curva Peligrosa opens with a tornado that sweeps through the fictional town of Weed, Alberta, and drops a purple outhouse into its center. Drowsing and dreaming inside that structure is its owner, Curva Peligrosa—a curiosity and a marvel, a source of light and heat, a magnet. Adventurous, amorous, fecund, and over six feet tall, she possesses magical powers. She also has the greenest of thumbs, creating a tropical habitat in an arctic clime, and she possesses a wicked trigger finger.

When Curva had ridden into Weed on one of her horses two years earlier, she was like a vision from a surrealistic western with a parrot perched on each shoulder and a goat following. Curva’s glittering gold tooth flashed, and she wore turquoise rings on each finger. A rainbow-striped serape hung from one shoulder. Curva also wore a flat-brimmed black hat and carried a rifle along with six-shooters. Continue reading “Giving birth to fictional characters”

Where do fictional characters come from?

With four novels under my belt, I’ve spent lots of time thinking about how writers create believable characters that readers want to hang out with. Not surprisingly, there isn’t any formula to follow. For me, characters start from a seed that might have had a previous life in someone I actually know in real life. But just as often, that seed started with a name or a vague idea and evolved from there. Continue reading “Where do fictional characters come from?”

Appearances Really Are Deceiving

Francine Prose’s novel Mr. Monkey has taught me something valuable about point of view. While I’m interested in the story Prose is telling, as a writer I’m even more concerned with how the narrative is shaped. Unusual for a novel, eleven chapters each feature a different character, and some appear tangentially in other sections, offering a fuller look at many of these actors. Continue reading “Appearances Really Are Deceiving”

Where do fictional characters come from?

curvarWhere do fictional characters come from? I’ve been asking myself that question for as long as I’ve been writing, but the complete answer still evades me. The process is as mysterious as the origins of life itself, maybe even more so. At least we know that life on earth evolved from some primordial soup. But what concoction serves as the foundation for those who inhabit our stories? Continue reading “Where do fictional characters come from?”

The Enigma of Fictional Characters

With four-plus novels under my belt, I’ve spent lots of time thinking about how writers create believable characters that readers want to hang out with. Not surprisingly, there isn’t any formula to follow. For me, characters start from a seed that might have had a previous life in someone I actually know in real life. But just as often, that seed started with a name or a vague idea and evolved from there.

In my novel Fling!, the two main characters, Feather and Bubbles, did originate in females in my family. Though I’m not a former hippie and visual artist as Feather is, I did clothe her with a few of my characteristics based on my relationship with my actual mother. And Bubbles, Feather’s mother in the novel, has definite roots in my own irrepressible mum. From there, though, these women took on lives apart from my experiences and drove the narrative in directions that completely surprised me.

curva cover copyIn contrast, Curva Peligrosa, from the novel of the same name that will be published in August 2017, didn’t have any connection to an actual person I have known. I just wanted to create a larger than life female character totally unlike me in almost every way. She is over six feet tall, amoral, fearless, powerful, and yet fully feminine. But it wasn’t until I stumbled on her name that she fully took shape in my mind.

Early in the process of writing this novel, my husband and I visited Mexico City; Curva’s origins are in southern Mexico. When we landed, a driver was waiting to take us to a resort we had booked into in Cuernavaca, a small town a two-hour drive away. At each curve we approached, I noticed the words “Curva Peligrosa” and recognized the Spanish for dangerous curve. That’s when it hit me that this was my character’s name. Once I found it, her personality blossomed immediately. I could hear the sound of her voice and her laugh. I knew what she looked like (she resembles Katy Jurado, the once-famous Mexican actress that appeared in High Noon), and the book took off.

Another character that the novel Curva Peligrosa gave birth to is Billie One Eye, one half Blackfoot and one half Scottish (on his mother’s side). Billie totally surprised me. He walked off of a Canadian Blackfoot reservation, a place on the prairies I had visited once when I was around twelve years old. And he proceeded to take up a sizable role in the narrative, adding ballast and balance to Curva. He’s inherited his mother’s red hair, and eventually takes over his father’s role as tribal chief. Clearly, I have no Native Canadian heritage to draw on, but I can do extensive research and I did learn a good deal about the Blackfoot and Billie’s quest as a creator of totems, masks, and other indigenous art.

Where do you think characters come from?