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On Writing: Creating Living Breathing Characters
“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.” — Ray Bradbury, WD
Sometimes I begin a piece of fiction and it’s just utter shit. It’s as if the characters themselves aren’t very articulate — or maybe I’m not listening. Or maybe, they’re still coming into “being” but they aren’t quite there yet. It’s not just who they are, and who and what they want. It’s where they want their story to play out — and that is fully their choice, not mine. If I try to force it, they won’t come out to play — and it’s as simple, or as complicated, as that.
Do they meet in Colorado or New Mexico? Do they meet on a plane? Is it a meet-cute, or a set-up? When they meet, what is each character’s energy? Excited, nervous, speechless, or awkward? These are the kinds of decisions that can make or break the beginning of a novel in my prefered genres — contemporary romance and women’s fiction — and a writer has to get these details exactly right.
As a woman and a writer, how do I keep coming up with attractive male characters? Well, it can be something as simple as a glimpse of someone I see in a restaurant or coffee-shop, or even an actor I notice in a TV commercial…
