How I Create Characters

This week's post is a little bit different, because I thought I'd share with you how I create my characters, right from the very first idea ...

I was happily watching a movie last week and heard a really catchy song in the background. Me, being me, I'd Googled it before the credits even had chance to roll and downloaded it. Before I knew it, I had an idea for a story. (You can read more about how music inspires me here).

This is my favourite part of writing - when an idea smacks you right between the eyes and you know you have to go ahead and write it. Of course in three months time I'm going to be muttering about how much I hate the thing, but right now it's the honeymoon period.

Like onions (and ogres!)* characters
should have layers - is the image
presented to the reader the 'real' one?

So I had this idea for a story, which I'm not going to share (because I'm mean like that), and it's about a girl (my books usually are). I already know what she looks like and the kind of clothes she wears and how she spends her time. I know what she wants from her life - or rather, what she thinks she wants - and that's not the same thing at all. She has to have a problem, which she assumes she can solve by running away from it and, because I'm a writer and a complete sadist, she's just going to run into a whole set of new problems, so that will serve her right (mwah haha).

I don't base my characters on celebrities and I don't write long lists of their funny little quirks and what colour their eyes are and what their favourite food is. Somehow I instinctively know all this. Don't ask me how, I just do. I'd rather get on and write a story than compile a list of lists. For example, in Nemesis I knew Alicia's favourite food was chocolate whereas Natalie would think it was a stupid question - and be likely to tell you so as well! I do plan my books, because otherwise I'd get distracted by a subplot, and I always know how my stories are going to end. Although sometimes the identity of the bad guy might change (Nemesis, Something Wicked), and once I even wrote a whole book backwards (Something Wicked).

This photo of a Lewis Carroll quote
was taken in my favourite
coffee shop!

Because my books have a good chunk of romance in them I also need a hero. (Don't we all!) For my new story I've already decided my action is going to take place over the course of a week so it makes more sense for my heroine to already know him. Someone from her past? But why haven't they kept in touch? Ooh, plot development! Now, do I give him a similar set of problems, so their actions mirror each other throughout the story, or set them against each other, give them conflicting goals - and let sparks fly? And all the time I'm thinking 'What if ... ' and if the answer is too obvious, I'll twist it around on its head. I love twists!

It's usually at this point my characters take up residence inside my head and start talking to me. And that's the very best bit. Because when I hear them telling me their story, refusing to act out in the way I want, arguing about how they want to do things, I know I should start writing. Fast.

And I got all this from hearing one song ...

Related Posts:

I Need a Hero
I Need a Heroine
Keeping it (Un)real

Seeking Inspiration

My Writing Process

Music: Wings to the Mind

*If you didn't rcognise that quote, it came from Shrek!

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Blogging About Not Blogging (Part 3)

So here I am, blogging about not blogging - again.

No new post from me this week but if you read on you'll find links to two guest posts I've written for other people instead.

First up is My Welsh Inspiration, which I wrote for Lavender Likes, Loves, Finds and Dreams, as part of Welsh Week. I moved to Wales way back in 2003 and often use Welsh locations as inspirations for my books, including Something Wicked and Nemesis - even though my fictional villages are supposedly on the south coast of England! Writers are like magpies - we'll steal bits of inspiration from everywhere!

The second post this week is for Roz Morris, as part of her Undercover Soundtrack blog. It's a bit like Desert Island Discs, where writers talk about the music that inspires their books. My post, The Distraction of Silence, talks in depth about a selection of the songs I listened to while writing Nemesis. This was a good exercise for me, because while I know exactly I picked each song, it was hard for me to explain it to other people - particularly when at first glance the lyrics don't necessarily match the scene I was a writing!

Finally, don't forget that Nemesis went into the Kindle Countdown this week, and is 99p/99c until 20th April.

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Nemesis

Fifteen years ago Natalie found her sister lying dead in a lily pond. Now she’s written a book based on the murder. In every interview she gives she talks about the diary her sister kept, which lists her lovers under code names.

Natalie’s intention is to lure the murderer into the open but, as she’s about to find out, you can’t pick and choose which secrets are revealed - and which ones stay hidden.

Because when the first of her sister’s ex-lovers is killed, it doesn’t take Natalie long to realise she’s not the only one out for revenge.

So who will catch the murderer first? And who will end up being caught?

Read an Extract

Behind the Scenes

Related Posts:

Beyond the Bridge 

Music: Wings to the Mind

Tales of Smugglers and ... Seaweed?

Here's a post about how my eccentric ancestors inspired Breathless ...

I grew up in a village located midway between Portsmouth and Southampton in Hampshire. Thanks to my family’s obsession with the sea and all things nautical, I spent a large chunk of my childhood falling off yachts, dinghies and jetties, before it dawned on them that the seafaring gene had completely passed me by. But it didn't stop my grandfather telling me endless stories about our seafaring ancestors. It wasn’t until years later, when I began researching our family history for myself, I realised some of these tales weren’t strictly true. I don’t have an ancestor called Captain Hook (I can’t believe I fell for that one!) but we did find a real live pirate (OK, a ‘privateer’ who sailed with Sir Francis Drake) way back in the family tree.

My grandfather

My grandfather was the Harbour Master for the River Hamble but his family had originally come from Weston, a tiny fishing village across the River Itchen from Southampton. It was one of those places where everyone knew everyone, and most of the villagers were related to each other in one way or another; if you look through the parish records you can see the same surnames cropping up throughout the centuries. A hundred years later, Weston now consists of modern housing estates and tower blocks, and is completely unrecognisable as the small fishing community it once was. 

The Thatched Cottage, now demolished,
part of 'old' Weston

One of my grandfather's tales was about the seaweed hut, which his family used to store fishing equipment. No one was quite sure when it was originally built, but it first shows up on an Admiralty chart of Southampton Water, dated 1783. According to legend, smugglers stored kegs of spirits inside the hut until they could be moved under cover of darkness. But although Weston was an isolated fishing village, it was still located on one of the country's busiest waterways, so I think that particular story is also unlikely!

The Seaweed Hut on Weston Shore, now demolished
(and, allegedly, my great-great-grandfather)

A description of the hut was published in 1905 by the Reverend G.W. Minns. He said,



"It covers an area about 25 feet by 14 feet. Some piles driven in the ground protect the walls and transverse beams of oak support the roof. It is composed entirely of seaweed so closely matted together that the interior presents a smooth surface and is impervious as a wall. The exterior is renewed from time to time by a few loads of seaweed which the fishermen pile on as required."

Industrial development affected the local fishing and the seaweed hut gradually fell into disrepair until it was demolished in 1967.

My grandfather’s stories about his family were so entertaining that when I wrote Breathless I realised he had become the inspiration for Joseph Halfpenny, who is convinced he’s descended from Port Rell’s most famous resident - a 17th century smuggler named Black Jack. Jack’s story, and the connection he has to a long-lost wreck, is told in flashbacks throughout the book.

The themes of obsession and family history also managed to sneak into the next book I wrote too -  Nemesis. Despite owning a castle, one of the characters is trying to prove she’s related to a pirate. This was something I realised while researching my own family tree. No matter how respectable and hard-working our ancestors were, we all secretly want to be descended from smugglers and pirates ...

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Breathless

Nothing ever happens in the seaside village of Port Rell, which is why Lainey Jennings is so keen to leave it. She’s only twenty-four, there’s so much more she wants to do with her life. Crazy and outlandish things; like ice diving in Alaska, explore the underwater caves in Mexico, maybe even search for the lost city of Atlantis. Stay in Port Rell forever? Talk about purgatory!

Since the death of her father, she’s struggled to keep the family diving business from bankruptcy. There’s just one thing that keeps her going. Her dream that one day she’ll discover the lost wreck that her father was so obsessed with, the legendary Mary Eliza - responsible for destroying Port Rell almost four hundred years ago.

When an old, unknown wreck is discovered in the bay, sleepy Port Rell is under siege once more. This time it’s from the media, including a team from the Wreck Raiders TV show, led by handsome archaeologist Zac Nelson. The villagers are quick to cash in on their unexpected popularity. But ancient wrecks aren’t the only things waiting to be discovered.

Because someone in Port Rell has a secret.

Read an extract

Breathless: Behind the Scenes

Related Post:

Dear Diary