Category: Characters

Characters · WIP Wednesday

Imagining the Man

paulaacton4 Comments

Okay this post is sort of for Heidi at Inside The Mind of a fantasy writer.  She was generous enough to share her novel Christian’s Kisses on her site.  Tonight she posted some artwork for a potential cover and I found myself having to admit that the picture she used didn’t quite match my vision of him.  Which leads me to an interesting point how much of we what we impose upon the characters we create do we actually create and how much is created by the reader? If we as writers describe someone as the classic tall dark and handsome how does the reader interpret it? And how much of what we visualise as reader is based on those around us?

Meet my familys mystery man.  Well not actually so much of a mystery now as I have tracked him down though sadly to late to ever contact him by several years.  But that is another story.  The point is when Heidi described eyes that looked into your soul and penetrated your very being these are the eyes I imagined.  For most of the time this photo was in my possession I only knew a story he had no name only a vague location and a shadow of a story.  The first time I saw it his eyes freaked me out a little, but they also drew me back and held me captive.  It was his eyes that made me so determined to find out who he was and believe me it was no easy task.  When I think about the literary characters that I have fallen in love with over the years I wonder now how much of what I imagined them to look like was on the page and how much was already there subconciously.  Maybe this is one of the reasons I hate watching dramatisations of books I have loved because the directors, producers, exec’s etc do not share my vision of what the character looks like.  I am a huge Anne Rice fan and love her Vampire Chronicles so was initially excited to hear when Interview With a Vampire was being made into a film until I heard the cast line up…..I admit I am not a huge Tom Cruise fan and even though he did actually do a decent job in the end he is not and cannot ever be MY Lestat.  Brad Pitt as Louis the same applied he was a Louis just not mine.

I think about the characters I am now writing I see them in my head as I believe they look but I wonder what other people will imagine them as. Can they ever really share my vision unless I spend pages in minute details of description for each feature?  Does it really matter if they have their own vision of my characters?  Someone asked me who I would like to play my characters in a film and I could not think of anyone who fit my vision them, they are themselves to me.  So I guess the question is does it really matter if my Christian or Lestat or Louis is different to the authors and when the time comes does it matter if my characters look different to others?

Have you got a character from a book you loved whose on screen image disappointed you? Or to the writers do you ever think about how others see your characters

 

Characters · Plots · WIP Wednesday

Getting Intimate

paulaacton4 Comments

Okay there comes a point in a book, well okay in most fantasies of any genre, where someone has to get it on.  Okay so it did happen in chapter two so you didn’t have to wait long.  But it is further into my novel where it gets uncomfortable.  I will admit that the first sex scene I wrote I did blush a little as I wrote it.  But if I am honest after that it came fairly easily.  It could not be a medieval fantasy without its share of rape and pillaging.  The problem starts when I am trying to write lovemaking as opposed to violent, rough sex and rape.

Am I the only one who finds lust so much easier to write than love? And if so what does it say about me?

I think in part its due to the visuality of the words.  If I say he thrust into her or impaled her there is no doubt as the the force used.  Words like caressed can be so ambigeous, finding the right word to explain the exact nature of the touch is harder.  Maybe this is due to my inexperience in writing on the subject.  Lets face it unless you decide to write a novel, the only experience most of us have are in naughty messages to our other halves.  They of course have the bonus of knowing exactly what it is that presses our buttons so even if the message is poorly written they get the message.

I have had the pleasure of reading several blogs by other writers some of whom seem to have far more ease in this department than me.  Or at least their writing would suggest they do, I know one author did tell me she still finds it awkward.  I wonder whether it is because writing the lovemaking scenes is more intimate.  Are you giving away part of yourself, your own experiences.  When I write a rape scene it is what I believe the character would do, whereas with a love scene does my own experiences creep into it a little more.

I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on this.  Is there a difference between writing love and lust?

Characters · Plots · WIP Wednesday

Fatal Attraction

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Recently I read a Blog by Heidi on her page Inside the mind of a Fantasy Writer about wanting her readers to side with the bad guy.  I think that as in reality most of us have a thing for the bad boy.  We wouldn’t want to marry one and generally we out grow them but they are always there lurking in our fantasies.  The bad boy respresents everything our parents warn us against. We know he will probably break out heart, he is dangerous but damn he is sexy.

Throughout the press we see bad boys on self destruct, yet these are the guys who would seem to have everything going for them, looks, fame and women falling at their feet.  The say that good guys always finish last I don’t agree with that I think they start last.  They are the ones we are friends with, the ones whose shoulders we cry on when the bad guy breaks our hearts.  But as we get older the good guy comes into his own.  We reach a point where sitting looking longingly at the phone waiting for a call has lost its charm.  It is the the stability of the good guy comes into its own, he is the one we want to father our children, the bad guy well thats another story.

The bad guy is our fantasy, the guy who dominates us in ways we never thought we wanted.  He is the guy who backs you into a corner and ravishes you. The problem is you know the minute he knows he has you hooked he is onto his next target.  And that is why the bad guy makes such a great character for a writer.  With the baddie you can let your mind run free.  You don’t need to think is this in keeping with his character, will he regret it later, no he will do what ever it takes to achieve his own agenda.  The bad boy can never really be the victor without reforming, the problelm is that reformed he loses his appeal.  He may still have his looks and be a sexy guy but he stops being the fantasy.  I decided on my bad guy had to die.  It is sad and I find myself dragging my heels slightly writing as I approach his demise.  That he has to die I have no doubt, it is not so much that he is killed as he self destructs.  The interesting thing is the emotions he inspires, not just in me but in the way I write the way he interacts with other character.  My heroine has every reason to hate him, yet is physically attracted to him.  This battle of emotions is fascinating me even as I write it.

I did for one brief moment consider a different ending but it just wouldn’t fall into place.  My characters will mark his passing in different ways and I will mourn him.  Yet, as I believe in reincarnation who knows if he will reappear at a later date.

Characters · WIP Wednesday

Characters coming to life

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I read another blog this morning about whether or not you should base characters on real people and it set me off thinking.  The characters in the novel I am writing started life based not on real people but on their online personas.  But saying that they are not the people themselves.  They were starting points.  At some point the characters took on a life of their own.  The bad guy started based on a friend being a bit of a bad boy and loose cannon in a game but would he ever rape and pillage in real life, of course not.  I will admit a few of the names are there in honour of some of the people who are supporting me, cheering me along and giving me confidence when I feel I am losing my way.

I guess we always use our own experiences as starting points.  If you have never been in love could you write about it….well maybe but it would be a different type of love.  As a teenager before real boys ever entered my thoughts I was in love with John Taylor, bass player for Duran Duran.  If anyone had dared to suggest that was not real love I would have screamed blue murder at them.  And in a way it was a type of love, Love in its purest form not confused by lust or any of the messy emotions that come along as you grow up, even if totally unrequited (although secretly I still live in hope). The point is every experience we have shapes how we view things.  So surely the same is true of all the people we meet.

I would probably never base a character on just one person, it is more of a pick and mix, one trait from one person  another from another.  I am sure that if my friend were like my bad guy he would have been removed and blocked from my friends list.  I also have to say that writing the bad guy is much more fun at times than writing the good guys.  It allows you to explore areas that you would never ever venture in other circumstances.  On the other hand I find i have to becareful it would be so easy for my bad guy to simply be that just a bad guy but he is more than that.  I want to explore why he is the bad guy, whether he could have ever been anything else.  Maybe it seems strange I am writing a fantasy after all so why does it matter why he is bad.  Well I guess for me it is the way he becomes what he is that makes him more real.

Sometimes while I am away from the computer parts of the story run through my head.  It happened the other day I was day dreaming and it was almost like evesdropping on a conversation between two of my characters, and I found myself discovering things I hadn’t planned.  Possible new plot twists appeared based on the new things I was learning about my characters.

Now I know this is only my first novel, so the way I see things now may be very different to how I will see them in the future.  I may look back in a few years time and mock my own thoughts, but I can only comment based on how I think right now.

Characters · Questioning the World

hello wordpress

paulaacton3 Comments

Well time to get started.  The sun is shining today yet I am inside attempting to master this blog.  I am not the most tech savvy person.  My novel is being written in good old fashioned word as when I finally thought about downloading some writing software I couldn’t work out how to move the file from one format to the one required.  Am two thirds of the way through the first draft of my novel.  I have concentrated on getting the story down first, it has become rather organic and occsionally takes me down roads which I had no idea it would travel.  Infact the other day I even had to question how far is too far for a bad guy to go. In keeping with his character it would seem he has no boundaries but does that mean that I can go as far as he would without upsetting the reader.  And I guess the other question I should ask is what does it say about me that I find it so easy to follow him.  I guess part of that comes from the research I have done and the depths humans will sink to to inflict pain and suffering on each other.  Medieval torture methods were certainly inventive in the ways they inflicted pain on different parts of the anatomy.  Cruel and unusual punishment was a normal part of everyday life.  I am aware in some arts of the world some of these practises still continue, so I guess sadly the ability to inflict pain and suffering is intrinsically part of the human psyche. Maybe somewhere deep inside under the right circumstances we are all capable of great cruelty aswell as kindess.