Blogging Authors

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

How Do Writers Build Authentic Characters? / Emma Hartley @theemmahartley

How Do Writers Build Authentic Characters?

How do writers build authentic characters? How do we come up with our ideas? These are the questions I am most often asked by aspiring writers and readers alike. I will venture here to discuss some of the motivations and inspirations I use for story and character development, with the caveat that everyone does this differently. These are my methods—they are not for everyone.

Most of my characters grow from seeds. They might start out with a vague characteristic such as hair color or an unusual mannerism, then germinating into a more fully developed person as the story grows. Elwyn, in THE NATURE OF ENTANGLED HEARTS, for instance, grew from the seed of my own insecurity. She avoids mirrors and dreads her reflection. Those simple characteristics allowed me to grow Elwyn into the dynamic, complex and nuanced character that she is. Writing in her voice allowed me to show her feisty attitude, her temper and her creativity. Her inner landscape is rich. These characteristics blossomed as I wrote in her voice. To continue this growth, I asked a million questions. Who is she? What does she love about life? What bothers her? Is she clumsy or graceful? Is she smart? Is she driven? Does she question the world around her to the point of incapacity sometimes? Why would she sabotage her relationships with men? As I asked myself these questions, and as Elwyn grew into the character she is, I realized many things about her. Her past was illuminated, her motivation to create her artwork became clear. She grew out of that tiny seed into a person as real as you or me.

My plots grow in much the same way. They germinate from small ideas – tiny moments from my own life that perplexed me or vexed me, moments that made me ask questions about the nature of love, of consciousness, of the universe around us. These essential questions helped me grow my stories into fully formed plot lines. I weave many threads together into riveting conclusions. I don’t always see the endings until I am close to them. It’s rare for me to see the ending of my story at the beginning. My writing style is linear, and the story grows with my characters. Once I get to the mid point of my work, I can start mapping out the trajectory of the plot and I will often make a rough outline for it.

I love working in this organic manner. Growing stories and characters from seed is a fulfilling and rewarding aspect of writing for me. It’s like watching a child grow up – I am so proud of the people my characters become. Even if they have made some iffy choices along the way, because let’s face it, who hasn’t? Part of the fun is letting the characters’ lives unfold authentically, which, in turn, drives a riveting plot.

About the Author:

Emma Hartley is an author and artist living in picturesque Maine. She has been writing and making art since childhood and has been insatiably curious and industrious her whole life. Emma was a double major in English and Fine Arts and she received her Masters in Art and Design Education. She is a specialist in ceramics and includes much of this expertise in her novel The Nature of Entangled Hearts. Her other interests include playing drums, making art and exploring every square inch of the Maine coastline. The Nature of Entangled Hearts is her first novel.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

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About the Book:

The Nature of Entangled Hearts is a fast-paced, edgy, romantic thriller, with a subtly supernatural twist. Enter the story of Elwyn and James, two strangers entangled by their past-life experiences,

who are mired in an unquantifiable present. Throughout the novel they work to understand the bonds that hold them together, just as an unforeseen danger threatens to tear them apart.

Elwyn “Derrin” Derringer is a ceramic artist and a professor at the local college of art in Portland, Maine. She has always felt insecure and disconnected, unsure of how or why she fits into the world, seeking through her art to fill in the missing pieces of herself. When Elwyn’s eyes lock on those of a stranger across the market, everything she has taken for granted as reality is thrown into question. Understanding blooms in fits and starts, interrupted by her fears of attachment and eventually by the unwanted attentions of an obsessed and disturbed art student.

Throughout the novel, Elwyn discovers reservoirs of strength and independence as she faces these challenges, endearing the reader with her feisty nature and her fierce desires to create authentically, to love intensely and to transcend the destructive links to her past. “The Nature of Entangled Hearts” takes us on a thrilling ride through past and present, through love and dread, through loss and reclamation, leaving us thankful that we don’t understand all the mysteries of the universe just yet, and reminding us never to take our lives - or our loves - for granted.

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# WRITING

Monday, November 6, 2017

Why Did I Write My Book? / C.S. Taylor @TinyFoxPress

thewriterslife 12:00 AM 0 Comments

Why Did I Write My Book?

Some nameless, late night many moons ago, I was doing what I do best when trying to write, namely surfing the web and finding every excuse—and inventing a few more—I could to not look at MS Word and actually type something out. Somewhere between articles telling me that “These ten unexpected, cuddly things will kill you” and “which type of mason brick are you?” I stumbled upon an article dealing with the Night Witches and was mesmerized.

For those who know little or nothing about them (and most don’t) the Night Witches were a group of female pilots in the Red Army Air’s 588^th night bomber regiment during World War 2. The group was one of three all-female regiments that had been put together by Major Marina Raskova, a national heroine at the time and a fantastic pilot. The young women of the 588^th flew the Po-2 biplane, which was made in the late 1920s and was really only good for training and crop dusting. It wasn’t a combat aircraft by any stretch of the imagination. But they flew it nonetheless to drop bombs on the Germans. They got the name Nachthexen (Night Witches) by the Germans because the girls quickly learned to cut their engines just before they went on a bombing run, so they were completely silent until the bombs exploded.

Fascinating stuff, I thought, and something that deserved a book or two. Also, since I love flying and in a prior point in my life, I was intent on flying for the USMC, I thought writing a book that centered around the Night Witches seemed to be a great idea.

So with that thought in mind, I began fleshing out a plot and characters, but the more I did my research into the Night Witches, I realized that their sister regiment, the 587^th (who flew the Pe-2 medium bomber), met my needs in terms of the story better. So I shifted my focus to the 587^th and kept at it.

I kept at it for a few weeks and soon discovered that some of the historical characters I wanted in my book didn’t survive the timeline I was after as the 587^th didn’t see combat until 1943. And since I was writing historical fiction, I couldn’t exactly have one of them pop up in the story when he or she was supposed to be dead.

It was about that point when I realized I really wanted more dogfights in my book overall, and thus, settling on the 586^th fighter regiment was an easy choice. My decision to go with the 586^th was reinforced even more when I realized that there weren’t any books on these women at all, at least on the historical fiction side. There were a few dealing with the Night Witches and some female pilots who were in male units, but the 586^th was untouched, which is very appealing as a writer.

So with the 586^th firmly settled, it was just a matter of changing a few things from my rough outline because my main character, Nadya, was going to be a fighter pilot and not a bomber pilot.

Building Nadya as a real person took a lot of work, and the details of her life came from a variety of sources, mostly interviews that had been recorded with surviving members of the 586^th, 587^th and 588^th.

The stories I read were not only from the pilots, but the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, and ground crews, and I drew a lot of inspiration from all of them as their tenacity and bravery was nothing short of legendary. I really wanted to capture that with Nadya’s War with not only Nadya herself, but with all of the supporting characters, too. Most of all, I wanted to ensure that Nadya was crafted in such a way that her story would slide neatly in between all the others I read, not overshadowing any of them in terms of what she goes through, heroics, etc., but accurately mirroring what each young woman in all three of these regiments dealt with day in and day out.

I like to think I managed to pull that off. Hopefully readers will agree.

About the Author

C.S. Taylor is a former Marine and avid fencer (saber for the most part, foil and epee are tolerable). He enjoys all things WWII, especially perfecting his dogfighting skills inside virtual cockpits, and will gladly accept any P-38 Lightnings anyone might wish to bestow upon him. He’s also been known to run a kayak through whitewater now and again, as well give people a run for their money in trap and skeet.

His latest book is the historical fiction, Nadya’s War.