Characters and locations

While it’s easy to argue that it’s the story that brings a novel to life, I consider it’s the characters you create, that conveys the delivery in your mind as a writer, to that of your reader.

How you pull that character together, is another enquiry altogether.

Some writers spend endless hours writing a long thesis for each character so they’d know if the character would prefer to eat a Rossi ice cream in Southend-on-Sea or visit a takeaway for pizza or lasagne; or would they prefer their local Italian restaurant for those items?

They’ll know if their great aunt worked for the CIA and if the friend who lives over on twelfth avenue buys his Sunday paper from the local Wal-Mart or has it delivered, even if the aunt and paper boy or girl aren’t even used in the book.

Most of this detail I find unnecessary, but often little character traits are essential. Perhaps the paper delivery boy or girl will see a suspicious individual leave a house at a certain time?

Characters must be memorable. We all know exactly who we think of when we imagine Sherlock Holmes, especially before the recent movie (which I enjoyed but Sherlock was not the man in my recollection.) We have him pictured and understood in our memory banks. We know the type of person he is. He know his ‘special’ behaviour; the way we know the character traits of those we love, in our spouse or partner.

Believable; yes they must be realistic as well. Even Spiderman is realistic in the way that we understand him in our mind. He’s three dimensional; we know the fully rounded person, not just the way he looks and the way he way he wears his clothes.

As writers, we think through our character’s lives. We don’t want to be tripped up later saying she did one thing when that didn’t fit in at all with the previous personality set we’ve introduced. We get to know how a character would react in certain situations, what’d they do and what was the most likely outcome. Of course, as writers, we’re trying to show a character arc through the manuscript so we can see what changes occur, but they’d have to fit in with the person’s general manner or possibilities.

Names and locations are so difficult to choose. They should match the person or town described, but not be so common or confusing as to cause distress to the reader. How often have you got to page 55 and then had to track back to page 14 to see what someone was called because you’ve been confused by the characters or the location.

If you choose someone called George Bush, your reader will place a character trait on the person in your book without reading further. They’ll confuse your man with that of a president. If your lady is called Halle Berry then apart from a lawsuit probably on its way to you (if the legal department of your publisher hasn’t knocked it out first) you can’t portray her as a ninety year old spinster weighing 300 pounds. It doesn’t work.

Use the internet to search for the names you wish to use. There may already be people with your character’s name, but you can confirm, at least to your own satisfaction, that you’re not framing a reader’s viewpoint too quickly. My daughter has a rare name, then we met someone with the same name. Impossible, but true. It will happen. No point in giving your lead star the same name as the CEO of a rich list company. You may not know them, but many will or might.

The final note on names is to make them appear unlike all the other characters. If you choose John Smith, Jim Smythe and James Smithie you’re going to get your reader to suffer from twisted blood. Better to go for Mark Black, David Hinton and Graham Clitheroe. My apologies if these names belong to you; I didn’t check Google and you won’t be in my book.

If you’re using real locations you mustn’t talk about London and then place Big Ben next to Wembley stadium. If your reader knows the site, they’ll place the location in their mind and if you’re not accurate, their belief in the rest of your story might falter. If you take off from Miami international airport, you can’t arrive at JFK in thirty minutes. Concorde no longer lives, but if you were in a Star Trek style story, thirty minutes might be too long.

Having said all of this, even if you call your leading lady Sandy Wiltshire, you can still picture her as Halle Berry and construct a character set that matches your chosen delight, while probably stealing a few traits from some friends of yours. So while you might be thinking of Ms Berry, your lady may be a black actress, attractive, provocative, with a nice figure, but she’ll be slightly different and your reader won’t be thinking of Halle Berry, possibly just a Halle Berry ‘type, ’ but were you thinking of Catwoman or Perfect Stranger; the two are not alike at all?

PS I quite liked Catwoman, but I understand I’m in the minority.