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The blog last night ended with me saying that writers either end up hating their creations or loving them. I prefer love. I took a lesson from two of the most important mystery writers, ever. Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie. Their books are still in print decades after their deaths. Movies and television shows are still being made from their literary work. By any standard you care to use, almost, they were successful in their field. They both hated the character that made them successful.
Arthur Conan Doyle so hated Sherlock Holmes that he killed him off. He never intended to bring Holmes back. He thought that Holmes and the good Dr. Watson, took attention from his more important historical novels. He wanted to be rid of the great detective. So, why bring him back? Money. He was offered enough money that he couldn’t turn it down, and nothing else he wrote ever reached the popularity of Sherlock Holmes.
Agatha Christie said in interviews that she based Hercule Poirot on a man she saw in a restaurant. A stranger to her, that was irritating from the moment she saw him. She never liked Poirot, apparently. Now, I can’t imagine sitting down to write a book with a main character that you know, from the get-go, you don’t like. Writing is hard work, writing a novel is a lot of hard work. Writing a book where you don’t enjoy the company of the main character from the moment you begin, well, that’s like going on a year long around the world cruise in the company of some one you can’t stand. Yeah, the trip may be nice, but having to do conversation with someone who bores, or irritates you, makes the journey not half so nice. A boring day can be made interesting by the right company. A wonderful day can be ruined by the wrong company. Christie started her journey with a character that she disliked, and her dislike of him grew over the years.
Okay there are spoilers below about Poirot, so if you are fresh to the books, then stop now. Spoiler alert!!!
Her dislike of him grew so large that she wrote a black book.
What’s a black book? A book where a writer kills off the major character, or otherwise pretty much destroys the franchise. She wrote the book, put it away, and dictated that it only be published after her own death, but it was actually published just before her death. She knew how well this book would go over with her fans, and she didn’t want to be around to hear the roar. Having muscled through this book, I don’t blame her for not wanting to have to defend her choice. CURTAIN is a hateful book, where she strips Poirot of everything that ever made him happy, or good. She makes him loose his hair, cripples him with arthritis so that he is wheel chair bound, and makes him the murderer. No other mystery writer that I’m aware of has ever so destroyed their own creation.
As I said, at the beginning of this blog, I took a lesson from Doyle and Christie. I decided that if I was going to create a series character that it would be someone I liked. Someone that I could have a cup of coffee with, or see being friends with. I accomplished that, twice. I think I’d have a greater chance of being close friends with Anita than Merry, but I like them both. I respect them both. I enjoy their company on paper. Heck, I enjoy the company of their friends. I have not just created main characters that I like, but a supporting cast of people that make me happy to go to work.
Writing is hard, and a series writer has a harder time of it, in some ways. What amused us, or intrigued us, at the beginning of a series often seems to grow stale for many writers. They don’t hate their main characters as much as Doyle and Christie did, but they fall out of love with them. It shows in the writing, even if the series continues, there is a spark missing. It is like falling out of love. The things that were mere trifles when you loved them, become huge irritations when you don’t. Or what you will tolerate when in love, can be a deal breaker when the affection is past.
I’m lucky, but as with much good luck, I laid a ground work for it. I planned my world and my main characters, and the supporting cast, to entertain and be important to me. Where the real luck that you can’t plan for comes in is that so many other people are entertained and feel connecting to my characters, my books, and my world. Finding an audience is something you can’t plan for, only hope for. I am lucky that what interests me, interests you guys.
So, I’m still in love with my Anita and the gang, and I’m falling more in love with Merry and her men with ever book. If I were the master plotter that Christie was, then I don’t think love would enter into it. No one plots mysteries like her, still to this day, if you want a puzzle, then she’s the patron saint of mystery twist and turn. But her characters are pieces of her puzzles, and don’t seem real to her, in my humble opinion. Because if Poirot had been as real to her, as Anita is to me, then she could not have done what she did to him. No way.
If Arthur Conan Doyle had felt that Sherlock Holmes was as real to him, as Merry is to me, he could not have killed him off once, just because he wanted to stop writing the stories. When it comes time to stop Merry’s stories, years from now, I want to know she’s alive and well, and living happily ever after. Like an old friend whose moved away, you still know they are out there, and a phone call will put you back in touch.
My plots are not as clean as Christies, and not the puzzles of either her, or Doyle. My plots are messy with characters, and sometimes the mystery gets a little lost in the interactions, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is big and messy, and exciting, and scary. I want my books the same way.