I’ve been having fits with the current book I’m writing. I’m over 500 pages in, over 200,000 words, and usually by this point in a book I’m writing as fast as I can, just to keep up with myself, but not this time. I’ll get a productive day, and then the next day it’s like all my momentum is gone. It’s like throwing a punch at the heavy bag without rotating your hips. You’re still going through the motions, but you’re leaving most of your energy somewhere else. Today I figured out what was wrong, someone is going to die.
I’m a writer of mysteries, police thrillers, with relationship growth and a huge dose of the supernatural thrown in, so there are usually dead bodies and a villain to stop. I like my fiction neater than real life, so the good guys usually triumph and the bad guys get punished, sometimes they get punished to death, which works for me in fiction. Like I said, it’s neater and more black and white than real life, at least in some areas. I try to make my vampires, zombies, and ghouls as realistic as possible, so there are also huge gray areas where my characters struggle with moral dilemmas and balancing work and relationships. Crime busting can be very hard on couples, or threesomes, or fourples, or any family arrangement.
I love my world and my characters, so why is this book dragging its heels? Because I have a character on stage that is in the hospital. I know what’s wrong with him, and I’d planned on saving him, but . . . I realize now that it may not work. He had another close call a couple of books back, though anyone reading the book wouldn’t have realized it because the moment in the climatic fight scene where he might have died didn’t make it into the final draft. When push came to shove, I couldn’t do it.
I’ve had this problem before where I’d planned on killing off a character, but we realize that I, and my main characters, would miss him. The most famous example of this to me and my fans is that I planned to kill Jean-Claude off at the end of the third book in the Anita Blake series. That’s right, the sexiest vampire on the planet, and now king of them in the United States in my world, though I didn’t see that one coming either, was supposed to die at the end of The Circus of the Damned. But when the moment came, I couldn’t do it. Anita and I would have missed him. I wanted him dead because he was taking over my series and stirring it in directions I hadn’t planned on, but I let him live. I was right on him taking my series to places I hadn’t planned on, or wanted to go. He was a very strong character with very definite Ideas about what should happen, and when, and with whom. It would be a very different series if Jean-Claude had died so early, and maybe I wouldn’t be writing the twenty-fifth book featuring him and Anita. Who knows what would have changed if I’d followed my original plan; so I’ve had this happen before, but never twice to the same character.
I knew he was slated to die at the end of a novel, and I flinched. He’s a good guy, we like him, what harm is it that he’s still alive? Well, he’s changing the game on me, not as profoundly as Jean-Claude did, but he is impacting my plans for the other characters and the world in general. If I leave this character alive, will it have as profound an effect on my series as Jean-Claude’s survival did? If so . . .do I want that? Or do I want to stay with my own over-arching plot line for the series? How much freedom do I give my characters? How much do I play god? He’s destined to die, should he get a reprieve?
I find myself regretting every time I kill a character off. I miss them. I miss writing them. I miss what the rest of their story might have been. It’s not even just major characters that I miss, even the minor-major ones, make me think, “If only . . .” I hate regrets, and unlike real life I have so many chances to undo it. I could write the death scene and then get up tomorrow and rewrite it so that he makes it. It’s one of my favorite things about writing fiction, I can always fix the mistakes tomorrow. In real life there aren’t take-backs, or do-overs, at least not for death. That’s about as final as we get in real life.
I’m going to break for lunch, but when I come back I have to decide. Does this character live, or die? Do we lose him forever? Or do we save him a second time? It’s bugging me a lot that this is the second time he’s come up on the chopping block. It must mean something to my subconscious that this same character keeps almost dying. Does it mean I’m uncomfortable with him? I was with Jean-Claude back in the day. Does it mean I don’t know what to do with him on paper? That he’s getting in the way of other characters that are staying? Maybe, maybe not? I don’t know, I really don’t. All I know for certain is that when I get back from a late lunch it’ll be go-time, and he will either live, or die.
Tag: characters
Dead Ice: Richard
Here’s the second in the blog series leading up to the June 9, 2015 release of Dead Ice. Since we started with Jean-Claude, it had to be Richard next.
Richard by Brett Booth
Question: Is the character of Richard Zeeman based on your ex-husband?
Answer: No.
Secrets to Share: This was a rumor that I never saw coming, because it was just so not reality. My ex-husband’s sister thought it was the funniest thing ever that people thought her big brother was the basis for Richard. I think that Richard’s skin tone might be the same as my ex, but there the resemblance ends. Personality wise, Richard is actually closer to me when I was just out of college with my BS in Biology. But he, like all my characters that truly come to life on the page, has grown and changed in ways I never saw coming and certainly didn’t plan. He’s become his own man, for better or worse.
Question: Are Richard and Anita ever going to marry?
Answer: Highly doubtful, I’d just say no, but I’ve been wrong so much about my own character’s personal lives that I’m hedging my bet.
Secrets to Share: In fact, I think one of the reasons Anita and Richard didn’t end up together was that I created him to be the perfect husband for her, or thought I did. The more I tried to push the two of them together, the more they fought it, but my original plan was for them to marry and live happily ever after. So much for me being the omnipotent Deity of my fictional universe. When Richard was created I could never have dreamed where Anita’s life would go, or my own for that matter. Fiction doesn’t mirror fact, but we’ve both done our own version of going from the conservative “good girl” to the much happier people we are today. As for you small, but vocal minority that are still urging me to kill off Jean-Claude and Micah, so that Anita can ride off into the sunset with Richard – no. Not only no, but absolutely, positively, not happening. Move on, nothing to see here.
Question: Will Richard ever find another person to be his one and only love?
Answer: I don’t know for certain, he’s surprised me too much over the years for me to say yes, or no.
Secrets to Share: I hope he does, and I have a few potential women in mind, for him it will have to a woman if it’s a new character. I think if any man could float his boat enough to have a full-fledged relationship with them then Jean-Claude would be that man. Richard is having a bondage and submission relationship with Asher but no sex. It meets a lot of bondage needs for both of them, but I don’t think either of them would want to actually date each other. What works great in the dungeon doesn’t always work outside of it. I still have hopes that Richard, Jean-Claude, and Anita might be a fully functioning menage a trois, but I think too much has happened for it to be what it might once have been, more’s the pity. I keep hoping that special female werewolf will come along for him but he keeps wanting to date women that have no preternatural ties which doesn’t really work for the Ulfric, wolf king, of St. Louis. He also keeps dating women who like pretty standard vanilla sex and that really isn’t what Richard likes. I’ve even written a short story, “Shutdown,” where he tries to have his vanilla cake but keep his bondage cupcakes. I’ve had talks with people I was dating about polyamory and bondage, and I know people that seem to be successfully married to vanilla and, with full knowledge and permission of their spouse, they get their bondage needs met elsewhere; but it is not an easy talk to have and it takes a very special person to be okay with it. I’m not sure Richard is ever going to find someone that special, but I hope so, because I’d really like him to be happy and content with his life and himself.
Sneak Peek from Dead Ice:
Richard drew Jean-Claude in tighter against him and moved his other hand so that it was free, leaving room to wonder what he’d do if Asher tried to touch Jean-Claude. It was the kind of thing you do when someone is touching your girlfriend too much in a bar, and Richard gave him the challenging look that went with it. It was a way of saying, Mine, stop touching it, without saying anything.
Choosing Character Names, part 2
Names are where characters begin to take shape for me, and its always been that way. I bought my first baby name book when I was fourteen, the same year that I decided that maybe, just maybe I could be a writer. I remember the bookstore clerk that checked me out glancing down at my stomach, and then quickly up at my face. I realized that she thought I was pregnant and looking for names for a real baby. I didn’t try to explain that I needed the book to help me name fictional characters. I was painfully shy, and had finished one story in my entire life. How was I going to say out loud to an adult that I was spending money on a book to help me write stories that I hoped to sell to real magazines, and earn real money, and maybe eventually make a living at this. I couldn’t explain, so I said nothing and let her think what she liked. I still have that first baby name book, Name Your Baby by Lareina Rule, and I still reference it constantly when creating new characters. The cover has actually come apart, but I saved it, kept it with the book. The pages are starting to yellow, but I still love this book. From the very beginning of my career when I knew the name, I knew the character. Sometimes the name comes first and a character just magically forms around it. Sometimes I have a character in mind, but it’s not fully formed so I’ll search through all my baby name books and makes lists of names. That’s how I named, Micah, Nathaniel, Doyle, just to name three. Sometimes characters choose their names without me looking anything up, like Anita and Jean-Claude. Anita chose her name and I knew enough to know it was originally a Spanish name, so she chose half her ethnicity without me deciding anything consciously. Though since all the people I grew up with that were Hispanic came from families that were originally from Mexico that’s where Anita’s mother’s family had to be from, because it was more familiar to me. Jean-Claude on the other hand, I wanted to be Spanish, because no one had done a master vampire from Spain as a main character. At that time I spoke and read Spanish. I wasn’t fluent, but I could get by. (Please, do not speak Spanish to me now, I’m so rusty it’s embarrassing.) But he insisted he was French, which I didn’t speak, couldn’t read, and my accent is still horrible according to my French translator. I tried so hard to force him to be what I envisioned and the character just didn’t work at all. Finally, in desperation I let him be French and suddenly he chose his name, his personality, and stepped on stage almost fully formed and just, well, Jean-Claude. I’ve been informed since then that it is not an elegant name in France, and not sexy enough, but he came with the name, this one I did not choose. Of course, it’s not the name that he was born with in France, but one that he acquired after he became a vampire, but that’s a story for another day.
Two other name books stay in the reference drawer with Rule’s book. Beyond Jennifer and Jason, by Linda Rozenkrantz and Pamela Redmond Satran. I found the book by accident in the grocery store over ten years ago. It has lists for boyish names, ambisexual names, handsome names, pretty names, names for standing out, names for fitting in, macho names etc . . . I don’t agree with every name on every list, but I find them all useful in their way. Multicultural Baby Names by M. J. Abadie is rare find, because it’s literally what the title promises, names that aren’t just white Anglo-saxon, Northern European, or German, which is the predominance of most English baby name books. There are chapters on Arabic names, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, African, Hindu, Native American, and more. I try very hard not to have my fictional characters seem like they stepped out of a “Dick and Jane” kid’s book where everyone is middle to upper class and living in a white bread America that never existed for most of us outside of sitcoms from the 1950s and 60s.
George R. R. Martin is a Steely-Eyed Hard Ass, or I’m a Wimp
George R. R. Martin seems to kill characters willy-nilly and seems not to suffer overly much from those deaths, or if he does then he is a masochist of highest order, because I killed a character today, and I feel like shit. I figured out that the death was coming earlier today and knew exactly why my page count had slowed to a crawl, it always does just before I have to lose someone on paper. I walked around in dread for most of the day, and then finally sat down to write. I wrote, then a few tears, and then I finished the scene. I wept, no exaggeration, I freaking sat at my desk and wept, and then I realized it wasn’t done. The death wasn’t enough, there had to be the grief, the reaction of those left behind and that made me cry harder. I wrote in near hysterics, and even now the reaction of everyone isn’t finished, because this death will haunt and effect the rest of the book, and any book that comes after it in the series for that matter.
I found the Kleenex box, and used several, then I printed the pages off for my husband, Jon to read, since he’s the only one that’s read the book besides me, at this point. My dogs decided to be amazingly cute at that moment, because they seemed to know I needed it. They made me laugh, then we all left my office and went to the main part of the house, and then I did something that I’ve never done after writing anything. I got a hard cider from the fridge, opened it, and took a swig. I hardly ever drink, I don’t like the taste of most of it, and don’t need anything to lower my inhibitions, thanks, but today I made an exception. It was the most my husband had ever seen me drink at one time, and I still didn’t finish the bottle. I got to that warm, tingly, rush point and stopped. I wasn’t sure it helped, but it didn’t hurt.
Cupcakes next, because almost everything is better with cupcakes. One a piece for everyone in the household. Got something for dinner I hadn’t had in months, maybe a year – Domino’s pan pizza just cheese. It’s been one of my comfort foods for years. I don’t usually give into food cravings, because it totally kills all the effort at the gym, but tonight I indulged in the pizza. My cupcake remains untouched, the pizza seems to have filled me up. Now watching the musical, 1776, with my family, because it’s been a feel good movie for us for years.
I’m feeling more peaceful, not happy, but calmer. But if I killed off characters the way George does, apparently I’d be an alcoholic, and weigh about three hundred pounds. Good thing I don’t write too many death scenes of major and beloved characters.
A present from me to you, because our government is behaving badly
This story is for all my readers who have been impacted by the current political SNAFU – and for anyone else who might need to enjoy a free story in these difficult times.
“Shutdown”, will be available free for the duration of the government shutdown. Once the government is back in business then the short story will no longer be available on line, at least not until my publisher and I figure out what we might want to do with it. But for right now, while we’re all wondering how it got to this point, here’s a brand new Anita Blake short story, featuring our favorite bad boy werewolf, yep, I mean Richard Zeeman. Hey, I’ve been telling you, he’s been working his therapy: read on to see the results that hard work and being brave enough to own your whole self can get you.
Get “Shutdown” here:
Merry Gentry novel, or the next one
I have blogged about what Merry and I are doing about the next Merry novel. I’ve twitted and I could have sworn FB posted about it, but one more time.
I didn’t abandon the Merry series, she and I fought the good fight for nearly six months. She didn’t like my plot for the next book because it screwed up her happily-ever-after. She is demanding a book plot that doesn’t make her now happy life into a misery. She stopped cooperating as a character and I missed a book deadline for the first time in twenty years of writing. I backed off, and let my stubborn Merry have some space, as I’ve moved off to play with Anita and even brand new stories, Merry has slowly begun to deign to talk to me again. I am hopeful that she and I will reach a compromise.
I just need to tip-toe through the minefield so that I have an interesting book that ties up lose ends from Divine Misdemeanors , but doesn’t blow up Merry’s life with Doyle, Frost, the new babies, and everyone else. If nothing bad happens to anyone it’s not a book, it’s a very long vignette – like a day in the life of. Story needs conflict; Merry needs her happy life, and therein lies my dilemma.