Real (?) People in Books

by Sandra Carey Cody

One of the questions writers are often asked is: “Do you use real people in your books?”

There’s no simple yes or no answer to this question - at least not for me. My characters are cobbled together out of bits and pieces of a lot of people, myself included.  The old actor, Nathaniel Pynchon, introduced in Put Out the Light is a good example. He isn’t anyone I know. He’s arrogant and self-centered. He isn’t nice, but I think he’s interesting. He says and does the mean, hurtful things that I don’t allow myself to say or do.  And, frankly, it’s nice to have a place to release my nasty impulses where no one gets hurt.

Sometimes, a fictional character is the result of a glimpse of another human being. On a recent trip to the grocery store, I was in line behind a young woman with two children - a baby sitting in the seat of the cart and a little girl. I’m guessing the child was about six. When it was their turn at the checkout, the mother put their items on the conveyor, the store clerk rang them up, and, without being told to, the little girl started bagging the groceries. Young as she was, she knew what she was doing. First, she very carefully arranged an assortment of canned goods in the bottom of a bag, then she proceeded to place lighter, more irregularly-shaped items on the base she had constructed. When the bag was full, she selected another and filled it with the same meticulous precision. I watched, amazed, and wondered what her story was. Was she just naturally organized? Had her mother or another adult coached her? If so, for what reason? Old-fashioned character-training? Or had a special family situation made it necessary for her to pitch in beyond her years? Did the child enjoy what she was doing? Had she any sense of her uniqueness? She was certainly different from most of the kids I've encountered in checkout lines; there was no whining, no begging for some of the treats that stores place so enticingly at child-eye-level. I glanced at the mother. Apparently, she took the child’s help for granted. I don’t mean that she seemed indifferent. She smiled at the little girl and nodded approval, but didn’t seem to find her child unusual. 

This incident lasted no more than fifteen minutes, just a small interlude in a round of everyday errands, but it stuck in my mind. The child will probably show up as a fictional character some day. She'd make a perfect amateur sleuth - smart, competent, someone who slips under the radar and is under-estimated until it's too late. When the story is written, chances are her appearance and actions will be completely different than the incident I witnessed. To tell the truth, I don't remember how this particular child looked. I'm imagining pigtails, but that might change. I doubt I’ll use the supermarket setting but, wherever it unfolds, that little girl's spirit will be present.

            So ... back to the original question: Do I use real people in my books? I’m not sure. Every idea comes from somewhere and I suspect most writers would have a hard time tracing the finished product (or character) back to its genesis. 

The Secret Universe of Names

by Gina Ardito

What's in a name?

More than titles, or what comes next in the plot, what most authors agonize over is choosing the perfect names for their characters. A name is so much more than a rose that smells sweet (my apologies to Shakespeare.) Each name helps us create a personality, a past, flaws and foibles, and even a time period.

We all have our share of baby name books, lists of most popular names for any given year, astrological charts, and assorted psychological profiles we've accumulated to create those characters that will resonate with our readers.

I have another method. I use...(what else?)...a book.

THE SECRET UNIVERSE OF NAMES by Roy Feinson is a treasure trove of information on personalities, based on the syllables on any given name. The descriptions include what each personality would be like as a child, as an adult, in love, in career, and as a parent. There's also a famous person linked to each set of syllables who embodies the aspects described. 

For example, in my current WIP, my hero's name is Wyatt, or as the book calls him "The Laughing WT." He's warm, multi-talented and driven, but also impatient, stubborn, and judgmental. He's a born leader, with unlimited potential, particularly in creative fields. As a mate, he's loyal, with a wicked sense of humor, and a down-to-earth parent dedicated to his children's well-being. The famous WT? Walt Disney! Makes sense, doesn't it?

My heroine is Leah, "The Demonstrative LH," nurturing and understanding, but apprehensive around strangers and a homebody at heart. She's feminine and loves to cuddle. Considering my Leah runs the local animal shelter, I think I've made the right choice.

Whether you're a writer, a parent-to-be, or someone just fascinated with the science behind names and personalities, this is a great book to add to your collection. 

Horoscopes Can Help Your Characters

I'm not a horoscope fanatic, but during my birthday month I tend to check it more often. I don't seek out complicated astrology charts, a certified astrologer, or gaze at the stars. I'm more than satisfied reading my daily horoscope in the newspaper. The sun sign forecasts in the newspaper are only the tip of the complicated process. To come up with a daily forecast astrologers look at the relationship of the planets and their cycles to your sun sign.

Astrology and Your Characters

Astrology is a way to discover more about your characters. Are they direct or do they avoid love and romance? A horoscope for your characters can help you determine their strengths and weaknesses, it can give you an idea of how their day will go, or who might cross their path.

A Water Sign and a Fire Sign 

In Chocolate Secrets, my heroine is a horoscope junkie. The hero, a practical NYC firefighter doesn't believe the stars and planets determine his life. He's a self proclaimed asparagus. Her quirky habit and his logic put them on opposite ends of the universe. To complicate things she's a water sign and he's a fire sign. Can complete opposites overcome their differences?

Endless Resources

Finding the answers to your characters personality dilemmas is easy. Most of my info comes from an assortment of little books I buy at the supermarket checkout counter. Sometimes I'll create a complex personality who crosses over between signs. The possibilities are endless.

 

Once you create horoscopes for your characters, you'll have an ongoing sketch of their relationship potential, their job and health, and what they need to learn and experience.

Inspiration

by Sandy Cody

Writers (at least this writer) are always looking for inspiration. I don’t mean ideas. Most of us have more ideas than we know what to do with. Maybe I should stop saying “we” and say “I” because that’s who I’m really talking about. What I look for most is a way to tell the story that will make the vision in my head come alive in a reader’s mind and (I type this hopefully) in their heart. Sometimes I look so hard that I forget that the best ideas usually come from close to home. They’re all around me in my daily life - in the things I do and see and hear - and, most importantly, in the things I remember.

I'd like to introduce you to the source of my best memories - and definitely my best source of inspiration. Meet the McGee girls, five sisters who grew up on a farm in Missouri during the Dust Bowl years. The one on the left is my mother, the other four my aunts (obviously).

When I was a little girl, I loved to sit so still that I felt invisible and listen to my mother and my aunts talk about their lives, the people they’d known and the things they’d seen. You know the book that claims “everything I really need to know I learned in kindergarten”? I think everything I really need to know about writing, I learned from those family stories.

I wasn’t very old when I noticed that, even though they were all talking about the same event or the same person, certain details changed and, with different details, it was a different story. Without realizing it, I had just learned a valuable lesson about writing: the devil is in the details. A cliché? Yes, but true. Isn’t that why cliches become cliches?

There was a mysterious neighbor whose land touched my grandparents’ back pasture. He lived alone in a big house that my cousins and I were convinced was haunted (a conviction the sisters did nothing to discourage). Every sister had a different story to tell about him. Depending on the narrator, he was:

bad to the bone,

painfully shy,

proud and arrogant,

misunderstood and lonely

or (in the language of an era before political correctness)

a nutcase.

I wondered how the sisters could have such diverse perceptions of this man. Five girls had grown up in the same house, with the same parents, had been taught the same values, had known the same person and, yet, each seemed to describe someone totally unique. Another lesson for a writer-to-be: the power of point of view.

It even occurred to me that there might be five brothers with identical faces and different personalities. How else could five sisters have such varied accounts of the same person? I longed to know this man, to see which sister had it right. 

Eventually, I understood that they were all right. Each had seen a different side of the same complex person and each had filtered what they had seen through their own set of complexities. So I learned the most important lesson of all – that every human being is a puzzle and the writer’s challenge is to keep adding pieces until all the baffling inconsistencies merge into a recognizable whole. Do that, and you’ll have a character who lives beyond your pages and a story worth listening to.

How about you? What’s your best source of inspiration?