Creating characters

I'm reading Sherlock Holmes: The American Years, and in one of the stories, a young Sherlock Holmes meets Dr. Joseph Bell, who is supposed to have been Arthur Conan Doyle's real-life model for Holmes.

That got me thinking about creating characters. In a blog post I wrote about the book, I said I liked the idea that Holmes sort of sprang Athena-like from Doyle's head, whole and fully-formed. That may be true to some extent, but knowing that a real person was the model for Holmes was a bit of bummer.

Then that got me thinking. Keir and Gabriel and even Angela are probably based on real people, but insofar as I need a face to work with. Keir now resembles Jonathan Rhys Meyers just because of the coldness of his Henry VII. Gabe is Dwayne Johnson-like with a heavy dose of Vin Diesel. Those men are models in more of a physical sense.

But I think the closest thing I've done to using a model is Chase. He's morphed over the years as I have, but he is a real person. I've never met him, don't know anything about him, except that he's a musician -- a good one -- and you can his CD on itunes. He didn't grow up to be the guy I grew him up into. When we were both younger, I wrote him more closer to the kid I watched afternoons on TV. But as I've grown up, he's become whatever I've needed him to be. Or whatever Kyle has needed him to be.

I'm rambling. My point was it's disturbing to think my people aren't really mine. I don't want them to be based on real people. I want them to be wholly unique unto themselves. I want to be the one who gives their voices an outlet. But I'm not sure if that's possible. People themselves aren't originals. I mean, we all are composites of others, right?

Hmm. Not sure how I feel about that. Other than maybe feeling a bit better about my purely physical models. I can use what I know to fill in their shells, but their insides are unique to themselves.

On reading and writing dirty

Oscar Wilde said something to the effect of when discussing the act of love, you have two choices: the language of the gutter or the language of science.

I encounter this often, in reading and in writing. I'm a lover of words, and I love nothing more than how words -- just words -- can turn me on. But I admit there's a distinct point where you cross the line from sexy to silly.

Case in point: In Zane's Buck Wild book, some of the words she used had be rolling my eyes. Mainly because people don't talk like that, but also because some of the words were just ... stupid. The body parts she talked about may as well have been plastic for all the heat they carried. What was supposed to have been hot quickly devolved in to hokey.

I like my dirty book-talk to be a bit ... humid. I mean, if the words do their job, they (and I) should be humid, which is defined as "containing or characterized by perceptible moisture especially to the point of being oppressive" and I'll add "but in a good way."

Zane's Buck Wild characters had none of that. They had the sex without the sensuality, which sucked.

I'm conscious of that when writing love and sex scenes (which are, in fact, two different things). And, going back to Wilde's words, I skew a bit more toward the gutter, depending on whose point of view I'm writing from. "His"/"hers" can be as sexy as "mine" and "me."

But, funnily enough, "vagina" is never sexy.

Begin at the beginning

This is the hardest part for me.

I had the perfect opening scene. I can recreate it in my head. It sets up the issues Gabe has his family. (I think one of his two brothers will be named Dominic and/or Nicolas. And we get Dom, Nico and Gabe. I like that. I think Gabe has to be the youngest or the oldest. I like that the older boy goes astray. I think that will increase the conflict with the family. Dad has to wait for the others to follow in his footsteps when everyone thought it would be Gabe. Oddly enough, Gabe has to be his Mom's favorite. She always wanted a better life and Gabe is going to get that, despite his father and her husband. Maybe.)

What I really want to see is the switching and the instant de-evolution Gabe goes through when he goes home. So I'm not sure which is the best way to show that: him at home first or him in his other life first?

He has to retro completely on Keir.

I need to just start the opening. I find myself just writing things to use later. Overheard conversations that I don't want to forget, like the first time Angie sees Keir. I know the gist of how that will go. The funny thing is it's part story and part scene, or play. I still have figured out what I'm doing format-wise.

I have figured out that's not very important. I can go back and forth for months, even years, as it turns out, on which format I should use. And all that time, the best thing for be to do was just begin at the beginning. Sometimes my blooming brilliance is late.

Too much

I'm a little in love with Keir.

And because of that, I'm doing what I tend to do when I'm love: I. Am. Consuming. Him.

I'm trying to find out all there is to know about him in my head. Or finding out in my head all there is to know about him. The hot and cold thing about Keir is he's sort of blocking me. All I get is ice.

I get flashes of him in a darkened 5-star restaurant pouring Angie a glass of red wine. He may be in a dark suit with a crisp, crystal shirt. And he's just listening to her. He's like that. He's quiet so you just keep talking, but then there's a moment when the silence gets awkward and you wonder what he's doing with everything you just told him. You know he's going to do something with it.

The thing is, I think I may need to move on from Keir, right now. I know enough to listen to him talk. But what's happening is I'm filling in the silence for him because apparently it's not time for his Grand Entrance.

I have a picture of Angela. She's the hardest because she's probably the opposite of my Mary Sue. She's going to be shy, awkward, controlling, steely, mushy, brave and afraid of her shadow. She's going to be Kyle.

She's going to be me. Sigh.

Bird by Bird

I went on an interview in New York before I graduated from college. The woman ran the NYC office of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I dont remember much of what she told me, except that I should read Bird by Bird by Annie LaMott.

I did, and it's basically about how you have to take life and writing one thing at at time -- idea, character, whatever. Just one thing at a time.

And I get that intellectually. But there is nothing I love more than getting carried away. Getting caught up. I love it. I love it when my characters make me cry and I didn't see it coming.

I love it when I can literally, literarily feel Chase's kisses, up high and down low. I love it that the man on paper turns me on. I love getting "well and truly rolled" (to quote a Laurell K. Hamilton phrase) by my creations.

Keir -- if that even is his real name -- rolls me. Gabriel rolls me. Angela hurts me, but I get her. Almost too much. The one thing she wants is the one thing that will be her undoing. I get that. God, do I get that.

I haven't let the words well and truly roll me in a long, long time. We've had one-night stands and flings over the years. But it's been a good decade since I let them in, or out, as the case may be.

Maybe the words are like sex? I can survive without them. I don't have to have them. Not really. I can do the flings and the one-night stands. I can even help myself help myself. But when I'm with them, when we're sweating and moaning and groaning and tangled up together, there's nothing like it. I can't duplicate that. I can't duplicate how it is when it's good. When it's me and them and us. To have that, I have to have that. To get it, I have to do it.

I miss it. I miss being on top of the words, riding them, bouncing on them. I miss the pressure of being under the words, feeling them rock against them, hearing that skin-on-skin sound, pushing up into them to meet them pushing down into me.

I miss what comes from being laid like that.

Yeah, I'm scared.

So there it is.

I'm afraid of the characters in my head. I'm afraid of how in love I am with the idea in my head. It's sort of like Athena -- ready to spring from my brain fully formed and ready to kick ass.

That's comforting in that I really shouldn't have to do anything but let it write itself. But it's also paralyzing because Athena, a.k.a. The Idea, is excellent in my head. It's golden. It's brilliant. It's beautiful. I don't know if I could make it so or keep it so if I tried to write it down. If I got involved.

My gut tells me all I really have to do is take dictation. Just sort of be a play-by-play announcer. But even that is daunting. These people are real and swift, and I can't watch all the plays and cover the whole story. I am only human.

My gut also tells me no one -- absolutely no one -- can tell this story like I can. What that means is the only one standing in my way is me.

I wrote a poem once for a boy, for Brian, and it was about how he met God in a dream. God was pissed that His creation was wasting the life he was given. God said to him something like

I made you in my image
I gave you your rough edges, your heart
Soul and your eyes.
I made you My Sun
and now you're afraid to rise

I'm usually at my best when I'm throwing stones.

Because here's the thing: I am good at this, goddamn it. I am really good at this. I know I am.

The fear, then? That's easy. It's:

What if I'm not?

So I start small. I introduce myself to Gabriel, Angela and Keir. See if they like me.

Don't sell yourself short

I've learned never to doubt my ability to turn a phrase. I said this. I said this:

"Sometimes I get humbled by the universe's ability to give me what I need at the sacrifice of what I think I might want."

It came from meeting Ms. Wilson. I needed someone to give me direction, and she suddenly appeared with a question for me. It was bartering knowledge, I think. I thought I wanted someone to teach me how, when what I needed was someone to make me do it myself.

"Overwrite, overwrite, overwrite"

I met Angela Wilson today by asking her a question over email. She's a playwright, screenwriter and co-founder of Theater Quorum in Dallas.

She broke down Writing into gems. One of which was:

"Overwrite, overwrite, overwrite. Use repetitive adjectives. Then in the hard edit the muse will tell you what to get rid of. AND she will tell you what kind of shoes she wears."

She just created my new motto, mantra and mandate.