Ever meet people- you know,those exuberant, enjoy life (or hate life) , type of folks who you'll always remember-and then find them in your book?
Sometimes when I look back over my work I recognise people, or at least, pieces of people who I know in real life. Their personalities have worked their way into my writing and turned into characters. Maybe they're not exactly like the real life person but their spirit is there, dancing on my pages. And I never saw it happen.
I didn't sit down at my keyboard and say I'm going to put Kevin in here, or I'll make Scott into this tall, suave executive or hey, Sean would make a great artist type...
No, I didn't see them hop between the pages and come to life. But I guess the essence of their life has so impacted me that a part of my subconscious built entire characters around them.
My latest WIP (or at least one of them) started with a car accident. My car got hit from behind. I drive a bright yellow car and never thought anyone would hit me....how do they not see me? The car practically glows in the dark! But they did, slammed me good. So this made me think...what if someone hit someone from behind on purpose? Motivation? Other motivation? Ultimate outcome? Who's the winner here? What if the tables turned suddenly and the hittee becomes the winner? Or the hittee planned all this from the start?
So guess who's in my WIP now? Or at least a piece of him.
Do you see real peeps in your characters? Or at least a little bit of them?
4 comments:
That's cool, Aimless! I can't think that I've ever done that. I've never been good at the what-if game, but the best writers are!
I'm always what-if-ing. Sometimes its scary.
rats, sorry bout your car... mine was backed into by snow plow op, he denies it grrrrrrrrrrrr
lawyer told me to sue the building owner for hiring an idiot, and my costs....
as for characters, all mine are bits of me... and folks i've met, but not so they'd recognize themselves
I do this ALL the time! I'm always seeing people I meet as potential characters. In fact, I see everything as a potential novel. I think my brain is overactive. :-P
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