Characters

First, I wrote over 500 words Sunday - not much, but better than nothing. You people have put me in a quandry. I had no scenes linking those two excerpts, so now I'm busy filling. Hmmmm. Meanwhile, here's what the The Devil You Know storyboard looks like.

You can also tell because of Bubba (who is not a small cat) how big it is. I not only use pictures of actors/actresses, but also images to describe my character. For instance, on "Nathan's" side is a photo of a man in a chair smoking a pipe. Actors are good because then you can find pictures that often "go" with your story, like George Clooney running from the exploding car in the movie "Peacemaker". Now, Nathan was in the car, not running from it, but it still fits. I have a lot more "image" pictures on Maddie's side (played by Kimberlin Brown) because finding pictures of her I like was hard to do, but I have enough. I also have houseplans of the various homes, plus a store, etc. I do this to keep myself from going the wrong way - you know, turning left to the bedrooms instead of to the right. Obviously, I'm not finished with it yet. I've changed the secondary character of Travis, so will have to fix that on the board and the cover (which I showed here). A cover, if you don't remember, is what is used for traveling, small enough to fit into a laptop case, for example.

More below.

Tuesday Musings

Couple of questions from yesterday’s blog. Siobhan – Wallyworld is the nickname for Walmart. And yes, there are a lot of soap actors on my boards. I do this for two reasons. There are a few soap magazines and it’s easier to find them than to scan several “variety” type rags for one or two precious pictures of someone for my characters. I like to have several pictures of the person representing many moods, especially if I’m not that familiar with their work. Secondly, you can find more casual or action pics of soap stars. Scenes from the show, etc. In mags they’re more formal shots, posed for the sitting. Take yesterday’s “cover” (that’s what I call them). There’s a photo of my heroine Maddy aiming a gun, which she actually does in the book AND Clooney (my hero of course) running from a car explosion, only in the book he’s the one in the explosion. They add to character dimensions that I’m looking for. I also make up writing tapes/CD’s for each book. Some have words, others don’t. If I’m in the zone it doesn’t matter if there are words or not, but if I’m having trouble, am easily distracted then I have to go with instrumental. For example, on Maddie and Nathan’s tape is the Theme from Somewhere in Time and Etta James singing At Last. Since they are mysteries, you’ll also find songs like Smugglers Blues and In the Air Tonight. Ambience, so to speak. These books were about the Delmont siblings and Clare Delmont was the youngest. When she takes to the floor at the local bar, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Look at Little Sister plays. It gives me a feeling for the character. This is another of the covers, the book is Gifts from the Devil. I’ll get back to them some day. They call to me every once in a while just to let me know they’re waiting.

Who are They?

What about your characters? Do you ever decorate their houses? When I was working on The Devil You Know, I had storyboards with not only the characters pictures, but clothes, cars, houses, rooms, etc. I even went so far as to use one of those home design programs and “drew” out their homes. It helped to keep me from turning right from the kitchen to the bedrooms in one chapter and to the left in another. Having the house plans drawn out like that came in handy. How much into detail do you go when creating your characters?

Oh, and that's Aidan and BooBear.

It's 9 - 5 Thursday at work, so y'all behave yourselves while I'm gone.