This is an author's blog written by Pico Triano. 'Pico's Profile' will tell you a little about me. 'Pico's Stuff' will lead you to links and information on how you can access all my publicly available writing. 'Friends and Family' advertises websites on behalf of family and friends. The 'Friend Book Reviews' page is where I review materials written by the many friends I have made as a writer. Finally I recently added a review page for general reviews.

Monday 25 February 2013

LSDL Character Development Part I

LSDL is short for Let Sleeping Dogs Lie which is the title of the first novel I've written. It will be published soon. If all goes well it will be released early this spring. I did want to add some content to the site here that would give bits of information about writing this book. All my major characters started out as ideas and sort of evolved throughout the writing process. I thought it would be cool to go through some of the background of these characters for any interested readers.

Christine Jette

My heroine goes first even though she is not the main character of the book. She started out as a newspaper picture of a young lady from the eastern townships that disappeared while I was living in that part of the country. I found the picture compelling in a lot of ways. Petite, attractive, young, with an air of innocence about her. I don't think she or her body were ever found. As a Canadian I like to think of my country as being a relatively safe place to live. People like her do disappear though often tragically. Sometimes a body is found sometimes not. Sometimes the perpetrators of the crime come to justice, sometimes not. The picture haunted my thoughts. I kept that picture for quite awhile. Not sure what happened to it. Casting her as my heroine and finding a name for her was relatively easy. I did what a lot of writers do. I asked the question: What if? And I asked it over and over.

Her personality is based on a mixture of traits of real people I knew while living in the Eastern Townships. She's sweet and intelligent and a bit of a sucker at the beginning of the book. That's what gets her into frightening trouble. That trouble gets her tangled up in my hero's nightmare.

In my first draft, she started out naive to the point of coming across as stupid. It didn't suit her. Her motives and personality were strong though and she didn't behave while I was writing her. She kept trying to dominate the book. I had to sit her down and explain to her that Mark Rathman was the main character and she needed to behave herself. I also had to tell her that she could claim Mark for herself, but she was going to have to wait until the end of the story. Had to rip up and rewrite four or five chapters because of that. Novel ended up in a writer's block dead end because of it. Once she settled down I was able to finish that first draft. She easily ranks as the most difficult to control character in the whole cast.

There's lots more to say about her, but I don't want to give away much of the story.


Related Articles and Links

Sneak Peek: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Chapter I
Making a new major character for Rat in the Shadows
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV

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