The Villians
Mike Zapparoli, Serge Cote and Francois Rodrigues are bad bad bad. While I like to create more complex antagonists, I didn't make much effort to give these guys any likable characteristics. I was more interested in making them "real". Probably put as much time into developing these characters in profile as I did the hero and heroine. Dialog and actions had to realistically portray what a person in their line of work would be like.
Characters like them bring along a certain amount of violence and foul language. I tried my best to keep those things to a minimum. Most of the violence is "off camera". I don't think there is anything there that is unnecessary to the story. Realistically people of their ilk will cuss. They have much cleaner mouths than some of the people I encounter on a regular basis. These things are not the focus of this story and I won't be making that the focus of any future work. My goal is to tell a believable story not to shock or upset.
I don't want to give away too much information about my villains. Hopefully they will add the spice the story needs to make it exciting and interesting.
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 I
LSDL Character Development Part II
LSDL Character Development Part IV
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Monday, 25 February 2013
LSDL Character Development Part II
Mark Rathman
I grew up reading spy novels, organized crime, adventures and more. In those types of stories false identities come up and this fascinated me just a bit. One of the problems with false identities is that they have history that goes back only so far and then becomes very vague or just doesn't exist. What if a person had multiple alter egos from birth or from very near the beginning of life? This would have to be some kind of second generation spy whose parents or some organization created these identities for him. How could such a person believably come into existence? This concept of a character kicked around in my head for years before any kind of story line developed to go along with it.
One night my wife and I were in bed kicking around story ideas and during that conversation I came up with the basic elements that turned into Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. It took a decade of learning about writing and then finding the discipline to put a first draft together. The book "The Weekend Novelist" by Robert J Ray was a big part of that process. Studying writing with The Children's Literature Institute also was a big help. Finally learning about NaNoWriMo and the idea behind it was the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place for me. All I needed was a spark. It just came to me. That spark was knowing where in all that pile of back story was the point where the book had to start. I knew the story had to start on the train where Mark and Christine meet. From there I wrote. The motives of these two characters propelled the story.
Mark is a lot like myself in a lot of ways. My intention was not to make a supercharged version of myself, but to have that much in common made it easier to get inside his head. We're the same height, we both played basketball, both do a lot of cycling and play harmonica. It made it easier to use my own experiences to breathe life into his character. We are significantly different as well. Outside of general size and build we don't look anything alike.
Mark's back story generated a complete first draft manuscript called "The Shadow Sleeps". That was my NaNoWriMo story for 2012. There is a novel length story in between the two manuscripts as well with a definable beginning middle and end. I am hoping to write that for Camp NaNoWriMo in April. Whether either of those get developed further hasn't been decided yet. I'm not sure creating a character that readers will like and then kill her off is such a good idea. I will likely bounce that thought off friends and fans here on this blog. I do have one solid vote for the yes side besides myself, but no decision either way is made at this point.
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 I
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV
I grew up reading spy novels, organized crime, adventures and more. In those types of stories false identities come up and this fascinated me just a bit. One of the problems with false identities is that they have history that goes back only so far and then becomes very vague or just doesn't exist. What if a person had multiple alter egos from birth or from very near the beginning of life? This would have to be some kind of second generation spy whose parents or some organization created these identities for him. How could such a person believably come into existence? This concept of a character kicked around in my head for years before any kind of story line developed to go along with it.
One night my wife and I were in bed kicking around story ideas and during that conversation I came up with the basic elements that turned into Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. It took a decade of learning about writing and then finding the discipline to put a first draft together. The book "The Weekend Novelist" by Robert J Ray was a big part of that process. Studying writing with The Children's Literature Institute also was a big help. Finally learning about NaNoWriMo and the idea behind it was the last piece of the puzzle to fall into place for me. All I needed was a spark. It just came to me. That spark was knowing where in all that pile of back story was the point where the book had to start. I knew the story had to start on the train where Mark and Christine meet. From there I wrote. The motives of these two characters propelled the story.
Mark is a lot like myself in a lot of ways. My intention was not to make a supercharged version of myself, but to have that much in common made it easier to get inside his head. We're the same height, we both played basketball, both do a lot of cycling and play harmonica. It made it easier to use my own experiences to breathe life into his character. We are significantly different as well. Outside of general size and build we don't look anything alike.
Mark's back story generated a complete first draft manuscript called "The Shadow Sleeps". That was my NaNoWriMo story for 2012. There is a novel length story in between the two manuscripts as well with a definable beginning middle and end. I am hoping to write that for Camp NaNoWriMo in April. Whether either of those get developed further hasn't been decided yet. I'm not sure creating a character that readers will like and then kill her off is such a good idea. I will likely bounce that thought off friends and fans here on this blog. I do have one solid vote for the yes side besides myself, but no decision either way is made at this point.
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 I
LSDL Character Development Part III
LSDL Character Development Part IV
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
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
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Blog Clean up.
Cleaned some garbage off the blog here. Now that I've figured all that out I can started adding more content. To come is details of how my book "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie" developed. I hope that it will give some inspiration to other aspiring novelists. Stay tuned.
Once I've added content that will make visiting worthwhile, I'll solicit friends and family to come and visit.
Another project is to work on the friends and family page. I will advertise for friends and family at no charge especially within the arts at my discretion of course. I'm blessed with a lot of talented friends and family that will make that page well worth visiting.
Once I've added content that will make visiting worthwhile, I'll solicit friends and family to come and visit.
Another project is to work on the friends and family page. I will advertise for friends and family at no charge especially within the arts at my discretion of course. I'm blessed with a lot of talented friends and family that will make that page well worth visiting.
Saturday, 9 February 2013
Signed Publishing Contract
Big news for me this week. Will give my writing a whole lot of impetus. Signed a publishing contract for my first novel "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". I am looking forward to the process of final editing and all the other work this means for me. Now that I'm this far I'm hoping that the book sells well.
Saturday, 12 January 2013
New Year, New Blogger, New Goals
Managed set a goal of making a post per week commitment to my writing blog here only to find that things have been shuffled around a bit in my absence. No big problem. They had a little video clip that got my on the right track. At least I know where the basics are and can create posts.
I am waiting for a contract to come in the mail from a publisher for "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". If all goes well the book will be released in the early spring. Will annoy all my friends and acquaintances with that when it finally happens.
Writing goals for this year are to produce at least two more complete rough draft manuscripts for novels before the end of the year. That's pretty ambitious. I intend to do NaNo and Camp NaNo this year to do that.
The plan for the blog here at this point is to post something once per week. Probably do that Saturday evening providing my schedule with work and all don't get modified significantly. That is a big if. My job situation is not that stable.
I am waiting for a contract to come in the mail from a publisher for "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". If all goes well the book will be released in the early spring. Will annoy all my friends and acquaintances with that when it finally happens.
Writing goals for this year are to produce at least two more complete rough draft manuscripts for novels before the end of the year. That's pretty ambitious. I intend to do NaNo and Camp NaNo this year to do that.
The plan for the blog here at this point is to post something once per week. Probably do that Saturday evening providing my schedule with work and all don't get modified significantly. That is a big if. My job situation is not that stable.
Thursday, 6 December 2012
Time To Make This An Active Blog Again
Have been very busy with my writing. Just not here on this blog. Just a thumbnail sketch of what I've been up to.
Did a comprehensive rewrite of "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". A publisher, through a writer friend, who will remain nameless for the time being has been interested in my first manuscript. I kicked my own butt to fix all the issues in the story that I felt needed to be dealt with to show I'm serious about writing. This was a massive undertaking and meant rewriting a great deal of the story. Much happier with the third draft. This bit of news is still on going. The initial submission included only excerpts. They've since requested the full manuscript. I'm still waiting on pins and needles for a reply.
Second item on my writing agenda was NaNoWriMo 2012. I thought I'd give it a try this year in spite of an extremely tight schedule. I kept up and decided not to let my three participating children show me up. The result is currently called "The Shadow Sleeps". I can now call myself a NaNo winner. I posted it entirely on www.writing.com today. Didn't set up the restrictions correctly but I'll get to that in fairly short order. Not before tomorrow. Easily the roughest draft I've ever created. Won't be editing that for a long while. There are more important things for me to do.
Third item was to get this blog back in action. Posting this is at least a start.
Future work is to turn "Rat in the Shadows" into a full manuscript. That is the one that I believe has the highest chance of being published out of my existing projects. I did start a manuscript for a book to fit between the new prequel "The Shadow Sleeps" and "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", but that will rest for the time being. Finally item on my to do list is write an article showing how I work and make a bit of cash on MyLot. Hope to use it to recruit some referrals.
My next update should be posted here a lot faster than this one.
Did a comprehensive rewrite of "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie". A publisher, through a writer friend, who will remain nameless for the time being has been interested in my first manuscript. I kicked my own butt to fix all the issues in the story that I felt needed to be dealt with to show I'm serious about writing. This was a massive undertaking and meant rewriting a great deal of the story. Much happier with the third draft. This bit of news is still on going. The initial submission included only excerpts. They've since requested the full manuscript. I'm still waiting on pins and needles for a reply.
Second item on my writing agenda was NaNoWriMo 2012. I thought I'd give it a try this year in spite of an extremely tight schedule. I kept up and decided not to let my three participating children show me up. The result is currently called "The Shadow Sleeps". I can now call myself a NaNo winner. I posted it entirely on www.writing.com today. Didn't set up the restrictions correctly but I'll get to that in fairly short order. Not before tomorrow. Easily the roughest draft I've ever created. Won't be editing that for a long while. There are more important things for me to do.
Third item was to get this blog back in action. Posting this is at least a start.
Future work is to turn "Rat in the Shadows" into a full manuscript. That is the one that I believe has the highest chance of being published out of my existing projects. I did start a manuscript for a book to fit between the new prequel "The Shadow Sleeps" and "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", but that will rest for the time being. Finally item on my to do list is write an article showing how I work and make a bit of cash on MyLot. Hope to use it to recruit some referrals.
My next update should be posted here a lot faster than this one.
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