It’s one thing to endow imaginary characters with hopes and dreams and Dark Moments and Wounds, Lies and Fears. It’s something else all together to go mucking around in my oh-so real hopes and dreams … and hurts.
If we want to write real characters who make our readers laugh out loud or cry as they turn the pages of our books, they we have to delve into our hearts and remember the events and the people who made us laugh out loud and cry behind closed doors — or in public.
My decision to layer in stronger, deeper emotion into Somebody Like You cost me more than I ever anticipated. Why? Because if I wanted my imaginary characters to express emotions that my readers connected with, I had to tap into very real emotions inside me.
While the story is a contemporary romance, it also examines themes of twins and family, widowhood and grief, loss, estrangement, brokenness … all wrapped around the Story Question: Can a young widow fall in love with her husband’s reflection?
Another question I had to answer? How honest was I going to be as I wove stronger, deeper emotion into my novel?
At the beginning of a novel, a character starts out in his identity – who he thinks he is. By the end of the story, if you’ve developed the story correctly, he ends up in his essence – who he really is.
Yes, I’m on deadline — several deadlines as a matter of fact.
I have two blog posts due tomorrow and I’m slogging away at a novella rewrite that’s due March 1.
Even so, here I sit with my TV tuned to the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Am I wasting my time? No, not at all.
I have no Olympian aspirations, but watching these athletes have taught me a few things that are transferable to the writing life.
In his e-book, Imagination @ Work, my writing friend, author Alton Gansky, posed this question: What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
Fun question, that.
It makes you exhale all the tension – the why nots and can’ts – and breathe in all the possibilities. The tantalizng aroma of dreams.
