Here's a legit question for you, Lynn...how do you start the process? Does some flash of insight pop up, get filed for later use, then you work on amassing them all into some semblance of order...do paragraphs just spit themselves out? Does a story line spring full-grown into your consciousness and (like Jeff Hoke would say) just let you follow the lines that are already on the paper? Character creation and development - setting - time - technolgoy(ies) - economic and social, political, societal issues - plot structuring and plot development - and so much more - how do you get that all started, my friend? Details, dialogue, monologs, accent, inflection, underlying emotion or lack of it, the baseline of classical Greek personalities from sanguine to choleric to melancholy to phlegmatic...where do you start your stori(ies - I can see where this latest one you published Ch. 1 of starts with a guy with history and a past romantic grand gesture, for instance...) and where do you take them? Do they take you where don't want to go sometimes? These are dumb questions for someone my age, I know, yet, one always goes to the more-informed for insight. Hence, I turn to you. BTW, sweetie (can I say that!?!) I really hope your knee replacement is fully healed or nearly-so, and that you're well and happy, my friend. There are times I find I do in fact miss you. Good to see that perhaps your stress levels may be returning to at least manageable. Anyway, I'm genuinely interested in your input. Did I ever send you a copy of my little pseudo-novel some years ago? It's okay if you laugh now, in case I did send it HA!
March 12th, 4:39pm
Monday 11:42am
I took the time to develop some characters for my new novel so I could answer this intelligently. I have two types of characterization. The first (and favored) sort springs from my mind fully formed, fully dressed and fully three dimensional. These are rare indeed. The second type is built up layer by layer, writing down the way they dress, speak, act, and even make love. Both the fully-formed and the layered characters come to me from images. I study faces, and every once in a while one of them starts whispering to me. When I can listen, I do. I let THEM tell their stories. I have tossed so many plot outlines because the characters simply want to go another way.
I also have to draw each main character, possibly many times until they live for me. A very important part of the exposition of character is through dialog. I speak every line aloud. When I was working on a spec script for Star Trek: Next Gen, I drove my family mad imitating the characters aloud.
One novel (as yet unpublished) started when I got my toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. Suddenly I saw- in my mind's eye) a sports car exploding into flame, incinerating the man inside. His wife, still at the door after kissing him goodbye, screamed and ran forward. Before I got my toe unstuck, I knew him, knew her and felt their love.
Other books are built up layer by layer, of pictures drawn and clipped, of notebooks full of notes, and sometimes dreams. No matter what, my stories always start with the character.
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