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Category Archives: Fiction Characters

Interview of Fictional Character by Fictional Character – Part 5

11 Jul

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

“Live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway.”

– Webb Chiles

Starting with this week’s post, Bast Overture, crime reporter turned PI will be interviewing characters from the other stories in Beyond the Tripping Point. Some of them will require him to do a variation of time travel. This week’s interview is with Elsa Richards, the main character in “16 Dorsey St.” Elsa and Bast are in the same time frame (late 1990s).

Bast: You are a fashion designer who works from home?

Elsa:  Yes, I prefer that because my boss, Monsieur Louie is always breathing down my neck at his place. I’m a very creative person and I need solitude to create my best. It’s like I’m in another world with all senses, all areas of my mind focused on the current dress or skirt.

Bast: But your new home, an apartment in a former old Rosedale home doesn’t turn out to be so solitary. Could you elaborate?

Elsa: The other tenants were mad and scary old people. It makes me shudder to think about them.

Bast: I understand. But could you tell us something about them?

Elsa: (Takes a deep breath). Okay. Did you ever watch those old Frankenstein movies starring Boris Karloff? (Bast nods). Well, Harold Marchant has a face just like him. But believe me, he doesn’t move around stiffly like Frankenstein. And the old biddy, Winnifred Hoyle – her eyes just bulge out so far you’d think they would pop out. She says she’s a retired school teacher.

Bast: Probably scared her students into studying?

Elsa: (chuckles slightly). Probably. Don’t know when she was a teacher, maybe in the 1940s because that’s how she dresses, complete with padded suit jackets and nylons with seams. Who wears stockings with seams anymore?

Bast: Didn’t you think for a time that there was a third person living in the old house?

Elsa: Well, I suppose so.

Bast: Tell me about that.

Elsa: I’d go out to run errands and such and when I returned I’d find some of my things like my lipstick and hairbrush moved from where I put them. I’m very particular where I put my stuff. Then there was that wig. I couldn’t figure out where that came from until my sister, Sylvia, reminded me of a Halloween party costume I word a few years ago.

Bast: That brings up my next question. You tell your story through emails to your sister. Why is that?

Elsa: Because, Sylvia doesn’t live in Toronto. I know; there is the phone. But I’m like you a computer techie and then there is the privacy issue. Our mother keeps popping unannounced into Sylvia’s place and stays for a bit. So Sylvia and I don’t want her to know about all out conversations.

Bast: Your mother comes up with a cryptic revelation later on in “16 Dorsey St.” What do you think of that?

Elsa: I’d rather not say. I go through a harrowing experience…

Bast: That’s right. Life threatening, even.

Elsa: Sh. We don’t want to tell the readers all.

Bast: Right. Well, thank you Elsa for your time and I hope you, your sister and your mother can sort out all these, er, matters.

You can read more about Elsa, her sister and the scary oldsters in my mystery short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point, (Blue Denim Press, 2012). Click on the book at the top and it takes you to my profile – including books reviews – at www.amazon.com. The book is available there in print and Kindle. For Kobo e-book  go to http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search/?keywords=Beyond%20the%20Tripping%20Point or go to any bricks and mortar store and order in a print copy.

The video link to my thatchannel.com interview and reading from Beyond the Tripping Point on You Tube can now be accessed via the new page “Video” at the top of this blog.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on July 11, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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Interview with Fiction Characters By Fictional Character – Part 3

27 Jun

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

Writing is a struggle against silence.

–          Carlos Fuentes

Bast takes on perhaps the most difficult interview so far – with his seven-year-old nephew David Bowman. David has become psychologically mute because of a traumatic experience in the pre-quel novel Beyond Blood. David appears in the four linked stories in Beyond the Tripping Point – “Gone Missing,” “Saving Grace,” “Digging Up the Dirt” and “Road Raging.”

Bast: David, let’s play private eye. Let’s pretend I’m the private investigator and I’m interviewing you. I know…

Dana (who has sneaked into the room and interrupts): You are a PI little brother and David knows this.

Bast: Sis, I’m trying to conduct an interview here. Your turn will come next week.

Dana: Okay then. Let’s see what David thinks about this.

Bast: Fine. David, do you want your mother present during this interview.

David shakes his head “no.”

Bast (smiling): Dana, your son has spoken.

Dana: Okay. (shrugs her shoulders and leaves the room).

Bast: Now David, is it okay if we play PI and I ask you questions.

David nods “yes.”

Bast: Good. Now I know you won’t speak, so I’ll keep most questions to “yes” and “no” answers, but here’s a pen and notepad for you to write your answers on.”

David pushes the pen and pad away and shakes his head “no” vigorously. He picks up his box of crayons, dumps the crayons out on the table, and grabs his sketch pad.

Bast (shrugs): Okay. In “Saving Grace” you kept pushing your mother to find the missing Grace. Was that because of what happened to you last year?

David picks up a red crayon and starts drawing a girl’s face. Then he picks up a black crayon and draws a boy’s face. He colours in the hair yellow. Underneath the girl’s face he prints “G” and underneath the boy’s face he draws  “?” He hands the picture to Bast.

Bast (pointing to the boy’s face in the picture). “Is this you David?”

David snatches the picture from Bast, then picks up a black crayon and starts scribbling on the paper. He hands it back to Bast.

Bast (looking at the picture). I see you have crossed out the “?” and put in a “D.” Okay, how did you know where to find Grace?

David picks up an orange crayon and starts drawing on another sheet of paper. When finished, he hands it to Bast.

Bast (looking at this picture). This looks like a doll.

David nods “yes.”

Bast: Would this be Grace’s Raggedy Anne doll?

David nods “yes” and starts wriggling in his seat.

Bast: So, the doll helped you?

David nods “yes” and then shakes his head “no.”

Bast: Which is it David – yes or no?

David grabs a purple crayon and starts scribbling on another piece of paper. When finished he throws the paper at Bast.

Bast: Hm. I don’t understand David. All these purple lines and circles. What do they represent? I mean.

David points to his head and moves his mouth as if trying to make a sound.

Bast: Okay, David. Let’s move on. Now in “Gone Missing,” at one point you are riding with your mother in her car and you drive to the dock at Snow Lake. You made a dramatic change here from complete silence. You…

David jumps up and starts moving around the room as if disoriented, then moves up to Bast and starts stomping his foot.

Dana (now back in the room). “That’s enough Bast. I don’t think David wants to play your game anymore, do you David?

David just continues his foot stomping. Dana goes over to him, crouches down to his level and puts her arm around him. David wiggles and tries to push her away, but eventually the feet and hands go still and he puts his head on Dana’s chest. Loud sobs are coming from him. Bast walks over to them and gets down on his knees.

Bast: Sorry David.

David looks up from Dana and over to Bast. And winks.

You can read more about David, Dana, Bast, Great Aunt Doris, Detective Sergeant Donald Fielding and the others in the four linked stories which are part of my mystery short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point, (Blue Denim Press, 2012. Click on the book at the top and it takes you to my profile – including books reviews – at www.amazon.com. The book is available there in print and Kindle. For Kobo e-book  go to http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search/?keywords=Beyond%20the%20Tripping%20Point

 or go to any bricks and mortar store and order in a print copy.

Next week: Bast interviews his fraternal twin Dana Bowman.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on June 27, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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Interview with Great Aunt Doris from Beyond the Tripping Point

13 Jun

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

We care what happens to people only in proportion as we know what people are.

— Henry James

A couple of weeks ago, my guest blogger Rosemary McCracken interviewed her novels’ main character, Pat Tierney.  In today’s post, Great Aunt Doris, the eccentric old family busybody from two of the linked stories – “Saving Grace” and “Digging Up the Dirt” in my short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point is interviewed by crime reporter turned private investigator, Bast Overture – one of the fraternal twins in the linked stories. A word of note – Great Aunt Doris doesn’t like Bast so she is totally unpredictable.

Bast: Now Aunt Doris, you have been a sort of patriarch of the Bowman family and so have a –

Aunt Doris: I am not your aunt. I’m not even your sister Dana’s aunt. Her husband, Ron Bowman whom she had the stupidity to divorce, is my family and so is his son, David.

Bast: Yes, well, it is your family and its roots I want to talk to you about, especially in relation to this house. How did the Bowman family obtain this house?

Aunt Doris: You got that right. My late father, bless his soul (she crosses herself) bought this house when I was only five and my older  brother George and I lived in it even after Dad died. George got it in his will and he and his wife Ellen lived in it and so did their son, Ronald Bowman who got the house when my brother died. So this house is really his, not yours and Dana’s. Ron should be living here with David, not you and Dana. It…

Bast: Yes, thank you Aunt Doris for this background. I’d like to talk a little bit about your involvement in two of our stories in Beyond the Tripping Point. First, “Digging up the Dirt” where I understand you helped with the investigation. Could you tell us why, especially when you are so against Dana being a PI?

Aunt Doris: Well Dana is the mother of David –

Bast: So you are acknowledging Dana Bowman as the mother of your nephew’s son.

Aunt Doris: Don’t interrupt me young man. Yes, Dana is David’s mother but she sure doesn’t act like one, chasing all over for criminals. But it should be Ron living here to help raise David and keep Dana in line not somebody like you, a queer.

Bast: Ah yes, well I am gay but lots of gay men raise children.

Aunt Doris: But David is not your son.

Bast: True. Now back to my original question – why did you help with the investigation in Digging Up the Dirt?”

Aunt Doris: Because a childhood friend, Douglas Crandock and his mother were murdered during his mother’s 100th birthday celebration and I had to do something. So, I donned my PI gear (Note: slacks, sweater, cap, large magnifying glass and even bigger mouth) and went out and asked questions.

Bast: But my sis…Dana was with you and…?

Aunt Doris: I let her come along but I took a lot of control of the interviews.

Bast: Why is that?

Aunt Doris: Someone had to be blunt and ask the important questions, not skirt around it as Dana does.

Bast: But it was both of you who figured out who and why?

Aunt Doris: Hm…I suppose. But it was my knowledge of my childhood and early adult life and friends that was crucial.

Bast: Very well. Now let’s switch to “Saving Grace” where you, Dana and David went on a holiday to Goderich, Ontario. You also became involved in…

Aunt Doris: It would have been a good holiday if Dana hadn’t meddled in finding that missing girl, Grace what’s her name.

Bast: Milhop, Grace Milhop. But wasn’t it David who drew Dana into looking for Grace?

Aunt Doris: Young man, don’t you point the finger at David – he’s family, blood family.

Bast: True. But David’s situation (Note: mute from the trauma of his own kidnapping the previous year – in the prequel novel) was instrumental in getting him involved and therefore Dana and you, of course. Would you say you were instrumental in getting this case solved well, safely – for Dana and David?

Aunt Doris:  I guess so. I suppose if I hadn’t been there things could have gone much differently. But that doesn’t make it right that Dana is always meddling in these cases, as you call them. She’s a mother first and she should be acting like one. What is David going to grow up as with his mother and you (She glares) raising him?

Bast: Perhaps a private investigator.

Aunt Doris: Not as long as I’m around. I may be 71 but I plan to be around for another 20 years at least.

End of interview:

You can read more about Great Aunt Doris, Bast, Dana, David and the others in the four linked stories which are part of my mystery short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point. Click on the book at the top and it takes you to my profile – including books reviews – at www.amazon.com

Next week: Bast interviews Detective Sergeant Donald Fielding.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Fiction Characters, Interviewing fictional characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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Guest blogger interviews her protagonist

30 May
Rosemary McCracken author of Safe Harbor and Black Water mystery novels

Rosemary McCracken author of Safe Harbor and Black Water mystery novels

Rosemary McCracken has written two mystery novels (so far) – Safe Harbor and Black Water – featuring financial advisor Pat Tierney. Please welcome guest blogger Rosemary McCracken as she interviews this financial expert whose life is anything but usually dull.

Pat, how do you feel about being the main character of a book?

When you decided to make me the central character of Safe Harbor, the first book in her mystery series, I was puzzled. I’m just an ordinary, forty something woman. Widow, mother of two girls, business woman.Nothing special. But you thought people would be interested in me and my adventures.

And, to my amazement, they were. “I can’t wait for the next Pat Tierney installment,” one reader posted on Amazon. “I look forward to seeing what trouble Pat Tierney gets herself into next,” another reader said.

So I’m back—this time in Black Water.

 

Why did you become a financial advisor?

My late husband, Michael, was a financial advisor with a large investment firm, and his enthusiasm for his work was contagious. I took courses, got my accreditation and then joined Michael at the branch he ran.

I love helping my clients get their financial houses in order. It’s important work and I take it very seriously.

 

How did you get yourself involved in a murder investigation—again?

When it comes to my family, I’m a big softie. When Black Water opened, my relationship with my eldest child, Tracy, was stretched to the limits. I had to set it right. So when she asked me to help locate her sweetheart, Jamie, I had no choice in the matter. I headed out to cottage country north of Toronto where an elderly man had been killed in a suspicious fire. And Jamie was the prime suspect.

 

Did the events ofBlack Watermake youa better person?


Definitely. I’ve learned to get to know people before I judge them. I wasn’t at all happy when Tracy introduced me to Jamie—because Jamie is a woman. You see, I had no inkling of my daughter’s sexual orientation. I’d always considered myself a champion of diversity—racial, religious and sexual. But it’s easy to be open-minded until your own kid comes out.

In short, I botched it big time. After I met Jamie, I threw myself into my work, hoping Tracy would get over her infatuation. I made no effort to get to know Jamie.

But when Tracy asked me to help when Jamie went missing, I realized how important Jamie was to her. She wasn’t just friend. Jamie was the special person in my daughter’s life. Her partner.

I also realized that Tracy had been keeping things from me for a long time. I love my daughters and I don’t want them to keep secrets from me. I decided that I’d get to know Jamie, and if she was the one for Tracy, I’d stand by her choice.

The more I learned about Jamie, the more I liked her. She’s an exceptional young lawyer who secured a landmark judgment on behalf of an elderly woman who lost her savings when a financial advisor put them into high-risk investments. Jamie has talent, energy and integrity. And best of all, she’s devoted to Tracy.

 

What was the most challenging situation you found yourself in in Black Water?

That’s a difficult question to answer. I met up with some truly dreadful people in this book, and a couple of times I really thought it was game over for me. But I’d have to say the biggest challenge was driving a huge snowmobile named Molly across a series of frozen lakes in cottage country. I’d never operated a snowmobile before, and the lakes weren’t as frozen as they should have been. At one point, I had to resort to snowmobile skipping. Have you ever heard of snowmobile skipping? It’s driving a snowmobile across a stretch of open water by approaching it at a very high speed. It’s pretty scary. If you don’t make it over that icy water, you sink like a stone.

 

What’s your greatest failing?

I’m a worrier. I worry about everything, which makes bad situations twice as bad. I worry about them beforehand, and then I have to live through them.

 

Can we look forward to reading about you again?

I know that you have  two more books mapped out for me. Looks like I’ll be getting into trouble for some time to come.

Book cover for Black Water

Book cover for Black Water

BLACK WATER: synopsis 

When Pat Tierney’s daughter, Tracy, asks her to help find Tracy’s partner, Jamie Collins, their mother-daughter relationship is stretched to the limits. Pat heads out to cottage country where an elderly man, who killed Jamie’s sister in an impaired driving accident years ago, has perished in a suspicious fire. Unfortunately, Jamie is the prime suspect.

Pat takes charge at the new branch her investment firm has opened in the seemingly idyllic community where Jamie grew up, and her search for Tracy’s missing sweetheart takes her through a maze of fraud, drugs, bikers and murder.

Once again, Pat proves that her family can always count on her.

 Rosemary McCracken has worked on newspapers across Canada as a reporter, arts reviewer, editorial writer and editor. She is now a Toronto-based fiction writer and freelance journalist. Her first mystery novel, Safe Harbor, was shortlisted for Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger in 2010 and published by Imajin Books in 2012. You can buy it here.

Black Water, the second book in the Pat Tierney series, has just been released at the special introductory price of .99! You can buy it here.

Visit Rosemary’s website at http://www.rosemarymccracken.com/.

Follow Rosemary on http://rosemarymccracken.wordpress.com/. And on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RCMcCracken and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/rosemarymccracken?ref=tn_tnmn

 
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Posted by on May 30, 2013 in Blog Tours and Guest Blogging, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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Getting inside your nasty fiction characters

18 Apr

Click on the book cover to go to amazon.com

Click on the book cover to go to amazon.com

If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There’s a tremendous corruptibility for the fiction writer because you’re dealing mainly with sex and violence. These remain the basic themes, they’re the basic themes of Shakespeare whether you like it or not.

– Anthony Burgess

We’ve talked about character development in previous posts and how you have to get inside your characters’ heads to see what makes them tick. That can be a pleasure if the character is basically a good person with some flaws. But what if one of your major fiction characters – such as a serial killer – is a nasty piece of goods and so unlikeable you cringe.

If you just skim the surface of Mr. Nastiness, that is all your readers will see. Worse, they may think he and his actions are superfluous, perhaps somewhat unbelievable, and maybe he comes across as merely thrown into the plot as a solution for a crime.

You need to get under Mr. (or Ms.) Nastiness’s skin – even if they don’t appear in many scenes but are pivotal to your plot and to the reaction of your major characters.

Or the nasty character can be the main character.

In my short story “Missing in Action,” the main character, Chrissie, has a middle-aged uncle who left his family and ran away with his secretary and the secretary’s son, 15 years ago. Unlike most of these scenarios, this secretary was not a sexpot half the uncle’s age. Instead, as this news report states:

One is led to wonder why Roger Stuart ran off with Anita Perez. The name sounds exotic but Perez was not a Mexican beauty. She was on the heavy side, about six inches taller than Stuart’s five foot eight inch slim build. She had been previously married and had a son, Anthony. She was also two years older than Stuart. Stuart’s wife, Sheila, 47, on the other hand, is a petite blonde, slim, with a heart-shaped face. (Copyright 2012 Sharon A. Crawford. Excerpted from Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, 2012).

From this description you can tell that there is something “off” about Ms. Perez. She is taller than her lover and on the heavy side. That could convey that she might have control over Roger Stuart, perhaps even abuse him. Add in she is older, not younger than Stuart’s wife and the reader may wonder what the attraction is…and if it has something to do with Stuart almost emptying his bank account (that’s in the same news story Chrissie finds archived online) and running off with her. Ugly people fall in love, too.

Of course, Ms. Perez appears later in the story and when she does and has a violent confrontation with Chrissie with her son Anthony present, the reader finds out she is a controlling bitch. There are other instances in the story that show Ms. Perez as being Ms. Nastiness. But no more story details. You’ll have to read the book to find out.

If I hadn’t gotten inside Ms. Perez’s head and “dissected” her, she might have come across as a “so what?” character, i.e., what is her relevance?

Then there are the serial killers. I have one in my pre-quel novel (still in rewriting stages) and I had to get inside his head. How do you do this without turning violent yourself?

Here are a few tips for getting inside the head of your nasty characters.

1.      Read about other nasty characters for information and yes, to help get you in the mood.

2.      Pull in any nastiness from what has happened in your life, and the lives of your family, friends and colleagues. But don’t create a character just like them.

3.      For serial killers it does help to watch Criminal Minds if only to see a variety of backgrounds and motivations for serial killers. But don’t copy.

4.      Get inside your nasty character’s head and feel their emotions – rage, anger, unhappiness, resentment, etc. Get a sense of what they look like and speak like.

5.      To help with 4. create a full character outline of Mr. or Ms. Nastiness – their background (for example were they bullied as a child, where they went to school and were they a good student, how they interacted with their parents, siblings, friends, where they work now; are they married or not, gay, heterosexual). Also their physical appearance, traits, likes and dislikes, etc.

6.      Then take a break from Mr. or Ms. Nastiness.

7.      When you write your short story or novel, the nasty character may change from your character outline. Go with that flow. Mr. or Ms. Nastiness is evolving.

8.      When not writing about your nasty character, try not to constantly think about him or her. He or she is not you…or is he? Maybe you are basing your nasty person on you.

For my upcoming events with Beyond the Tripping Point, go to my BTTP page on my website – http://www.samcraw.com/Articles/BeyondtheTrippingPoint.html I continually update it. In particular:

This evening, Thursday, April 18, 2013, 7 p.m.

Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Awards Short List Party Toronto http://crimewriterscanada.com/awards/annual-awards-events/shortlist-events

I’m reading a short suspenseful excerpt from Beyond the Tripping Point. Eleven other CWC readers are reading excerpts from their books as we anxiously await the names of who made the short list. Our books are for sale, too.

Location: Indigo Chapters in the Manulife Centre, Bay St. at Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing

 

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Making your fiction funny

04 Apr
Click on the book cover to go to amazon.com

Sharon A. Crawford’s book. Click on the cover to go to amazon.com

The funniest things are the forbidden … The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

— Mark Twain

I use humour in many of the short stories in my mystery collection Beyond the Tripping Point. My goal is not necessarily to be funny but the characters and their situations need humour, often the black comedy type. My characters are a little off from normal and get themselves in spots where they well, go beyond the tripping point in life and then have to sort it all out. Throw in crime and some of these characters need to go on the light side of life.

One of these stories “The Body in the Trunk” focuses on two close friends, Kelsie and Sally. Kelsie wants to dump her cheating husband but the normal divorce route doesn’t sit well on her shoulders. As she tells Sally,

“Divorce?” cried Kelsie when I’d said as much. “I’d have to split the house, the cottage, the golf set, the home entertainment centre, the BMW and,” she glared at me, “the dog. How do you split a dog? If Harry gets prison for life, he gets nothing and I get everything. And I really want that BMW.” (Excerpted from Beyond the Tripping Point, copyright Sharon A. Crawford, 2012).

\So Kelsie drags Sally into her plan so that Harry will… You didn’t really think I was going to tell you the story, did you? You’ll have to get the book.

Basically I created an original situation which is humorous and had my characters act in offbeat ways that are funny. For example, in a few scenes in the story Kelsie wears a clothespin on her nose. But it ties in with the plot and Kelsie’s character.

So, if you want to create humour in your fiction, your characters must be funny in character. None of this having a character tell jokes unless the character is a stand-up comedian. Otherwise it is forced humour and will fall flat on your reader’s eyes and mind.

Your whole plot can be something offbeat and lend itself to humour (as does “The Body in the Trunk”). And you don’t necessarily want all characters to be funny. Kelsie is, but she is balanced by Sally who while thrust into the ridiculous situation, is not a funny person. The formula for humorous skits applies here – the funny person needs a straight (and I’m not referring to sexual orientation here) person to play against. Of course, there are some humorous skits where both characters are funny. Some of you may remember the skits on the old Carol Burnette TV show. Of course Carol Burnette just has to appear on stage and she gets laughs, but until your characters get well-known in the reading world, it is better to play the funny one against a straight character. The Janet Evanovich series featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is a good example. Stephanie is always getting herself into situations and the humour bounces off the pages.

Which bring me to Point of View – tell the story from the funny character’s POV or another character’s? That depends on who the funny character is – a main character or minor character, protagonist or antagonist, or in the case of mystery-crime stories – one of the suspects. With novels you can have multiple points of view (one POV per scene), so there is some choice. You can get into the funny person’s head and/or the straight person’s head   – with the latter you can get their take on the humorous character. If it is short story you are writing, you need to tell the story from one point of view but either the funny person’s or the straight person’s could work. Unsure which? Try writing your story twice – once from each character’s POV. Then read each out loud and see what seems to work best.

Whatever way you use humour in your novel or short story, make sure it isn’t forced. Readers will pick up on it.

One good thing with humour in book fiction – print, e-book or audio book – readers don’t have to suffer from that awful canned laughter on TV sit-coms…not yet anyway.

And I’m going to relent a little; you can hear me read the beginning of “The Body in the Trunk” from my reading on Liquid Lunch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgOKYgBfAwY&feature=youtu.be

For Sharon A. Crawford’s upcoming events with Beyond the Tripping Point, go to the Beyond the Tripping Point page– http://www.samcraw.com/Articles/BeyondtheTrippingPoint.html I continually update it.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on April 4, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Point of View in Fiction, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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Putting your social causes into your fiction

07 Mar
Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

We care what happens to people only in proportion as we know what people are. — Henry James

Many of the short stories in my collection Beyond the Tripping Point deal with children who get the short end of the stick – missing children, abused children – and trying to save them as well as punishing the perpetrators. For example, in “Unfinished Business,” the protagonist has run away from something terrible that happened to her as a child. When the same evil threatens her daughter, she is forced to do something. Two of the linked stories (“Gone Missing,” “Saving Grace”), featuring fraternal twins Dana Bowman and Bast Overture, and Dana’s seven-year-old son David also focus on finding and saving children. These two stories have an extra kicker as David has been left psychologically mute because of his own bad experience in the prequel novel which I am now working on.

My cause is the safety of children. When I started writing my short stories and the novel I didn’t set out to include this cause. I didn’t realize it was my cause. Many authors have a social cause and they want to get their point across in a short story or novel. The trick is to do so without lecturing or preaching. You don’t want your story bogged down by a character going on ad nauseam about capital punishment, global warming, etc.

How do you get around this?

Make your cause a part of your character and plot. For example, if you are against capital punishment, your protagonist could be a defence lawyer who tries to get the death sentence off the table, or better still, prove the client is innocent. And I don’t mean copying Perry Mason. Or if your cause is justice isn’t there or doesn’t work in the legal system, your protagonist could be a private investigator who goes beyond the law when catching guilty perpetrators. For global warming, your protagonist could be a meteorologist or a geoscientist who has a passion for global warming – for or against.

That’s the characters. Now you have to work them into a plot. The global warming could be a “what if “story, even science fiction (although these days what is happening with weather may kill the science fiction angle – unless you take it to extremes, the world freezing over into snow (already been done in a movie starring Dennis Quaid. Use your imagination. Your protagonist can be the one predicting something like this will happen. Or he or she could be called in by the government to help solve the problem. Or for a twist – he or she could be doing something to escalate or cause the problem (there’s an idea for science fiction).

What runs through stories involving a cause is timeliness. If you set it in the present, your “cause” needs to be something that is going on in the world now. If the cause is something that was dominant in the past, you need to set your stories then. This is something I do with the fraternal twins’ stories and novel. In the novel, part of the plot has to do with something that was big news in the late 1990s, I’m not telling you what, but I will say that it does have to do with children in danger and I also work in other aspects of children in danger, such as kidnappings – something that is unfortunately, always timely.

Another angle for your protagonist and plot is to build in some foreseeing of the future with your protagonist and plot. In the popular Murdock Mysteries TV series, set at the turn of the century (that’s going from the 19th to the 20th century) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the protagonist Detective William Murdock, has great respect for the murdered victim (he is a staunch Catholic who makes the sign of the cross when he first sees the dead body). So he is motivated to find the killer and bring him or her to justice. However, Detective Murdock is a far-seeing investigator who uses pioneering methods (some of which he devises, some already just coming into investigating procedures elsewhere) such as fingerprints to help solve the crime

I suggest you read books by authors who do some of the above and watch some TV series, although with the latter, especially, you need to be careful the writers did their research and got it right. But that is a subject for a future post.

Meantime, check out the three parts of an interview I did last fall (links below), just as my short story collection Beyond the Tripping Point (Blue Denim Press, 2012) came out. I talk about my characters, plots and yes, Murdock Mysteries, one of my favourite TV series. Read some of the books by its creator, Maureen Jennings – she has other series’ mysteries published as well and co-developed a story concept which became the Bomb Girls TV series. Check out Maureen Jennings at http://www.maureenjennings.com/

And check out my online TV interview on thatchannel.com posted in three parts on You Tube at:

Sharon A Crawford Beyond the Tripping Interview No. 1 on Liquid Lunch on thatchannel.com.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScuE2g4cWtc&feature=youtu.be

Sharon Reading from Beyond the Tripping Point on Liquid Lunch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgOKYgBfAwY&feature=youtu.be

Sharon A Crawford Beyond the Tripping Interview No. 2 on Liquid Lunch on thatchannel.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xMhcTRANMY&feature=youtu.be

And don’t forget: clicking on the book cover at the top of this post, links you to Beyond the Tripping Point on www.amazon.com.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on March 7, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Writing

 

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Creating the actual story from real life ideas

14 Feb
Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

In last week’s post I discussed how much of yourself goes into your fiction and listed overall guidelines, especially when the idea isn’t taken from your life. Today, I’m going to show how I gelled a plot idea with the main characters to write a story.

“The Couch,” the first story in my mystery story collection Beyond the Tripping Point, originated with something I kept reading in mystery novels that annoyed me. This was 11 years ago – “The Couch” was previously published in an anthology – but the idea is still relevant today. Too many fictional private investigators seemed to have a hard time making ends meet. I decided to turn that issue around – my PI, named C.U. Fly, called “C.U.”, would be raking in the money from too many clients and was burnt out. C.U. first tried conventional means to downsize and when that didn’t work, C.U. turned to an unusual take on crime. I also used the axiom of “crime doesn’t pay” as my underlying theme. C.U. was 25, so the good fortune wasn’t from many years of work. I threw in one more main “character” an old horsehair couch – that idea came from a horsehair couch that sat in the living room of my late grandfather’s farmhouse. Of course, Grandpa’s couch didn’t have adventures like the fictional old horsehair.

Here’s the beginning of “The Couch.”

I blamed the whole business on that old blue couch. An heirloom on my mother’s side, it was stuffed with horsehair. She’d given it to me when I opened this office. “Old Horsehair” settled in permanently until the bitter crackling end.

How else could I explain my actions? I had no choice. Some days I spent 20 hours in the office. No partner took the load off my shoulders. Only that damn three-seater couch, which sucked in my clients like a magnet. I had repeat clients related to repeat clients.

Or was Ms Everglades to blame?

The story’s theme is set up with the first sentence. The main character’s name and profession aren’t revealed until a few paragraphs down and are done in two ways: first, the PI’s name and a reference to the profession in Ms Everglades’ dialogue.; second, the profession is revealed in a short backstory in Fly’s mind to show how the situation started. How the state-of-affairs progresses is shown in a parade of clients – via dialogue, action and C.U’s inner thoughts. The point of view stays with Fly.

Here’s another excerpt with one of these quirky clients.

Take Guido “Ratty” Rattali, a self-professed blackmailer. Ratty hired me to dig up dirt on well-heeled people. Then he threatened them with their dirt, collected the payoff and limped into my office. He heaved his Blue Jays cap onto the floor, shoved his greasy locks behind his ears and pushed his grimy beige trench coat off his shoulders and down over his ass. Then he dived face-down onto the couch. His sobs alternated with sneezes as his nose rubbed into Old Horsehair.

“I’m only the poor son of a poor greengrocer, achoo, excuse-a-me,” he said.

When his sinuses were completely blocked, he jumped up, tripping on his trench coat, and handed me a wad of cash for my fee—less his take, no doubt. (both excerpts copyright 2012 Sharon A. Crawford,  from Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, 2012)

 

 You can also see how Old Horsehair fits in. And Ratty is an example of the type of clientele, although he is more bent than some of the others. I also add a dog who chews into Old Horsehair and a furnace repair man who comes in to check the furnace downstairs – all necessary developments that foreshadow and lead to the credibility of what Fly eventually decides to do.

Does it work? You’ll have to read the story to find out.

From the above, we can learn the following:

  1. Use a combination of what annoys, scares, or concerns you with perhaps one other item from your life (I used the complaining poor PI’s from fiction and the horsehair couch from my past.)
  2. Use your imagination for your characters – you don’t want a replica or yourself or someone you know – but you can “steal” a few characteristics here (I used imagination only).
  3. Devise a plot for your characters that is not run-of-the mill. (I turned the situation around, using the “what if?” approach.
  4. Lighten it up with humour – it can balance some of the nastiness in the story (It helped with the presentation of a quirky story with quirky characters).
  5. Make sure your story follows its theme (mine was “crime doesn’t pay) but do it in an original way (sorry, not telling here).
  6. Use “show the reader” features – dialogue, action, inner thoughts but some narrative is okay.
  7. Let your readers be surprised by the unexpected – but make it credible.

The first part of No. 7 occurred in a well, unexpected way. Tuesday evening I did a reading presentation from Beyond the Tripping Point entitled “Where do characters come from?” at the Runnymede Branch of the Toronto Public Library. When introducing me, the head librarian mentioned that her husband had been reading the stories and then looked at my photo on the back cover and said, “I can’t believe that sweet-faced woman wrote those stories.”

It’s the same photo of me as at the top of this blog page. The stories in BTTP contain murder, sexual assault, missing persons, kidnapping, revenge, suicide, vehicular mishaps, etc. You be the judge.

Cheers.

Sharon. A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on February 14, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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Putting yourself into your fiction

07 Feb
Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

–          André Gide

If you write horror stories does that mean you have to run around with a chain saw chopping up people? If you write mysteries with serial killers does that mean you have to be a serial killer? What about romance writers? Children’s authors? How much of who you are factors in with what you write?

I’ve wondered about that lately because many of my short stories and the prequel novel are on the dark side – both in content and the humour sometimes used to tell them. But my stories also go to the other side of the creativity fence – I use emotions such as hope, love, gratitude, joy, generosity, empathy, even happiness (usually at the story’s end). In other words I make my characters human, characters who often have to overcome great odds to get some sort of hold back on their life and the lives of their family and friends.

For example, in my short story “Unfinished Business” from Beyond the Tripping Point (Blue Denim Press, 2012), the main character Lilly, has something traumatic happens when she is 12 years old. The consequences force her to run away from home at 15 and her life becomes one of too many men and never staying in one place for long. During that time she gives birth to a daughter, Trish, and her motherly instincts kick in, especially when Trish turns 12 and wants to see where Mom was born. The journey back holds bad memories for Lilly and when they arrive at her old home and the cause of the trauma shows up, mistaking Trish for Lilly, Lilly changes. She has to save her daughter from the same fate she had, and in doing so, she can get rid of the albatross she’s carried around on her shoulder, and change her life and her attitude. Besides the dark side of what happened to Lilly (and for the record, did not happen to me), the story shows hope and the indomitable spirit living somewhere in most humans. Lilly just needed strong motivation and mother love was it.

So, if you aren’t a serial killer or a sex fiend, how do you write about these areas and others you haven’t lived through yourself?

  1. Read, read, read on the topic. For serial killers, I’m reading Peter Vronsky’s book Serial Killers and I admit I watch Criminal Minds on TV. I do find the latter is more inventive in their serial killers and motives than some of those in real life. I say “some” because as the saying goes “truth is often stranger than fiction.”
  2. Other Research – interview experts. I’m not saying interview a serial killer but perhaps a profiler or a police officer familiar with catching serial killers.
  3. Put yourself (mentally and emotionally, not actually) in the mind of your character. How would they react to such and such? What is their story? Their background?
  4. Go inside yourself and draw out what is there that you can use? For example, did your parents die suddenly from, say a car crash, when you were a child? Did your father desert the family? Were you bullied in school? Did you grow up in poverty or do you live in poverty now?  Do you have a disability that affects your life? Do you have an affinity for certain people or types of people? For me, it’s the underdog – the one who has a lot of bad going on in their life. In other words, someone who has to overcome much and has a hard time doing so. Will he or she do so? That is what you have to figure out in your story.

The bottom line is this: what you write encompasses you, your life, your feelings – but it doesn’t mean you have to be a serial killer or even a mom. For the record, I am a mom, although my son is now in his mid-thirties; I was a single parent but had lots of parenting help from my ex; I was bullied as a child; my dad died after a long bout with cancer when I was 16; I suffered from depression some 30 years ago, and poverty is no stranger to me. But I don’t wield a chain saw – too heavy to hold and I’ve tried – but to trim trees and shrubs.

How much of you is in your fiction?

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on February 7, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Blue Denim Press, Credible Fiction Characters, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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Keeping your plot and characters consistent

31 Jan
Cover of Sharon A. Crawford's mystery short story collection

Cover of Sharon A. Crawford’s mystery short story collection

Be obscure clearly.

–          E.B. White

Nothing can be more frustrating to a writer (except maybe writer’s block) and a book editor too, than characters and/or plot starting to display inconsistencies. My favourite when doing manuscript evaluations for clients is the lady with short red hair in Chapter 2 who suddenly appears with long brown hair in Chapter 10. Did she suddenly don a wig? If so, say so…if it is consistent with what this character would do.

Or take these scenarios.

Does Tom suddenly appear in a conversation you thought was between Belinda and Sandra? James has a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital in Chapter 2; in Chapter 3 he is jogging down the street. Does Cathy arrive home in her car when in the previous chapter it was stolen? Then there is the “Who he? Who she? Syndrome” where one character makes a splash appearance near the beginning of the novel, does a disappearing act (from the writing, not the story) for the rest of the novel and then turns out near the end to be the murderer.

Oops.

I’m struggling with some inconsistencies in my prequel mystery novel. Part of the problem is the novel is complex. So I run into “How did Bast (one of the fraternal private investigators) find out about Y factor or how would he know? Didn’t I have some videotapes back in an earlier chapter? What happened to them? And one character, a TV reporter, who is not a major character and not the killer, has a history with Bast which creates conflict when they meet up after no connection for a year. After hinting at the conflict from this main character’s point of view and a couple of scenes where the two have an actual confrontation in the first half of the novel, “conflict character” all but disappears from the story. I call this inconsistency by deletion.

Readers will pick up on inconsistencies.

What should a writer do?

I’ve touched on this a few blogs ago, but it is important to have a follow-up list of any inconsistencies you notice as you write or pick up later in the first rewrite. Then, you can go back and fix the inconsistencies and mark “done” on the list.

It might also be a good idea to do an ongoing list of your characters and include their conflicts with each other and/or a brief ongoing chapter outline. When you are creating, your organizational skills take a backseat in your brain. This is not the time to multi-task or tell yourself  “oh, I’ll remember to bring Tom home in a later chapter,” or  “This scenario isn’t going to work with what has  happened before.” You also don’t want to stop the creative flow to fix an inconsistency.

How do you keep track of your characters’ interactions, conflicts and location so your final manuscript isn’t full of inconsistencies? Let’s compare notes. We might all learn something new.

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford

 
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Posted by on January 31, 2013 in Beyond the Tripping Point, Fiction Characters, Plot and Characters, Sharon A. Crawford, Short Story Collection, Writing

 

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