Eddie Whitlock's Blog: Reader and Writer - Posts Tagged "character"

Do you have a book in you? I mean that question figuratively and not literally. If you literally have a book in you, please turn off your computer and seek medical help.

No, I am asking if you have within you the desire to write a book.

I did. I always have. Well, at least since I realized that the only job that really combined my love of lying with making an income was that of being a writer.

I worked on several books over the years.

One, called "Hell," was going to be about a race war in the United States. Yeah. I never had a central character. It was just vignettes about the horrors of a new Civil War. It was inspired by the riots after the Rodney King verdict and hearing Mike Bowers mention the riots in a speech he gave to the Griffin Kiwanis Club.

I worked on "Hell" for several years.

One day I had the epiphany-after hearing a news report-that the US was no longer divided between African-Americans and Caucasions. It was also divided between Asians, Hispanics and others. It was divided by sex, by gender and by sexual preference, by age and by generation.

After "Hell," I worked on a book about Franklin Roosevelt. I could never get the purpose of the novel straight. Was it alternate history? Was it horror? I struggled with it for years. Someday I may work on it again.

Last year I decided to try National Novel Writing Month. Basically, I set aside everything I had been working on and started a new story.

The inciting incident was based on something my grandfather had told me. Poppa Mack, Maxie McCullough, said that his father had taken him to see the last public hanging in Spalding County.

That incident became the starting point for a story that I called "Hanging" and that became "Evil is Always Human."

I was pleased with the final product. Here's why: the characters.

I have read about authors who plot out their stories with elaborate outlines. I cannot do that, apparently. I wrote my book as if I were following real people and merely telling what happened to them. They seemed real. When they would sometimes do something that did not seem real, I would let the character tell me the right action to put in.

The characters, particularly the mother, are paradoxes. They don't always do what I would expect them to do, but they do what people do. Sometimes, that is unexpected. Sometimes they are strong; sometimes they are weak, evil, lazy and even inattentive.

"Evil is Always Human" is a story that I am happy with as it stands. Some of the folks who have read it have specifically asked for a sequel. It is a story that I already know. It's not a pretty story. The characters who survived the first book don't become better people who recognize the errors of their ways. They just keep going like people do.

I humbly ask that you buy my book. Read it. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Coming up with character names is a fun part of writing for me. One of the best was when I was doing the "Biscuits & Bullets" plays for the Camelot Theatre Company of Griffin.

I wanted a character who would be the pompous county commission chairman as well as a foil for our Elvis-like sheriff. I came up with Colonel Harbinger Parker. Although the Col. Parker part was pretty obvious-and maybe a little libelous-the name "Harbinger" was a fun creation.

Usually, the names are less obvious. Most are just mixes of names appropriate to the time period. I went back to my grandparents' families to come up with the names for the characters in EVIL IS ALWAYS HUMAN.

By the way, the narrator did not have a name at all through the writing of the book. I now have decided to name him "Waymon" after my father's father. The character is nothing like him, but the name would be appropriate to the times and uncommon enough for current times to be unique.

I am working on a story right now that is set in the mid 70s. The characters there will need names common to my generation and my frame of reference. Since I am looking at this story as perhaps creating a character who will be used again, I'm taking my time naming that fellow.

I think back to names that stuck with me mentally, whether the person did or not. One is a fellow from my childhood church. The family's name was "Quick." There were a lot of them, cousins and siblings and "I-ain't-sure-how-we're-kin" folks.

The Wilsons were cousins to the Quicks, but I don't remember their names. The one name I remember is "John Wayne Quick."

You never called him "John" or even "John Quick." It was always all three names: "John Wayne Quick."

That, folks, is a great name. I cannot help but think his parents have stolen and made unusable for me one of the best names ever for a character.

I just love the idea of having a different character say, "Get me John Wayne Quick," only to have the response "John Wayne?" over and over through the story.

That's the kind of stuff you want to make up, but sometimes reality beats you to a good idea.