Hanging Out With My Characters

You know when you were little and you had imaginary friends? It was expected as you grew up that you’d let them slowly fade into the ether and become an adult. But one of the awesome things about being a writer is I can hang out with my characters anytime I want, and come up with a multitude of excuses for visiting with them that pass as sanity. When you read a great book, you don’t want to let the characters go, do you? I know I don’t. You revisit them in your head, imagine their lives after “the end”, and think about their stories for days afterward. Even revisit for a re-read from time to time. Writers are no different when it comes to our own characters.

Some years ago, I wrote a short vignette revisiting two of my characters, Mac and Violet of Natural Law. The vignette was about a baby shower other heroines in the Nature of Desire series were throwing for Violet. The vignette didn’t leave Mac out. At the end of the shower, he comes home and he and Violet have some quality steamy time together.

I didn’t do this in a vacuum. When I first started writing romance, I often included scenes that didn’t specifically fit the craft mandate “every scene should advance the story toward XX goal”. But to my way of thinking, a love story is as much about the wonder of falling in love as the challenges the protagonists face, so if you don’t take the time for those lovely pauses where the hero and heroine go ride horses on the beach, or she visits him on the parking deck during a lunch break to share a sandwich, or they stop at a roadside store to peruse the quirky antiques…well, you can’t really enjoy that sometimes exciting, sometimes quiet, slide into love.

At some point, my desire to include those scenes in the books expanded into a desire to write free vignettes like “The Baby Shower.” I wasn’t fleshing out a full length novel plot; instead, I was giving myself and readers a glimpse into my characters’ lives after the happily-ever-after...and having pure fun with it. Often the readers helped with ideas for these vignettes. For instance, the readers gave me suggestions for Violet’s gifts, like a baby rattle that looked like a tiny flogger and a pajama set that said “I like spankings.”

Here’s a snippet from the vignette:

When she opened Sarah and Justin’s gift, Violet found a little wooden rack of police issue revolvers. Smaller than the real thing, and made of molded plastic, like toys. The rack bore the badge number Violet wore, the other side showing Mac’s detective shield.

“They’re containers,” Chloe realized, crouching by the table. “Oh, how cool. This one holds baby oil, this one lotion, this one”—she lifted it, squinted at the end— “freaking cool. This one has a sifter at the end. It’s for baby powder.” She pointed to the labels on the rack. “And look, it says ‘to protect, serve and freshen.’”

“You’re insane.” Violet looped an arm around Sarah and squeezed. “Now I’m sure you picked this one out.”

“Well, Justin knew it should be a gift that reflected both of us. His creativity and my special handcuff-you-if-I-don’t-get-my-way charm.” Sarah smiled. “Seriously, we found it in this catalog of police-related gifts, and thought it would be perfect. Though we worried it might feel strange to point even a toy gun at your child.”

"I don’t know about that. When she’s going through the terrible twos, it might relieve some frustration.” Violet laughed. “Stop that tantrum now, or I’ll powder you.”

So Mac and Violet started it, and since then I’ve written over a good dozen free novellas and short stories like that. But I didn’t stop there. Bloggers are fond of the “character interview”, where the characters answer indepth questions, instead of the boring old author. I have no argument with that – my characters are far more interesting than I am! This was another way of revisiting them, so I started occasionally “bringing” characters to bookclub chats so the readers could ask them questions. I also started posting any character interviews I’ve done at blog sites in the same place I put the vignettes. These have become more elaborate over the years. Recently I did one for Riverina Romantics that was a charity “Newlywed Game”, featuring the Knights of the Board Room. It was pretty much as long as a novella when we finished!

The reason I’m telling you all this is one of my readers suggested the following blog topic for today: “I love all the [Knights of the Board Room] couples, but I'm a bit obsessed with Ben & Marcie [from Hostile Takeover]! Any tidbits, trash talking or anything you wanna add about any or all the characters would be a dream come true!”

I figured there might be quite a few of you who didn’t know about these opportunities to revisit the characters. Here are a couple favorite clips from those character interviews:

From the intro of an interview one of the fan forum administrators, Sandy, did with Ben:

Though Ben’s wearing aviator-style sunglasses that accent the strong line of his jaw and the feathers of dark hair over his brow, giving him a black Irish bad-boy look, he tilts his head so his emerald green eyes flash over the edge of the rims. As a result, Sandy can see him studying her intently, everything from the curves of her body to the way she walks, touching on the Blackberry she’s carrying with her questions.

“Lucas,” he explains, tapping his ear piece before he removes it and sets it to the side. “He told me to go gentle with you. But you don’t look a woman who wants the gentle type, do you, darling?”

Sandy pushes her sunglasses back so her bangs don’t obstruct her view of this hot emerald-eyed specimen of pure male. Ben reminds her of a panther studying his prey from afar. This would probably intimidate most women, but not Sandy. She welcomes the intense appraisal, as it makes her heart race and her mind begins to play. She knows that Ben is a man that holds knowledge of many things. But right now she only cares about the animal she senses below the surface.

Here’s a question that was posed to Derek Stormwind of Something About Witches:

Can you describe in three words how Ruby makes you feel? If Ruby was asked the same question what would you think she would say?

…the only words you can use for a question like that are the universal ones a man feels when he’s loved by a woman like Ruby. She makes me feel balanced. Everything in my world steadies, knowing I’m connected to her. Happy’s another good word. It’s a powerful one, because most people think of themselves as content or doin’ all right if things are going well, but this sense in your heart that you just can’t think of a way for things to be better—that’s happiness.

“Not sure if I could answer the question for Ruby, but she seems happy and balanced around me as well…when she’s not fussing at me the way she can do. But even during that, there’s a sparkle to her eyes, a little smile on her lips, like it’s all part of it. I think the third word that works for both of us is home. We’re home for each other. Home isn’t always easy or quiet, but it’s your sure place in the world.”

I’ll stop there for now, because hopefully this has given you a flavor of whether or not you’d enjoy any of these. No promotion or marketing strings involved in this. I love writing these, and it has always seemed like a great way to thank my readers for their support. You’ll find them under the Forum menu at the JWH Connection fan forum, access information here.

The vignettes are available in all the popular download formats, so you can put those on your readers. Oh, another tip - when you get out to the forum, be sure and check out the Albums as well. There are literally hundreds of beautiful erotic photos that have been posted out there, many of them inspired by my work and/or specific characters. You can also find free banners/character graphics under the Forum main menu. So everyone can indulge your revisits and imaginations to the fullest! Enjoy!

Next week’s topic will be about how a writer knows if she has talent…like talent has anything to do with getting published (snort). Lol…yep, I plan to have fun with that one…

Note: My thanks to Betty for this week’s topic!