Creating Characters – can you help?

With One Secret Too Many away at the editors, I’ve set my mind to the next challenge. I mentioned in a blog a little while back, that I had resurrected a story I began writing many moons ago when the children were young. I felt it had promise, and all I had to do was bring it up to date (no mobile phones then, and one character wasted valuable time looking for a phone box!), and  more crucially, I had to work out what happened in the end.

On my second read through, I found that the main character reminded me a lot of Ben Jacobs, Meredith’s singer friend, so, in an about turn I’m now rewriting it as a Meredith & Hodge novel. This gives me an added issue as it means I must decide Meredith’s course of action after the ending of One Secret Too Many, and I’m dithering! If I can’t make up my mind, how on earth is Meredith supposed to cope? As you can imagine this makes moving the story on hard work, but it is moving on.

The working title is Ben Jacobs, and here’s a little of what it’s about:

Ben Jacobs finds himself charged with Murder – did he do it? The CCTV evidence suggests that he did. Meredith isn’t assigned to the case, and wants to help prove his friend is innocent, but his attempts are thwarted at the outset when Ben absconds from custody, and goes on the run. Meredith & Hodge are drawn in to helping not only prove his innocence, but solving the crime he is accused of.

Most of the old faces will be there, and a few new characters, who I am working on at the moment, and here’s where I would like some suggestions. I find that writing about characters created by other people’s imagination helps me question my original outline. It brings a new focus into play. How will that person interact with other characters, how do they effect decisions made by others,  will events turn out differently to how I imagined. I find that as in life, just when you think you know how the day will pan out, someone throws a spanner in the works, or turns up unexpectedly, and plans need to be changed, tweaked, or even abandoned as a result. It makes life a little more interesting, even though it may cause frustration.

 Louie Trump was suggested by my friend Jane. We were away on a weekend Spa break and I was explaining I needed to introduce a character to shake up Meredith’s team. She came up with the name, the fact that he would be intelligent, well spoken, not pushy, and a thoroughly nice chap. He had to be an all-round good guy to compliment Meredith’s moodiness. In One Secret Too Many, there is a character called Stephen Hatton, he was suggested by my Twitter friend, https://twitter.com/RiojaPlease. Stephen, as that’s his name, and Hatton, as at the time he was wearing a fetching hat in his picture. He had previously educated me on the properties of Kevlar, which I’d never heard of, and I promised to use it in a novel, which I did. When I told him about this he also gave me the character. He was happy for Stephen Hatton to be on the wrong side of the law, but didn’t want him to be too bad. I hope he likes him when he gets to meet him!

With the latest project, I am working on two characters, one good, one bad, if you fancy giving me some ideas, here is the basis of characters I need:

Bad Guy: Night Club Owner, DVD manufacturer, into shady dealings…in what? I need a name where the initials would make a good club name. He’s middle aged, and financed by his father-in-law. What does he look like? Is he Bristolian? Is he ‘rough and ready’ or a charmer?

Possible Love Interest: When he first escapes, Ben Jacobs, almost literally crashes into a young woman. What’s her name? She is in a troubled marriage, and he asks for her help. She agrees as she needs something to spice up her life. Does she have children, if so how many? She has money, but was this always the case? How does she know Patsy? Should she give into Ben’s charm, and is Ben genuinely interested in her, or just using her? Will she have a skill or knowledge that will help them?

Would you like to create one of these characters? If so, either message or email me with your thoughts on the character you would like to see in print, and I’ll get to work.

Off to walk the dogs and ponder Meredith’s decision. Looking forward to meeting YOUR characters.

Back soon,