Continuing with my discussion of character development, I’d like to discuss those lesser characters … you know, the folks who drop by now and then to say howdy, only to leave a package of misery for your main character to rise above, and then smile their way on out the door.

I’d like to especially talk about the anti-hero – that evil character who always throws monkey wrenches about for our hero or heroin to deflect.

I’m currently working on a story where murder and mayhem ensue. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve never committed a murder. Heck, I’ve never even stolen so much as a candy bar. Yet, here I am, letting a maniac roam the halls of my mind … letting him take hold of my thoughts while I figure out how to foil him.

I wonder how others do this. How does one commit evil deeds and live to tell about it? Many have said we need to write that of which we know. How did Hitchcock do it? How about Stephen King with his frightening characters? There are so many authors of mystery and terror, who are nice, sweet people. I can’t imagine Anne Rice actually hung out with Vampires before she changed her writing focus. So, I wonder … how DO they do it?

Any thoughts?

I’ve talked recently of character development and how their development processed through my first two novels. Naively, the structure of the characters in those works came easily; they simply presented themselves within the framework of this writer’s vivid imagination. I’m curious, however, how other writers select character qualities. What do you do to bring forth vibrant characters that sing across your pages? Do you do sketches? Outlines? Or do you just wing it?

I’m now enjoying the fun of writing a genre novel, complete with all its plot-driven changes and turns. The multi-tasking efforts of creating compelling story, using words and language to convey story over character emphasis, is a large task indeed. I love it! I’m thriving under its challenge. I see why others do it.

Still, I wonder how others write. Do you pick your story first, or does a character come-a-knocking at your door, breathlessly whispering in your ear? Does it all happen in the span of an eye blink, or do you plot and diagram endlessly before you begin?

Please tell me. I want to know.

I recently had dinner with friends who wanted to know how I make up characters in my writing. I don’t remember the more-than-likely lame answer I gave them about making fictional composites of people and personalities … blah, blah, blah.  I probably blathered on about rainbows and kittens just to avoid what has always plagued me — a logical and straightforward roadmap for selecting and presenting fictional characters and their qualities.

Basically, I don’t know who might show up and who will decline when I send out a mental invitation for a cast of characters.

I know some writers are quite methodical about diagramming personality, background, motivation, skills, pitfalls and special attributes for each of their characters. Even minor walk-ons receive a thorough life history, complete with a family tree and genealogy chart. I think that’s wonderful!  Entire books have been devoted to to the study of how to enliven our pages with bigger-than-life characters.

Even my more-than-amazing hubby has tried to convince me (to no avail, I might add) to outline, diagram, storyboard and/or otherwise carefully analyze this story-making business of creating fictional characters. We both come from backgrounds that required a dot over every i and a line across each t, so certainly I see the value in his suggestion.

I try to do that. Truly I do.

I can’t tell you how many outlines I’ve made that end up not even resembling the finished product, however. I suppose my pre-writing studies fail because my characters reveal themselves to me in much the same regard as living people open up to one other – some blurt out every detail and nuance of their background and character right away, while some allow only glimpses now and then of who they are, what they want. Characters come to me one by one, sometimes even refusing to give me their names until I’m clearly in the middle of their story. They delight me. They give me agony. Mostly, they give me fits. Who are these people – these fictional characters who grace my life, my writing, my heart?

In some respect, they are composite personalities of people I’ve known or observed. A fleck of eye color here, a piece of long-legged confidence there. Often, however, these folks are made up from whole cloth. They’re people with whom I’d never otherwise invite into my home or into my head. Nevertheless, the gift of imagination and curiosity is what graces a writer when it comes time for a character to flow from mind … to paper … to reader. I’ll give you an example. Now, you don’t know what I look like. But, I’d wager you can form a picture if you read through my past posts. From that study, you’ll know I’m a woman. You’ll know I have a husband (the Comma King) and that I miss my cat, Lily, more than I can say. You’ll know my wrists hurt – a lot – and you’ll know it still doesn’t stop me from soldiering on. So, now think of me as a character in a book. Give me an age, hair color, facial features, a smile, a limp, a lisp, a constant eye tic, a jeweled tiara, a nun’s habit, an impossibly sunny outlook, a dark and brooding past … whatever. Now, you’re cooking with gas! You’ve allowed your creativity – rather than an inflexible list of qualities – to determine how I shall be written in your book.

Of course, I’m not suggesting you throw away your outlines if they keep you focused, or even if they simply give you comfort like a security blanket. No, not at all! We each, as writers, will approach our characters as is best for us. Still, whether we rush at them, or allow them to approach us first, it is first and foremost our imagination that gives life to our characters.

Study them first if you must, but I’ll wager that they’ll always surprise you in the end. As for me, I’ll most likely let these sometimes improbable, sometimes surprising, always worthy characters just show up as they will – with or without an outline.

I’ll never forget the day I trotted out the first pages of my story, All the Dancing Birds, only to be met with howls of disbelief from my writer’s group. “Nice writing, Auburn, but the viewpoint is wrong.” “You can’t possibly write from the viewpoint of someone who has Alzheimer’s disease!” “How can you put words into the head of a person who has nothing there?” my group asked with grave concern. “How are you going to portray a decline into Alzheimer’s and keep it going?” “It’s going to have to be from a different viewpoint.” “Sure, your character might have some thoughts at the beginning, but how will you keep this up as she’s deteriorating?” These were all valid, thoughtful statements and questions from this collection of well-grounded women highly schooled in the fine art of fiction.

I was embarrassed not to have a ready answer to their serious questions and concerns. I only knew that I’d observed my husband’s parents, both of whom suffered from Alzheimer’s-related dimentia, and saw first-hand their imaginative thought — even if it was off-based from what most would consider proper reality. I’d also observed my young neighbor who was thrown into early-onset Alzheimer’s following a heart attack at the age of 45. He maintained an active, vibrant mind in spite of his growing inability to articulate and communicate. Even toward the end when he was tossed between moments of reality and times of vivid fantasy, he never stopped thinking.

That’s what I wanted to write of — that off-kilter world that inhabits the thoughts of one beset by Alzheimer’s. It’s a crummy disease that sometimes takes over a decade before it finally finishes its miserable work. I wanted to honor the bravery of those who must live within the walls of its confinement.

During my extensive research and observation of the disease I learned that, indeed, although the brain is overcome with plaques and tangles and sticky stuff which gums up the works of normal thought, Alzheimer’s doesn’t stop one from thinking. The thoughts may be distorted … the words diminished … but the mind continues to have active processes even if the thoughts are not grounded in reality. A doctor would explain this much better. I’m just a writer who decided to tell the story of a woman fighting to keep the legacy of her life and family history alive.

I gently explained to my writer’s group that I was writing a work of fiction, and as such, I was allowing my writerly imagination to take over where all common sense should have otherwise prevailed. I asked them to suspend their preconceived notions about Alzheimer’s until I was finished with my story. They agreed, and kindly suffered me like the fool I surely was. I could almost hear them muttering, “Writing about Alzheimer’s from the inside-out indeed!” Yet, each time we met and I handed over more pages for their comment, I could see them slowly being won over.

The amazing part is that I wasn’t the one to convince them. No! It was my lovely, spunky, red wine-drinking heroine, Lillie Claire Glidden, who persuaded the hearts of my critics. She introduced herself with modest Southern charm, then knocked their socks off with her bawdy behavior, and finally stole their hearts with her fragile sense of mortality.

She did the same with me!

I discovered Lillie Claire right along with my group. We laughed over her. Cried with her. Lent her compassion for her troubles. I allowed Lillie Claire a life of dignity all the way to the end, when I had to let her go. As with most characters of fiction, she was a composite person — a portion drawn from experience, a dollop of pure fantasy, a generous amount of down-and-dirty research. Placing myself in the center of her mind was a challenge from the start. But Lillie Claire and I worked it out. She’d tug at me until I portrayed her in the right light. Until I had the right words to show her as she presented herself to me. Then she’d bump me on toward the next scene. She kept me busy. Writing from her viewpoint, she was present in every scene, her hand in every word.

Of course, my group still argued that I should have used an omniscient voice — or maybe I should have told the story from the viewpoint of Lillie Claire’s children — or even that of her caregiver. But I stubbornly held to the belief that Lillie Claire’s was the only proper voice for this story. It was her story and I insisted she be the one to tell it.

And that she did! She was an illogical voice who told her story with a defiant glass of red wine in one hand, and all her falling-down dreams in the other. She began her disease with sticky notes and bravery. She ended it singing Janis Joplin’s Mercedez Benz song. In between, she threw plates at the wall, wrote poignant letters to her children, and danced with the birds in her backyard. I fell in love with Lillie Claire and I miss her terribly. The story — Lillie’s story — went on to win a significant manuscript award, and now waits for just the right agent and editor team to bring it to the forefront.

While I send off query letters and wait for that one special agent to fall in love with All the Dancing Birds, I’m already off to another illogical voice. Another character who’s managing to surprise me with her thoughts and whims, and uncommonalities. I have a new imaginary friend now, but I’ll always feel special to have been graced during a small period of my writing life with my dear companion, Lillie Claire.

Every day, there’s a question that rolls around under my skin, and makes me nearly crazy with its implications, its insinuations, its persistence. It’s a simple question – not much to it, really. This inquest contains only two words. Nevertheless, it squirrels around every fiber of my being until I finally sit in front of my computer and allow it to be asked, and then ponder the answers that follow. This simple question?

What If … ?

What If …?

It’s a writer’s question. What If is what sets a writer’s hair on fire. It’s the beginning of every story, and it’s what keeps that story rolling until there are no more What Ifs to ask.

What If … ? – two words, followed by a magical pause that begs to be finished. What If … there was a mischievous flying boy who refused to grow up? (J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, of course) What If … a man is forced to spend the night at a dreary castle, and during the night, suffers a terrifying dream of a woman who pleads to be admitted in from the outside? (Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights) What If … a nerdish boy buys a strange car with an evil mind, and the boy’s nature begins to change until it matches the car’s thoughts? (Stephen King’s Christine)

Every work of fiction besets its writer with that simple, but profound question of What If. We walk every day with that question beleaguering us, following us around until we find the courage to ponder and wonder. It’s only when we refuse to sit down and think of answers … of possibilities … of stories … do we fail ourselves as writers.

We are people gifted with the imagination to answer the What Ifs that others dare not ask, but nevertheless, beg to have answered. Every story written begins with the premise of those two simple words. In its own way, every story ends with at least some sort of resolution and the satisfaction of so many answered What Ifs.

I noticed this morning that I have seven books I’m currently reading. Seven! Other than thinking I’m just another zany and insatiable reader, I realize that juggling all these stories concurrently gives me something I crave – the constant challenge of all those marvelous, wondrous, magical What Ifs.

I’ll end today with my wish for every writer: May we all be plagued by our own writer’s What Ifs until we imagine the answers … and thus, our stories!

My mother grew rhubarb in her Portland garden; she planted it on mounds of dirt along the fence where it she said it got the most sun. Now and then during the summer, she would pull on her gloves and snip off a number of long, red stalks to make that evening’s dessert — rhubarb pie.

She taught me a lot of things, but I always thought her rhubarb lessons were the most interesting. Before my mother turned those red celery-looking stalks into a fabulous pie, it was something quite different from its final outcome. That pithy redness needed a whole lot of sugar before it tasted anything like pie.

So, why am I thinking of rhubarb? I happened to notice some in the produce section on this morning’s grocery run, and I was suddenly off in Analogy Land, comparing rhubarb to writing. What else would you expect of me by now?

Here are a few comparisons for you to chew on: For one thing, rhubarb is a vegetable … not at all something that ends up tasting like pie fruit. To take a vegetable and make it taste like fruit is not unlike taking green and raw words, and then placing them in a pattern until they are a palatable mix of thoughtful writing. Just like this sour vegetable, writing takes a some proper enhancement to make it a tasty finished work.

In its raw state, Rhubarb is very bitter. It’s been used in medicines and folk healing for centuries, although I can’t imagine ingesting a tonic or tea that promises a miserable taste any more than I can suggest sending out a medicinally dark work of gothic prose to an agent who only represents writers of political satire. Both may contain writing with a bite, but one may need a little honey to get it past the reader’s palate, while the other is expected to be dreary with visions of spiked garb and dungeons complete with a medieval rack-o-pain.

Another interesting tidbit about rhubarb is that its leaves are poisonous. Only the stalk is safely edible. In like respect, I want to make certain that I carefully peel away any words or thoughts that would poison my work. The last thing a writer wants to do is kill her audience! However, on the upside, rhubarb leaves can be used to make an effective organic insecticide for leaf-eating insects. Now, that might make a nifty little fact to incorporate into one’s murder mystery. So, maybe a little poison IS good … but only in the proper venue, and in a good enough dose to kill the bugs without turning off the reader. Ah ha! Now, we’re getting somewhere with this rhubarb/writing analogy thing.

Now, you try it!

Rhubarb Fact: You can use rhubarb to clean your pots and pans (no kidding!) A good rubbing of this useful vegetable will bring the shine back to burnt cookware in (supposedly) no time at all. (Auburn’s thought — That final polish might be enhanced by adding in some unlikely first readers to offer a few pithy comments. See www.annemini.com for her recent thorough discussion on reading buddies.)

Rhubarb Fact: If you have blonde or light brown hair, you can create a more golden look by simmering 3 Tbsp. of rhubarb root in 2 cups of water for 15 minutes. Set the mixture aside overnight, and strain. You can pour the liquid over your hair as a rinse, although you might want to test a few hair strands first to see how it’ll come out. (Auburn’s thought — If you’re going to try a new technique, you might want to test it first before you apply it to your entire manuscript. What do you mean I have green hair? And it’s permanent?!!.)

Rhubarb Fact: Apparently the fiber in rhubarb is a nice additive to handmade papers. Imagine — rhubarb paper! (Auburn’s thought — Adding unusual elements here and there might give one a unique voice. Think of Peter Brady voice-cracking his way through “Time to Change.” Totally off the wall, but it worked and the kids loved it!)

My mother never expected that I’d apply baking lessons to thoughts about cooking up some different ways to think of our writing. But then again, what could she expect from a child whose nickname was “wienie arms”?

Would anyone mind if I tossed in a piece of poetry now and then? If I shared a bit of that cloud that occasionally comes by and snags on the corner of my mind?

I suppose no one will object. My only regular visitor is my husband … and I MAKE him read my posts, the poor guy. He hates poetry, however, so I risk losing my only reader.

But the thing is, I’m feeling a need to blurt out poetic things, and when that occurs for a writer, it’s useless to stifle the words. Risking losing one’s only reader is hardly a deterrent to a mind set on throwing down a gauntlet of words.

In the absence of any immediate discouragement, I shall therefore consider the subject closed, and I, the winner of the argument. Whoo hoo! I win! Bar Keep — Poetry for the house!

Don’t worry, you won’t understand it any more than I will. Plus, this poetry of which I speak is still unwritten. I’m simply asking permission of the Universe and the Great Internets beforehand.

Plus, I’m hoping some simple poetry will be less taxing on my screaming wrists.

(P.S. Credit for the lovely cloud picture goes to FreeFoto.com)

Scents trigger in me a visceral, down-in-the-gut immediacy. I smell the meat of a cracked-open walnut, and I’m immediately nine years-old and swinging my legs over a low branch on the walnut tree that grew in the backyard of my home in Portland, Oregon. Wave a bottle of Chanel No. 5 under my nose, and I’m with my mother. We’re in the car, and she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Let me smell the oily scent of an escalator, and suddenly I’m riding to the second floor in a department store when I hear a woman cry out that John F. Kennedy’s been assassinated.

Scents give us history. They provide background to our defining moments. They instantly move us from present time to the past. Today, I caught a whiff of fried chicken, and it was immediately the Fourth of July and I was headed to a picnic at Jantzen Beach. I was seven years old, if I was a day.

The smell of a pumpkin makes me nearly dizzy!

The same with the evocatove power of a book. Of course, some more so than others.

My great-grandmother’s bible from Glasgow, Scotland, with its fragile onion-skin pages and its unattainable words causes me to fall from the height of myself each time I hold it gently in my hands. The poetry of Jorie Graham and a collection entitled, Poets Against the War does the same to me.

Oh, God, the volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, with all their words and history give me chills. Law books from my former profession hit me equally (yet then again, may I never again need to crack the spine of the newest California Law Review).

When I began researching my book, All the Dancing Birds, I was struck so often by the brave and, yes, helpful non-fiction that gave me information as well as concern for our soon-to-be aging population. John Bayley’s Elegy For Iris uncovers his wife’s descent into Alzheimer’s like none I’ve read. He gave me courage to step into the mind of an Alzheimer’s patient, and write a novel stricken with consuming challenge.

During my research, I read that scent is the first to leave an Alzheimer’s patient. I can’t imagine living without the triggers to my past, those moments of delight — or anguish — that come upon me with just a whiff of scent. I can’t imagine. I hope I’ll never need to.

The fragility of our bodies is sometimes more than I can comprehend.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you about my brain tumor.

At the bidding of my doctor, I’m taking the day off to rest the old wrists.  May I be the first to say, wrist-resting is hard for a Type-A.  Grrrrr.

My best to you all,

Auburn

Miss Dragon here today, filling in for the ailing Auburn — some whiny excuse about her wrist, yet again. I’m, however, feeling fit as a fiddle and ready for duty.

Auburn and I have been having quite a discussion lately about the difference between using our right brain and our left brain during the process of writing. She contends that her more then wonderful fiction arises predominantly from her right brain, while I assert her left brain is equally important. Perhaps we’re both correct here.

While the fantasy of fiction, its conception and articulation, may certainly be a rather right-brained task, it takes a good left-brainer to perform the endless edits that are so necessary in completing a project. It’s been a bit of a challenge for Auburn to learn to use me in either or both tasks. She wants to fly all over the page, right braining here, there, and everywhere. I’m here, however, to remind her to slow down, take a breath now and then, and spend time thinking before continuing on her willy-nilly course of reckless abandon.

I’m also … if I might take a moment to brag about myself … a whiz at writing those dreaded synopses, query letters, and generally performing transactions necessary to the business of writing. What would Auburn do without me when it comes to stuffing all those envelopes with query letters? Yes I’m a handy sort to have around. It’s not every Dragon, you know, who gets the opportunity to spend time with a writer. I even pride myself with a few well-placed puffs of flame, which serve to set Auburn’s hair on fire with new story ideas. Once in awhile, I even come up with an idea of my own. She politely considers my brilliant thoughts, although I suspect she’ll most likely take the credit for herself.

I believe everyone should have a Dragon to help out now and then, don’t you agree? So, while Auburn continues to either mend her wrist, or suffer through yet another surgery, I’ll be taking over her duties. Auburn’s not happy about it, but I think I can win her over. After all, we left-brained brain Dragons can be most articulate when we have a point to make.

I only hope she’ll excuse the scorch marks here and there!