Creating Characters One Layer at a Time-Layer One-The Physical Must Reflect the Character

By Mary Connealy

I am told I create great characters.

So, I thought it would be a great idea to write a great blog post about how to create great characters.

Except I have no idea how I create my characters.

Except that’s just stupid. I must have SOME idea how I do it, right?

I mean some swami doesn’t start playing a pipe and I come up out of a basket and start typing like a hypnotized cobra, who later wakes up with a book in front of her, right?

So, I started trying to put it into words.

The intro to this blog…well…let’s call it a DISCLAIMER.

Let’s call this a JOURNEY.

Let’s take this journey TOGETHER.

As I try to explore how I create characters.

I’m going to talk heroes and I am right now in the middle of a new series we're calling WILD AT HEART.
Book #1 is coming next October, called Tried and True.
Book #2 is Now and Forever and I'm right in the middle of it, so I’m done with the first hero, and in the middle of the second and the third hero, of the book Fire and Ice is skulking through the pages of both books causing trouble.

So I’m creating all three men as I write the books.

Here they are in a nutshell.

The valiant, heroic, blonde savior

The mountain man/wild man savage

The iceman domineering tyrant

Okay. Done. Characters created.

Blog over.

Sigh........I suppose there’s more right?

Here’s how I’m going to do this.

I’m going to write a series.

Today is part one and part one is the physical.

And because I’m doing Now and Forever, book 2 right now I’m going to talk about creating my savage wildman.

He is so fun I can’t stand it.

You know it makes sense to start with the physical because that’s our first impression. So here’s how Matt Tucker looks.

He shaves and gets a hair cut once a year...if the Indian woman who raised him can make him sit still long enough. He dresses in buckskin.

Here’s the first impression. This is Matt Tucker as seen through the eyes of Aaron Masterson, the hero from book #1.

When the mountain man materialized out of the woods, utterly silent and looking as untamed as the rest of the Rockies, Aaron knew who he was.
There’d been tales in Aspen Ridge about him. Some said he was an Indian, some a ghost, some a legend.
Now here he stood. There was nothing ghostly about him. Wild though, mighty wild.
The mountain man offered his hand in a good-natured way as if he’d never seen a weapon in his life. A pretty good trick considering he had a Winchester hanging down his back from a strap over one shoulder, a pistol in a holster on his hip, the biggest, ugliest knife Aaron had ever seen in a scabbard that crisscrossed his chest, A powder horn crossing the other way, a whip looped and hanging from a leather thong at his waist, and Aaron glimpsed the hasp of another knife up his sleeve.
And these were just the weapons Aaron could see. Matt Tucker appeared to be a man who was, in all ways, ready for trouble.

This is layer #1. Our first view of Matt Tucker. Here’s the thing--all the layers have to match. Matt Tucker is an outrageous character so maybe he’s not a good example for me to use for this series, but maybe he is. I can’t make Matt Tucker dress in buckskin and carry a knife up his sleeve and shave once a year, and then have him be a quiet man who likes to make daisy chains and write poetry during the long winter in his cabin.

Well, maybe I could, but I’d better have a real good reason for that.

No, Matt Tucker’s outward appearance needs to reflect his inner self.

His eyes are wild.

He’s got a smile that flashes animal white teeth. That's important that they be animal white teeth, not pearly white teeth, right?

He’s going to laugh long and loud. But he's going to move through the forest silent as a ghost. When he ruins his shirt and needs a new one he has no idea how to get one except to go hunting. That's how a man gets a shirt. Step one. Shoot a deer.

When he, who has no interest in marrying, decides he’s going to claim Shannon, he claims her dramatically and utterly and he is all the way sold out to being a husband and never looking back.

He intends to swoop that woman up and drag her to his cabin high in the mountains and never let her out of his sight.

Except of course Shannon has other ideas.

And now we have our conflict...which is another blog so just forget I mentioned it!

Next time we’re going to talk about how I make Tucker’s actions, his movements, gestures, etc. match his appearance. We’re going to be a few posts getting to his motivations and his heart, because Matt Tucker wasn’t born this way, his life made him this way and every word he speaks, every decision he makes, is part of his most fundamental self. He's a good man. A Christian man. But he carries about ten knives, half of them hidden, all where he can get to them fast, all razor sharp. He's not fooling around with them. He lives a hard life and he knows how to fight and defend himself. 

I have to know all this about him to make him come alive.

And of course I have to do it all………..as a panster. :)

Is this good for a series? Does this make sense to anyone? It all seems pretty obvious to me. I mean DUH...OF COURSE WE DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER!!!
Sigh
If you want me to stop just say so.

Click to buy Swept Away, Fire Up, pre-order Stuck Together

Because we are still coming down off our wild birthday month and I don’t want anyone to go into utter wilthdrawal from no prizes, let’s call today the AVOID COLD TURKEY THANKSGIVING GIVEAWAY.

No wait.

NO ONE WANTS COLD TURKEY THIS THANKSGIVING DRAWING.

That sounds wrong.

WARM THAT COLD TURKEY WITH A GIFT CARD OF THANKSGIVING.

Oh, forget it. I just thought one more prize day would be fun.

Leave a physical description of the character from your WIP, or what the hey....just leave a comment, to get your name in a drawing for a $25 AMAZON GIFT CARD.

Because DO NOT EVER DOUBT we are so THANKFUL for all of your visits and comments this last month.

THANK YOU SEEKERVILLAGERS! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!!

http://www.maryconnealy.com