We have a special treat today on Mysteries and Margaritas.
Award Winning Multi-Published Author Gayle Callen has graciously agreed to share her time and knowledge with us. So please help me give her a warm welcome.
Take it away, Gayle :-)
Hi! My name is Gayle Callen, and I write Victorians for Avon Books under my own name, and medievals as Julia Latham. Thanks to Kari and the ladies of Mysteries and Margaritas for inviting me to stop by today.
I enjoy a good mystery--I've added many of them to my historical romance plots--but today I want to talk to you about the mystery of heroes. And where they come from. I've written twenty-five books so far, so I've written a lot of heroes. Sometimes they form out of the trilogy concept I come up with. For example, my most recent trilogy which I call "Scandalous Lady," is about three women, one of whom is the model in a nude painting. If you kow anything about historicals, you know that for a lady this is a VERY BAD THING. I keep the reader guessing all the way to the end of the trilogy about who the model is, evn though I knew three gentlemen were going to wager over the outcome and try to prove the truth. I had the heroines already--they're the sisters/cousins of the three heroes from my previous trilogy, "Sons of Scandal."
So it was time to come up with the men in the story. Often I try to form the personalities of men whose goals will be different than my heroines. But this time, something nagged at me. Over time, I always get requests from readers: "Will you ever do the story about so-and-so?" I decided it was time to look back at the best friends, brothers, or even the villains from past books, and see what I could come up with. Two stood out right away, and neither of them had perfectly honorable pasts. I always love the challenge of redeeming a bad boy. ;)
I remembered Leo Wade, younger brother to Simon, the blind hero of Viscount in Her Bedroom, published several years ago. Leo is a cheerful rake and unrepentant bad boy, and even when he almost ruined the reputation of his future sister-in-law, he didn't see the need to change himself. Such a man deserves to meet a strong woman who'll challenge him, and so he matches wits with Susanna, a spinster bluestocking, in my October 2011 book, Every Scandalous Secret. Leo doesn't know if she's the nude model, but he's enjoying trying to figure it out--until she sees too deeply into things he'd rather keep hidden.
Peter Derby first appeared in Never Marry a Stranger, as a poor younger son courting our heroine Emily--before they all realized that her "husband" wasn't dead, and that Emily had a terrible secret. Peter vowed to unmask Emily, and ended up putting everyone in danger. He learned a terrible lesson of his own, and tried to become a better man. I found myself wanting to give him his own happy ending, so he became the hero of my most recent Victorian, A Most Scandalous Engagement. He comes up against his childhood freind, Lady Elizabeth Cabot, who asks a risky favor--that he'll pretend to be her fiance, and in return, she promises him the truth about the nude painting. But Peter would rather find out what Elizabeth is hiding...
So that's one method I've used for finding heroes. Sometimes the characters we write become so real to us, that we wonder what happened in the rest of their lives. I'm glad I could find out!
I'm so excited to hang out with you today. Any questions about heroes? Or do you hav a favorite already that you can't forget?
11 comments:
Gayle: How great to have you here today! Thanks for joining us on M&M. My head is still spinning after reading how many books you've written.
How do you remember all the characters, their foibles, needs and even appearances after that many? Do you have a formal method for keeping track of them all for first, the book you are writing, and second for having them join you in future books?
I love the idea of using characters we love from our previous books and giving them their own stories. Great idea!
Characters really do become so real to us, I hate to leave mine.
Do you keep some sort of system for tracking all those characters?
Cassy and Kari, you both had practically the same question! ;) Yep, I do have a system. I keep a database of all characters, what book and chapter they appeared in, and notes about their appearance or anything pertinent. I reuse secondary characters ALOT in party scenes. The average reader probably won't know, but I enjoy it.
A great character is a terrible thing to waste! I do the same thing, Gayle. Great post. And it's a fantastic trilogy!
I love revisiting characters, whether in my own stories or someone elses. I'm always wondering what happened to so-and-so.
And a database? Great idea, but oh, boy! I'd better get my spread sheets in order! Otherwise, I'll never remember who was where and doing what to whom! (:
Of course, now that you've mentioned your system for character tracking, I want to know more!! I assume it's not handwritten - do you do it in Word? Excel? And keep in a folder with their names as the file names? A way of tagging their basic characteristics? Is it something you do as you write, or once you're finished?
I love that you use them in party scenes - like bringing your best friends to the party.
Aw, thanks, Maggie!
E.C., I have name databases I've picked up in my research, so I use names correctly for the time period. If I'm not organized, I feel panicky. ;)
Lauri, I use Microsoft Works Database, which I started using years ago and made more sense to me. I update it the moment I come up with a new character. I have one for Victorians, and one for medievals, and all characters are there.
Good characters like good wine only get better with time. You want more. Looks like my TBR pile is going to grow some more.
Nice analogy, Lindsay. Thanks!
Gayle, what a great post. I also love how you "recycle" characters. We spend so much time making them real to the readers that it's a shame not to reuse them. Unfortunately, I write mysteries and I kill most of them off!!
Thanks again for blogging with us at M & M.
Guess I'm finally good for something. An anology that works.
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