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invitations
Questions: When you set out on a new book, do you have an outline that you start with or do you just start somewhere and go in both directions or what? For a new character or for a old character that becomes more significant, do you develop something like a character profile for that person or just let him happen?yes.
Okay so, it's a complicated question. The thing is, plot development and character development happen in different ways. Starting a new novel, I have a pretty good idea of major things that will happen and what the resolution will be, but no idea on how I'll get from A to B ... to Z. That happens in collaboration with the characters.
It's an interesting question about minor characters, from a couple of different directions. I find it hard not to pay attention to even the smallest character for a few minutes at least. I sometimes obsess about them, even knowing they are unlikely to show up again. Once in a while I love a minor character so much I want to make room for them in the next book, but never find a way. It's like making a new friend and not feeling sure enough of the friendship to call up and invite the person over for dinner. In Fire Along the Sky, I truly love Camille Maria de Rojas Santiago del Giglio (it was such fun naming her, even), who taught Jennet how to read tarot cards. I set her up in some detail because I'd like it if she showed up again, but now I have this sense that she's going to stay away. She declines the invitation.
Christian Wyndham (called Kit), the British army officer who interrogates Lily at the cabin on the border was also really interesting to me, and he does come back -- he shows up first thing in Queen of Swords. In a big way, to start with at least.
But of course, in novels like these with at least a hundred minor characters who flit in and out, 95% of them won't be coming back, and so I have to restrict myself in how much time I can spend with them. Sometimes I am surprised when a minor character shows up, crashes the party so to speak, but that doesn't happen often.
As far as character profiles are concerned, I should write them but I usually don't. I try to keep notes on major points (eye color, for example) but sometimes I mess up. Mr. Bennet -- the lawyer from Johnstown who advises Elizabeth in the first novel in the series? He comes back in a couple of the novels including Fire Along the Sky, but I should have consulted my notes on him because he has blue eyes in one scene and brown ones in another. I just noticed that listening to the book on tape. At this point I just try to remember that kind of flub when it comes time to make corrections for the soft cover edition.
This leads me to a question I got by email from Sue in Australia:
I have just started reading "Fire Along the Sky" and because it has been quite a while since I read "Lake in the Clouds" I had to go back and look at it to refresh my memory. In the list of characters for "Fire Along the Sky" is Charlie Leblanc and six sons by his first wife (i.e. Molly) and five daughters by Becca. However when I looked at "Lake in the Clouds" I found on page 466 when his first daughter was born that he had four sons. The daughter dies at only 2 days old and we hear on page 601 that Molly has died. So I'm wondering why you listed six sons by Molly when she only had four when she died.I wasn't looking for discrepancies but this seems to be one.- Am I right? I would be interested to know for sure.Don't you just hate it when you lose track of the kids?
The simple truth is, I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on Charlie and the details got away from me. Something else to be fixed in the next edition. Now, Sue was very nice in the way she brought this to my attention, and I'm glad she did. Sometimes, though, I get email from readers who are less generous. As the guy who berated me soundly because Elizabeth saw an eagle with moss in its beak. Apparently, I conclude from his very sharply worded letter, I have not done my eagle research. Which was true, at that time. I have since come to see the error of my ways. Now I live in a part of the country where eagles are almost as common as gulls, and I have yet to see one with moss in its beak. But somehow I don't think that I could have put a dead fish in the eagle's beak in that scene. It wouldn't have worked.
December 13, 2004 12:33 PM
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Comments
oh eagles schmeagles.
Now I have been having a debate with myself that if what the incidental eagle has in its beak is not critical to the scene (ie doesn't have child or big red dog in its beak), does it really matter? I think even if I found something in the book that I was an expert on and knew it to be incorrect, as long as it wouldn't have an adverse effect on the story, I think it would be ok. Your story lines are so strong anyway it would take something really big to distract me.
How do you feel Sara? When you are writing, would you normally check this sort of thing anyway, or do you feel obliged to do it in case there is a reader who is sure to know if you get it wrong?
Posted by: Alison at December 13, 2004 04:09 PM
Just stopping in to say hello and to congratulate you on your recent nomination at the BoB Weblog Awards 2004.
www.blogmechanics.com/bob
Posted by: Genuine at December 13, 2004 09:15 PM
CONGRaTs on your nomination... Could it be said that Elizabeth saw what appeared to be moss... this gets so silly sometimes, as i read a historical book once, where the character hears an owl's wings flutter in flight.. you can not hear an owl's wings as they are silent in flight but one could hear a branch get brushed or a twig fall from the bird's flight so i did not contact the author with the what i thought was an error because that could of been a error through the character's veiw... just my opinion there, now for LeBlanc's sons, that is sorta' hard to look over... *G* perhaps two were adopted while Molly was alive... i guess Mr. Bennet could not have been wearing contacts at the time, either unless he was a time traveler?
Posted by: joanna at April 23, 2005 12:35 PM