A-Z challenge – C is for characters

The characters in our books – how autobiographical are they? My books feature several major characters and a small throng of sub-characters, and a friend reading one of the books remarked that she hoped I didn’t see myself as the tearful Clarissa.

Well, of course I’m Clarissa. I’m all of them, aren’t I? The writer’s world is quite schizophrenic, when you start thinking about it. All, and none.

Experiences from my past are dredged up and assigned to the relevant character as needed in my books, but I am also quite capable of nicking stories from my friends, and dreaming up things that in a better-ordered world would have happened, so as autobiographical clues they should be taken with a judicial pinch of salt.

So I’m not really tearful Clarissa. Not very often, anyway.

As most of the blogs I have read so far are actively plugging books, I shall add that Clarissa appears in the Kindle book Three Four Knock On My Door http://viewbook.at/B00C4FE0TG (She is the only tearful character, the books are light-hearted whodunits.)

7 thoughts on “A-Z challenge – C is for characters”

Pretty very good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have incredibly enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I am going to be subscribing to your feed and I hope you article again soon.

I think writing believable characters with unique personalities is the hardest part about writing. Sometimes I catch myself falling into stereotypical patterns. If only I could get that part right.

http://joycelansky.blogspot.com

elegsabiff | April 4, 2013 at 09:52

I loved the Harry Potter books but it was only recently that I truly appreciated how cleverly she established and maintained such an enormous cast of unique individuals 🙂

Hi EJ, I do think that all of our writing in order to be sincere and worth reading has to possess a particle of us, characters included, even if it is just our perspective of another. Great post and I will have to check out your book on my kindle! I liked your insecure writer post as well. Good for you willing to take what comes in pursuing criticism even the unwanted kind. Shows you also have some enjoyment in your writing no matter what anyone thinks. You go girl! God bless, Maria at Delight Directed Living

elegsabiff | April 3, 2013 at 16:48

Thanks Maria, it’s lovely to get feedback on a blog 🙂 I should probably have said the cousin has issues of her own at the moment and was probably thinking good grief, I don’t have time to go stroking somebody’s ego.

Bless you too,

Elizabeth

I really like your post. I did a ten week writing course called Writing Lives and we had several discussions at how far you can blur the lines between fact and fiction in your writing before changing genre.