The casting call

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and … as you get older, you become more skillful in casting them.” — Gore Vidal

The characters who show up in my stories are truly a mixed bag of the innocent and the immoral. There are the offenders who have an occasional glimmer of decency, and the stand-up types who venture to the shady side — and the rare birds and hair-brained, the oddballs and dull-witted. The only thing they can never be is predictable.

In every moment, consciously or unconsciously, we are looking to have our needs met. At times, some of us are willing to set our own needs aside for the greater good, while others are self-serving, stopping at nothing, no matter the cost to themselves or others. I see this in my characters and recognize how it drives a scene.

I don’t have to agree with what any of them say or do, but I do have to find each of them real and interesting and let them behave in any way that’s true to their nature.

When an initial idea for a scene comes along, I consider a character type I’d like to see handle the circumstances. At this point they’re little more than cardboard cutouts. I drop them in, allow them to develop and see where they take it, and usually by the end of the first draft, the characters are believable. They need to be absolutely true in their thoughts, words and deeds, because they’re the ones telling the story. And without fully dimensional characters doing the telling, the story would never engage the reader.

Although I don’t necessarily base characters on anyone I’ve known, I may borrow a trait or quirk from the real and gift it to one of my characters. I’ve been around for a number of decades now, and I’ve met all kinds. I like to observe people, how they behave, their speech patterns, their personal rhythms, or the egos bobbing around just under the surface. There’s nothing better than a character with a sizable ego, a misguided sense of self-image, inflated or lacking. It’s a sure-fire recipe for tumbling into the breach.

Generally, I go light on physical description. I find it’s better to let the characters paint a picture of themselves through their own words and the choices they make. I leave the rest to the imagination of the reader. That said, I have to know every detail of each character, what they look like, their back story, and their aspirations.

And the names have to fit each of them, resonating with who they are. Sometimes their names come easily, other times I change handles as their story continues, and I really get to know them. The names have to be absolutely right. 

Characters aren’t always made of flesh and bone. The force of nature or a desolate setting can play a mighty character role. When I wrote House of Blazes I became aware how the quake that woke the fires that ate most of 1906 San Francisco took on the role of an antagonist. It added to the atmosphere, the tension, and to the overall pace. The same was true of the black dust storms of the thirties that howled down on the remote Kansas landscape in Call Down the Thunder.

My novels have all been stand-alone, so I’ve called on a new cast of characters each time. And I’ve conjured and set loose quite a range of lowlifes and heroes — everything from bounty hunters to dirt farmers to female punk rockers, and all that in between. And it’s always a pleasure to get to know them. 

“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.” — Ray Bradbury