As a writer, I create characters. Or perhaps, bits of them already exist in my memories and my
everyday encounters, and they need me to piece together the puzzle, bringing them to life as new
personalities. Although it’s nice to have a mental image of them as flesh and blood people, I
focus on what’s inside. So I insinuate myself into their headspace and listen to their thoughts. It’s
kind of like having multiple personalities rattling around in my head, vying for the opportunity to
tell their side of the story. And it is a story. Fiction. The characters are a figment of my
imagination.
But readers want an authentic experience when they open a book. So the fiction needs to be
based on reality. The characters must be true to life. Flawed. They’re not perfect. They don’t always behave in a rational manner. They do the strangest things. Sometimes, they make the reader shake their head in disbelief. Are these flawed characters, acting in weird ways,
unrealistic? Is the writing itself flawed? Is the author taking too much liberty asking the reader to suspend their disbelief? Or is the author intentionally depicting their characters this way? If they act ‘out of character’ at times, outside the box, or don’t fit preconceived notions of how we think they should respond in any given situation, perhaps it’s because they’ve been molded from a writer’s individual life experiences and observations, not those of the reader. Everyone (writers and readers alike) brings their own unique background and point of view to a work of literature. Check out the daily news articles and features and you’ll discover real people with real flaws in real situations, doing the most bizarre things—acts that seem incredible by any stretch of the imagination.
As a fiction author, keeping it real means infusing my characters with genuine traits and having them experience human feelings. From claustrophobia and a fear of heights to pervasive anxiety, from worry and depression to overwhelming grief, they grapple with emotions they can’t control. With situations that get out of hand and mistakes in the heat of the moment to criminal activity, with addictions and domestic abuse to destroyed lives, they deal with issues that aren’t easy to resolve. From the timid to the nosy, from the serious-minded to the jokesters, they struggle with who they are and how they perceive the world they’ve been thrown into.
Like real people. Like the readers who put themselves in the characters’ shoes. The readers who shake their heads and want to scream at them. And like the authors who create them based on their own understanding of the world and who know exactly how they feel.
Flawed.
Where is My Husband?
Since the death of her parents, Mallory has suffered from increased anxiety and depression.
When she falls in love with Jake, he revives her will to live. One day Jake is a no-show at work,
even though Mallory dropped him off there. She can’t find him anywhere. When Mallory hears
noises at night, and senses someone watching her inside their home, she suspects the reason for
Jake’s disappearance stems from something sinister. And if her husband’s life is in danger, then
so is hers and their baby’s.
Buy Links: https://tinyurl.com/45mdh8wx
The Dead Lie
Lana, a young mother, who suffered a traumatic event 11 years ago, has been living under an assumed name. She visits her hometown to check if it’s safe to reclaim her identity. When her parents die in a car crash, Lana blames her own past misdeeds, then discovers her mom and dad weren’t who they claimed to be, leading her to suspect their own secrets may be responsible for their deaths. Lana returns to her family’s native Croatian village to visit her grandma in hopes of learning the truth about her parents. She probes into the village’s past and uncovers a cold case and a decades old curse, bringing out the ghosts of the past, and putting herself in the same danger her parents ran from years ago.
Buy Links:
Barnes & Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dead-lie-ivanka-fear/1143152922
Bookshop.org https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-dead-lie-a-blue-water-mystery-ivanka-fear/19802381?ean=9781685123154
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Ivanka, thanks for the article. What occurred to me is that things that happen in real life don’t always work in fiction. If a scene isn’t believable, who cares if it really happened? Just adding my two cents, not disagreeing.
Thanks for reading the article, Candace. I agree that every situation is different; sometimes scenes work and sometimes they don’t. I suppose it’s a matter of choosing the right real life event in the right fictional context.
Yes! This reminds me of reading Denise Mina’s first Paddy Meehan book – the character does something so wrong in the moment – and shocking for the character I thought I knew – I was mad at Paddy, mad at Mina. I actually threw the book down. Then of course came back to it and loved it – she’s one of my favorite characters in crime fiction.
Thanks for reading, Elaine! It’s amazing how characters can affect us so deeply. We don’t always agree with their actions, but maybe that’s what makes them so interesting.
Ivanka, I love a post that gets me thinking. I’ll admit that now I’m worried my characters aren’t flawed enough. I’ll have to revisit that concern as I reread. Thanks. This was great.
Thanks, Pamela! Glad you enjoyed the post. Mine are probably more flawed then most, but I still love them, lol.