HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Jean Rabe had me (see below) at "when I switched from fantasy to mystery writing."
How does an author even do that? The rules are so different, right? The worlds coalesce. The actions are constrained, and the possibilities are narrower. Whoa. But one thing stays exactly the same, whether they are previously-unimagined beings or the guy next door. The characters.
And the talented Jean has that all figured out. Are her methods the same as yours?
Driving With Character
by Jean Rabe
Joe Pike, Jane Ryland, Harry Bosch, and Carol Jordan are among my favorite people. So richly drawn, they seem to breathe on the page, real enough to shake their hand or meet them for tea somewhere.
I adore fiction that springs from characters.
When I switched from fantasy to mystery-writing I decided my books would be character-driven, that I would craft the main players first, fill a notebook with tidbits and background, and then I’d come up with a story to wrap around them. I wanted to feel them breathe.
Who are these people I’m going to devote months at the keyboard to? What do they like? Dislike? Embrace? Fear? What are their life goals? Where were they born? Where do they live? How do they pay the rent?
The more details, the more real they become, and the more interesting they are to me and hopefully to the readers.
I settled on the name Irem Madigan for The Bone Shroud after perusing an international baby name book. Irem is Turkish, meaning garden or a garden in heaven. Madigan is typically an Irish surname, and when used as a first name it takes its meaning from “little dog.” I have two little dogs—a pug and a Boston terrier (and a big Labrador), so Madigan was perfect. My father was Irish, and so Irem’s father was Irish. I decided that her mother was from Turkey, and that Irem is a first-generation American.
I picked age thirty-two so she could be on the young side but have some miles on her, some scratches and dents and habits and haunts, a dash of jadedness, and a sprinkling of hope.
Where to put her? Illinois because that’s where I live right now. But my home is in a suggestion of a town abutting a cornfield on a dead-end street. I needed something more vibrant for my hero. Chicago! I’d been there often enough, toddling through the town. Mugged in the subway when I was in college, I decided Irem had been mugged too, and that the experience colored her and sent her to a martial arts class.
I adored the Field Museum, and so Irem had to work there. I called an office at the museum and chatted with an engaging clerk, who told me about their job openings and various departments. They had an opening for an archivist. Hmmm. Interesting.
So I Googled the occupation, figured out which colleges offered the best degrees for an archivist, gave Irem a master’s degree from Purdue in Indiana, and started her toward a doctorate. And all of this before I started outlining her adventure.
Irem likes simple food, and fast: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut are her go-tos. She’s into comfort fare and doesn’t like surprises, so if she stops at one of these places, she’ll know what to expect.
In The Bone Shroud, I knew Irem would like old movies, especially the black and white ones, and so I found a theater in downtown Chicago that shows them. She likes to walk by the lake and watch the old men playing chess and checkers and the kids flying kites. She likes the window displays in the stores at Christmastime. She attends to blues festival in the summer.
She had a falling out with her folks—who run Mad Madigan’s, a pub in the Loop—because they disowned her younger brother when he announced he was gay. She fell in love with her hapkido instructor, moved in with him, got engaged, and subsequently moved out when he cheated with another (younger) student.
Irem uses foul language, rarely holding back. Still, she endeavors to be polite. She owns few high heels because they’re uncomfortable, likes casual shoes, and enjoys umbrella drinks with her friend Rowan. Sometimes she vacations in Lake Geneva, WI.—in the off-season when it’s cheaper.
She doesn’t like to fly … is terrified of planes. (I hate flying, and so I gave this phobia to dear Irem … I covered one too many plane crashes in my news reporter days.) And yet I send her to Italy to be the “best man” in her brother’s wedding.
And from there, I have her chased, shot at, threatened, and thrust into a marvelous quest in and under the city of Rome. Building Irem first, I knew how she’d react, what would drive her, and what I needed to do to make her life exciting, awful, and maybe a bit better in the end. Hmmm … maybe I ought to send her off on another adventure. Jean Rabe is the author of three dozen novels and more than a hundred short stories. When she’s not writing or editing, she tosses tennis balls to her dogs, indulges in fantasy football leagues, and fuses glass jewelry in her basement.
HANK: SO fascinating! I find out about my characters as I write--completely the opposite way. But now, I am tempted. Femmes and readers, how do you do it?
Lots more about The Bone Shroud