I'm thrilled to welcome Lori Lyn to stop by and chat about a couple of my favorite things: shoes and characters.
AND, TWO lucky visitors will be given an ebook copy of her debut novel, The Archery Contest.
So, what are we waiting for?
(Waving) Hi, Carmen!
I’m absolutely thrilled to be invited to join you and your readers. You always
have such fun things to chat about – like your blog on swag or your review of
Parker’s Passion.
Well, when we
discussed me popping on here, I teased we could talk about shoes.
I love shoes,
especially heels. Give me a sexy blue sling-back with a 3 ½” heel and I’m one
happy girl. Being a short woman (5 foot and almost 1 inch), like Carmen, I can
wear high heels. The Capt. (my fella) is about 10 inches taller than me so no
worries. Most people don’t realize just how short I am because I am almost
always wearing heels.
The year of my
currently available book, THE ARCHERY CONTEST, is 1812, the Regency-era. My
heroine, Willy, doesn’t have the option to wear an extra couple inches. She’s
tiny and her only choices are pretty much no heel, let alone a sexy sling-back.
At best, you might have a ½” or thereabouts. Most often women wore the
equivalent of a ballet slipper.
Some people would be
perfectly content to just have a modest shoe option. I was that way for many
years.
But how would
someone else feel? Would being only able to select from a couple pairs of shoes
be a hardship? Would it make them feel inferior, angry, jealous? Or do they
care? Are their priorities different? Or perhaps they are even proud of not
caring, and then – why?
I often get asked
how I create characters. But I don’t really create them. It’s more like they
unveil themselves to me, bit by bit. And even things such as a pair of shoes
can reveal something significant about this “person”.
I’m what’s called in
the writing industry as a “pantser”, someone who writes by the seat of their
pants. In other words, I really don’t plot things out. And while I may not know
the direction of the story in detail, I have to know the characters. That means
things even as seemingly inconsequential as which shoes they’d wear.
It’s really that you
have to know why they would wear
those particular shoes.
Now, I might not use
that bit of detail in the story, but I have to know it. I have to know how this
“person” would react, what choices they might make, what they could say in any
given situation. I can, as the author, create the story or situations however
it is very hard to “control” a character. Ask any fiction writer.
And to be honest, I
really had my hands full with both Alex and Willy, my hero and heroine from my
debut release, THE ARCHERY CONTEST. Alex already had a history with me. He
appeared first in THE COUNTRY BUTLER which is due out this Fall. Plus he is
quite a dynamic character. Of course, Willy is certainly no shrinking violet,
herself.
The job of an author
is to make characters live and breathe and to create a story just for them. And
once we know those characters from birth to now (whenever that “now” is), then
we can share their journey with the world.
