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Cool:

• Tell your friends your mother writes books. Have them convinced you’re a liar. Have Mom verify later she actually does write. Maximum impact!
• Your name is in actual, printed books (because Mom can’t resist putting you in the book somehow.)
• You meet other writers sometimes.

Not Cool:

• The teacher will definitely ask Mom to teach a class on writing at some point during the school year. And your mom can be soooo embarrassing.
• If your mom is a writer, you always have to do your reading and English homework.
• Your teacher will write notes on ‘B’-grade essays that say, “I know you can write better than this.”
• Sometimes you have to go to conferences or book signings. These are tedious and even Mom doesn’t look like she’s having fun.
• If you’re at a dental appointment after school, you can’t claim you can’t do your homework because you don’t have a pencil. Mom has at least fifty pencils in her massive pocketbook.

I think most readers agree that one thing that immediately forces them out of a story is when a character does something out of character. Occasionally authors need a plot device to forward the resolution of the story and some poor character will have to do something totally contrived.

“Why,” wonders the reader, “would Kathy go into the clearing alone when she knows there’s a ravenous T-Rex there? She’s always been perfectly rational before…did she have a small stroke?”

Sometimes I can suspend my disbelief and just try to forge on and enjoy a book. But it’s gotten harder to do so. As a writer, I’m determined not to humiliate my characters by making them do something they wouldn’t ordinarily do.

But I still need a plot device. Usually, there comes a point in my story where I need my sleuth to confront the murderer. Naturally, this meeting never happens in the police station. Oh no, it’s got to happen in a scary, deserted location where my detective’s life is at stake.

But my sleuth is a smart woman. How to reasonably get her there? Was she expecting to have a partner present to ensure her safety during the confrontation? Did that partner end up in a car crash or unavoidably detained somehow?

I try to think like my character—what kind of excuses would they give for behaving like this? “I realized I’d seen something odd at the scene of the crime, so I went back to have another look. But the murderer went back too…to collect the evidence that pointed to him.”

I try to think of as many excuses as possible why a character would act out of their normal behavior pattern. Then I pick the most plausible reason, write it, and see if it works.

If none of the excuses seem plausible, it’s back to the drawing board. It’s worth some extra work to make sure I’m not losing a reader’s interest.

I’m thinking most fiction writers have the same problem. Why is the protagonist not using his magic powers to solve the problem? Why is the female protagonist making the same mistakes over and over again for no reason but to provide more plot conflict? I think it’s good to point out what the readers are already thinking and have the character answer their questions: (“Wish my magic powers could be used to stop time, but….” or “I know it seems like I keep making the same mistakes, but…”)

Ohhh, it’s been a frustrating couple of weeks.  I don’t usually like reading blog posts where the person has a long list of gripes.  This time, though, I’m going to write a list of gripes.  I want y’all to judge whether I have an evil spirit at work in my house.

The evidence for an evil spirit conspiring against me:

The transmission on one of our cars died (and the car was a Honda.)

The kitchen sink suddenly went berserk (but did it sneakily—I didn’t know about its misdeeds until the back-splash of the sink suddenly separated from the wall.)

The upstairs printer died.

The upstairs monitor died.

The wireless repeater died.

My laptop died spectacularly….sizzling and popping during its death throes.

My new laptop seems to think some hot keys are running.  It’s striking through this text as I write and I’m going back and correcting it.

The new printer immediately ran out of ink.

It appears my new laptop (Dell) may have to be returned because the “t” only works on the keyboard some of the time.  I don’t want to go without a laptop for another 2 weeks.

Evidence for no evil spirit—None.

It’s awful, but all of these problems the last couple of weeks have put me behind on my WIP.  And I really need to catch up quickly.  Is there someone in the group who can rid me of this blight?

What makes a good protagonist? This is a pretty subjective question since different readers like different types of heroes and heroines. But I see some common traits among the protagonists I admire:

They’re likeable. Now, I’ve read plenty of books with unlikeable protagonists (Catcher in the Rye, anyone?), but although I sometimes appreciated the talent of the author, I just didn’t care what happened to the protagonist. And that’s just a major problem. What if you have your whiny, unpopular protagonist and you’re building up to the major climax of the novel. He’s about to be thrown off a cliff….or is thrown off a cliff. If the guy isn’t someone I like, I’m thinking: “Eh. Too bad about him. Let’s see….what’s that next book on my reading list?”

If they’re not likeable (Ebenezer Scrooge) , they experience an epiphany and a radical change of heart.

Readers can relate to them. Or, if they can’t relate to them, they admire them, at least. Does anyone relate to James Bond? Anybody out there a crack shot, a pilot, a scuba diver, extraordinarily handsome, etc? But we can admire him. He’s one of the good guys.

They solve their own problems and, possibly, the problems of others. I don’t enjoy it when my protagonist gets rescued. Even in romances, that gets old (if they do get rescued in a romance, can the favor be returned at a later time? One-way rescuing all the time makes someone look weak.)

They’re intelligent. Or, if they’re not intelligent (Forrest Gump by Winston Groom), they have plenty of personality to make up for it. People who take the time to read are usually pretty intelligent. I think most readers have little patience for protagonists who aren’t too bright.

Related, but slightly different to the observation above: they behave intelligently. So, maybe they are smart. So why do they go down into the basement when they know the killer is down there? Why would they arrange to meet a murderer in a deserted location? Why?

Things happen to them. Maybe they have amazing luck—maybe they have amazingly bad luck. Maybe they’ve landed in a crazy family, or fall over murdered bodies all the time (Miss Marple), or have an interesting way of looking at the world. But they’re not boring and their life isn’t, either.

They have flaws. It’s so tedious to have a protagonist who is just too perfect. Unless they’re the Christ-figure in the book, they need to have some flaws. We’ll like them a lot better for it.

Do your favorite protagonists share common traits?

I have always been fascinated that American Martha Grimes writes a very successful British police procedural series.

The series is set around different British pubs, and includes deft descriptions of various British locales.

How does Martha Grimes do it? I think it would be extremely hard to accurately portray an area of the world where you’re only a visitor and not a resident.

The location for my Myrtle Clover series is Bradley, North Carolina. No one will write me to say that Bradley absolutely doesn’t have a tree-lined Main Street because the power company had the trees cut down. They won’t remind me that there are no one-story houses bordering the lake there. No one will catch me misrepresenting the menu in the favorite diner there.

Because Bradley, NC is completely made up.

I’m going out on a limb with my new series, though. It’s set in Memphis, Tennessee (and I’m a North Carolina resident.) I’m going to spend some time in Memphis in July to make sure all my setting descriptions are accurate. But I’m a little nervous. There’s nothing like messing up the facts to bring a reader out of a book that they were previously enjoying. Although I don’t spend a ton of time writing setting, it’s an important component to my books…and I want to get it right.

Does anyone else write books set in areas where you don’t reside? How do you do your research—online, in person, or a combination of the two?