I was struck by Tom Kies excellent entry of Aug 12 on an author's multiple personalities, because I have been thinking that very same thought lately. You can base every character you write about on a real person, or you can make somebody up out of whole cloth, but the truth is that every character you create has to be somewhere inside of you.
Yes, every little girl or knight in shining armor or housewife or serial killer is in you, and somehow you have to find that living place inside that you share.
For the past dozen years, I've been writing a historical series set in Oklahoma that features Alafair Tucker, a 40ish farm wife with ten children. She fits her life perfectly and finds deep meaning in it. She's content with her place in the universe. I admire her immensely, but I could never live like she does. Yet she is me. How could she not be?
Alafair and I have been raising her children for a long time, through the decade of the 1910s. but now the world is changing. World War I has played havoc with everything. The 1920s have dawned. Alafair's children are mostly grown. And it occurred to me that I'd like to see a little farther into the future. I've gotten several of the older children settled, but what is going to happen to the younger ones, who are coming of age in a very different era?
Besides, children don't necessarily grow into the people you wish they would. What would happen to someone who was raised in a secure, loving environment, but grew to lust after adventure and excitement?
Bianca LaBelle is cock-sure, headstrong and headlong, adventurous. She's also disappointed, wounded, and angry. But no matter how much you reject the values you were raised with, you are shaped by them. Bianca goes from being a sheltered farm girl to one of the most famous and admired women in the world, but she doesn't do it without applying a whole lot of the good old-fashioned creativity and bootstrap self-sufficiency she learned by growing up in early 20th century Oklahoma.
Bianca gets in an awful fix and has a lot of help to overcome it. But she was raised to know that you can't count on having your fat pulled out of the fire every time. You have to rely on yourself. So in the end, Bianca always takes care of it.
The Wrong Girl, the first Episode of the Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse, is finally available for pre-order on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Remember that early reviews and preorders are important for authors, so we always appreciate it if you can do your bit to keep us in print! Want to learn how to get e-copies of books before they're published in exchange for an honest review? Check out Netgalley.
