My interest in characters, fictional or otherwise, increases as their flaws, frailties and eccentricities are revealed. Preferably, surprisingly so, layer by layer, and with much painful angst; not belly-button gazing, but reflection and revelation and reaction to their human condition, and what the hell they’re going to do about it or no. Perfect or near-perfect or black and white characters bore me. No, actually they don’t, because I refuse to endure them. I skim them in my reading, if I must. Or usually either trash or delete the work at hand and move on. Life is too short for namby-pamby idealizations. I prefer those more infinite gray shades of our lives’ challenge and pain—emotional, psychological and often physical—descending into those tension and anxiety-ridden corners, unforeseen and unknowable, of imminent destruction, with salvation as the wild card one might hope or pray for, but is never guaranteed.
My writing reflects my reading interests. This may sound odd, but I’ve always wondered where certain of my characters come from. That is, I know some come from the more standard blood, sweat and tears approach. I start with a sinew of personality and build them forth into, hopefully, full life and purpose; others, meanwhile, not so much. Too often I’ve noticed that my best or, should I say, more complex characters come to me fairly well formed already. Subconscious gestation and development? Lives from one of my past lives? Who knows? I only know that when I really need them, they seem to arrive to me maybe three quarters or more full-bodied and hot-blooded and ready to go. Of course there is always the endless mediation and meditation and refining that follows; but, in general, they seem to already know who they are and where they’re going, or think they do, all entirely unplanned by me, as best I can tell. And more often than I care to admit, they, as well, refuse to follow whatever itinerary I had for them and simply go their own way. And I must scramble to keep up. Wondering where they might be leading me now. Precious, spooky bastards. Talking with other authors, I know I’m not alone.
As an example, Dawson Shaughnessy, my chief-of-detectives, somewhat antihero main character in my novel French Quarters arrived so. Dawson is loosely based on the actual 19th century, New Orleans city-cop David Hennessy, who, walking home from work one dark October night in 1890 (and after just dropping by his local bar for a glass of milk and oysters on the half shell) was shotgunned to his knees, only steps from the modest wooden home he shared with his mother. Before starting the novel, I’d read everything I could find about Hennessy, and the more I read the more enigmatic he became. He seems to have been an iron-willed, cool-tempered, rather private man, and who happened to be the first cop in America to encounter and clash head-on with this unknown entity known as la Mafia. With my Gilded Age setting and Hennessy as backdrops, I spent some considerable time making notes on Dawson and the direction I wanted to take him. Then, just as I began the first draft, he suddenly appeared and basically threw it all away, including the plotline journey I had so excitedly planned in all its glorious detail. It was like a house of cards tumbling down around me, and it happened so quickly and effectively, I had no time to object or thrown down my author’s card. I simply gave a nod to this equally enigmatic, flawed and troubled soul standing before me, and hung on for the ride.
There followed a journey I was becoming more and more familiar with each passing work. A mixture of the planned with unplanned side trips, and occasional far left-field wildcard of the unexpected. Dawson appearing more and more as the flawed hero I’d envisioned, but something more, as he and others came at me as something evermore dangerously organic. They let it be known they wanted to go places and do and say things that were most important to them, and as close to breathing, feeling beings as possible. With aggravation ever touching the comic, the process became something of a theater playhouse, where I viewed the ongoing action from the audience, and where my directorial advice was occasionally taken; more often ignored.
But, in the end, does it really matter? For readers, I think, it’s mostly about the journey, not so much the origination or destination. And while they’re taking that journey you arranged, I think they could care less who made the tires for the car or what oil you put in the engine. It’s about the experience you gave them, and did it satisfy that readers’ hunger within them or no? Did they believe and enjoy the world you created, or did they abandon the offering and move on? In other words, love it or hate it, just don’t be indifferent to it, regardless. As I’ve come to believe, I don’t care where they come from—my characters—as long as they do come to me, revealing their flaws, frailties and eccentricities, as they descend toward imminent destruction, all the while hoping or praying for their own salvation.