If Only My Pen

“Oh no, nobody in that story is me?” Have you ever heard yourself answering that way when someone ask you “Which one of you characters is you?”

Why do we say that? Why do we lie like that as writers? Why can’t we just admit that every person we create is us to a certain degree? If it because we don’t know?

Well if you are a writer that doesn’t realize that, think about this for a moment: As we go through our day, are month, our year our live, we accumulate stories—now on that I can almost feel your heads nodding. But think about this, we also accumulate characters.

Now the funny thing about that fact is that while we do this we are not simply writing what we saw (e.g., he had dirty hair, green eyes, or a smooth way about him) no, we are interpolating (not to be confused with interpreting) how that person affected us. WE are deliberately adding to that person’s real self piece of us through that person’s interaction with us or our reaction to him… so in affect… we are becoming that person to an extent.

When we create a rich full character that makes a reader respond, we are taken that minimal about of information gathered from a superficial observation or a limited contact (or years of information if we are brave enough to write about a real person) and have translated their actions through the use of our own senses and put them then on the page for other’s to share and take away their own interpretation of that person.

In the end, just like the children’s game, by the time several people have read our books, our characters become so far removed from that ‘man on the train’ or ‘woman in the store’ or ‘our sister’ ‘cousin’ etc., that we are hardly ever nailed to the wall for slander or libel but instead are asked… was that character you? This is because at the core of every character is your perception of them.

At the root of every man woman and child is your idea of why they are who they are… and thus, this makes every character we write a little bit of us. Don’t shy away from the question. Answer it proudly—oh yes, that was me, and so was this character that that one over there and this one right here… they are all little bits me and my mind at work. I designed a world for you with people I wanted you to meet. I thought you’d enjoy meeting them as much as I did when I met them the first time.

Heat up your winter nights with McGriff’s newest novel
- BLOOD RELATIONS -
The much anticipated sequel to the best seller OBSESSION 101!
“Roman is back and he’s ‘madder’ than ever!”
www.michellemcgriff.com

What is a writer to do when faced with a busy schedule and deadlines? How does a busy writer create such a lively storyline when they never seem to leave their homes or jobs…? How does busy writer seem to know so much about people?

They key to creating interesting realistic characters is to use what you have at hand. For many busy writers, we find the internet to be our windows to the outdoors. We read our current, national, local, celebrity and odd news there. From these articles we can create colorful characters.

Characters for many fiction writers are a conglomeration of my ‘types’ of people the author has come in contact with. For fiction writers, we seek to stay pretty far from reality when gathering our ‘types’ in that we try not to simply take one person and perfectly remake them on paper. Often we take ‘parts’ of people on a bus to create on fascinating multifaceted character—on a train. Many of my readers have enjoyed my dimensional characters. Strangely enough… those characters seem to be secondary characters. I think it’s because for me as a writer, I tend to focus on the back story a little more than the actual main story—kind of like—sleight-of-hand. I want my readers to feel at home with the neighborhood, and so I draw up rich background characters.

As I write this blog, I will show my minds process on character creation, in the end I will have created a character that I can use in a book. I’ll show you my process for characters creation and how I make this technique work in my fiction writing

ABOUT

California transplant Michelle McGriff now writes using the lush green backdrop of the Great Northwest as her muse.

Known to her family as the `best of storytellers’, Ms. McGriff spins intelligent, poignant, and touching yarns, with a poetic voice and writing that has become hers to keep, holding her readers captive from start to finish.

She excitedly became a part of the Kensington Publications, joining first Q-boro Books in 2005 and then Urban Soul in 2005. With this opportunity to shine, she hoped to entertain a new audience with her rule-breaking, cross-genre writing style that is sure to entertain the enlightened reader.

In 2006, she joined the ranks of Best Selling Author with her contribution of Secret Lovers and has held the status each year with entertaining reads.

While working towards her PhD in Organizational Management (which she will use as a corporate trainer / cultural competency workshop facilitator) Ms. McGriff is also working on a guidebook that will help business writers with visual communication in the workplace, as well as new fiction writers who want to realize their dreams while avoiding some of the pitfalls common to newcomers to the industry. As an advocate of self publishing, Ms. McGriff will focus much research on self publishing for new writers.