Karen Sandler

Tag: character

  • Where in the World Do My Characters Live?

    First, full disclosure—I am the polar opposite of a pantser (that is, a writer who just sits down and starts writing with no preparation).  As a former software engineer, I plan out my books to the nth degree before I ever sit down to write page one.  I complete a detailed synopsis and fill a file with copious notes before starting chapter one.

    But even before creation of the synopsis comes my favorite part of the process—extensive character sketches.  I like to know everything about my characters from where they went to school to what their favorite color is, from who their parents were to key turning points in their lives.

    Most of my character sketches deal with the characters’ pasts, what made them who they are today.   But there’s one important element that pertains to the here and now—where my characters currently live.  If much of the plot revolves around their home and home town, I need as concrete as possible an image of what that happy (or not so happy) home looks like.

    After I choose the locale (town/city/part of the country) for my character’s abode, I decide what kind of place they live in–an opulent estate, a one bedroom apartment, a ranch out in the tulies. I then turn to a handy Internet resource—real estate websites.  Sites such as www.realtor.com and www.realestate.com allow me to search their database of listings by location, price, number of bedrooms, acreage, etc.  Most of the listings have at least one photo of the home for sale, some have multiple pictures, interior and exterior.  Some even include video “tours,” animated views of the home in question.

    For instance in one of my romance novels, HIS MIRACLE BABY, the hero is a wealthy man who lives on a large estate in Granite Bay, CA.  The estate had to include a guest house where the heroine would be living while she acted as surrogate for his implanted embryo.  On the Realtor.com webpage, I searched for homes with 5+ bedrooms with a price above $2 million (hey, I said he was rich).  I found a lovely farm style house on four acres with a small “granny flat” on the property.

    I copied the photos from the listing and pasted them into a Word document for later reference.  Then, when I needed to describe the grounds or the living room, I had the pictures at my fingertips.  I also printed the original listing with all the details about the home, further ammunition for my descriptive passages.

    Once I have a specific address, I can use a mapping program such as Google Maps to calculate driving distances to various locations mentioned in the story.  For instance, when the heroine feels sharp pains halfway through her pregnancy and fears she may be going into labor far too early, I want to know the hospital is only ten miles away, but a twenty minute drive from the hero’s home.  In another of my romance backlist, HER MIRACLE MAN, it’s an important factor in the story that the hero’s isolated mountain retreat is at least an hour away from the sheriff’s station in Lake Tahoe, a route he’s loathe to drive with a storm raging outside.

    I’m not a slave to reality when I choose a home for my characters.  I adapt the actual house to what works best for the story.  If I need a small room upstairs to serve as the nursery, I put it there in my fictional home.  But the information gleaned from the real estate websites gives me a framework with which to start and some good visual images to act as a launch pad for my creativity.

  • Foreshadowing vs. Telegraphing

    Earlier today, while working on my WIP (work in progress for you non-writers out there), I got to thinking about the difference between foreshadowing and telegraphing. Although they’re both writing devices in which an author sets up something that will be fulfilled later, foreshadowing is a much more subtle use of this device. Telegraphing, to me, is more like the writer jumping up and down and pointing to the Important Thing to be sure the reader sees it.

    What started me thinking about foreshadowing was when I wrote the following paragraph:

    Adja sat placidly enough wedged between Austin and Noah. If she got it into her head to take off while we were joined, I wasn’t sure if we’d notice. The doors were locked again. Hopefully that would be enough to stop her.

    Without going into the plot of my WIP, suffice it to say it would be very bad if the character, Adja, left while the other characters were otherwise occupied. The reader already knows that at this point in the book. But these two sentences:

    If she got it into her head to take off while we were joined, I wasn’t sure if we’d notice. The doors were locked again. Hopefully that would be enough to stop her

    are me announcing to the reader that Adja is going to leave and dire things will ensue. Totally on the nose, subtext free. No subtlety at all. This, to me, is telegraphing, not foreshadowing. Which left me with two choices.

    1) Leave it as is, but Adja stays. The reader will be relieved (although faintly disappointed). Then wham, I hit the reader with something far more terrible that’s a consequence of Adja staying.

    2) Adja does leave, but delete the second and third sentence.

    When I wrote that paragraph, I hadn’t planned whether Adja would leave or stay, so I left it there and continued on. But as I continued to write the scene, I realized that Adja should leave. So I went with option (2). I rewrote it this way:

    We all piled into the Caddy, me behind the wheel, Tariq next to me, Lisette by the window. Emily, Austin and Noah sat in the back seat, the boys flanking Adja. She sat placidly enough wedged between them.

    It’s kind of “housekeeping” paragraph that describes where the characters are all arranged in the car. A little mundane, but it reminds the reader that Adja is in the car with the other characters.

    But this mention of Adja also foreshadows. By now the reader knows the other characters won’t be able to keep track of Adja while they’re “joining.” When reminded of Adja, the reader will start worrying that she might leave and the other characters won’t notice until it’s too late. Foreshadowing gets me to the same goal–setting up Adja’s departure–as telegraphing would. But the more subtle foreshadowing accomplishes a more important goal–it raises the reader’s anxiety level, which will hopefully keep her turning pages.

    Of course, this is a first draft, so it’s hard to say if the paragraph will survive unedited. But even if it doesn’t, it was a very nice aha moment for me. Often, the lighter (and more subtle) the hand, the more compelling the result.