Category Archives: Character Development

Thoughts about how characters come alive.

Burgeoning Like a Pod

Character Development, Writer's Life, , , , ,
Close up on young pumpkin flower on dark blur background. Blooming. Bud. Burgeon. Vegetable. Courgette, squash, gourd. Farming, gardening. Nature. Plant. – 10 August 2020, Montreal, Canada

This week, I’ve been discussing the concept of creating characters like so many alien pods left to seed in my imagination by some random galactic force… Maybe the god of prose? In other words, faceless golems waiting to be molded by words on a page. It’s only the words that have the power to animate them, get them to act and interact with their fellow pods. But wow, when they take form and start living, there is no end to what they can do, the trouble they can get into, the bonds they form.

It occurred to me that I’m not so different from them. I was just as featureless when I started writing, until my pods developed, jump started my sluggish imagination, and gave me life. I had no idea when I sat down to write my first book that all these words were in me, all these pods waiting to sprout into characters with a myriad personalities.

Is this why they call us burgeoning writers?

When you sit down to your keyboard and a story comes to life, do you feel like a plant pod opening under the sun? Drop me a comment and let me know.

Just my random pod people ramblings…

I’d love it if you took a moment to check out my Books rich with so many pod transformations, characters I know you will love.

Don’t Make Me Leave My Pod People!

Character Development, Writer's Life, ,

I recently explored the concept of my characters sprouting from alien spoors, seeding my mind with featureless golems that come to life through my fingers and spring over the keyboard. Yes, I live with pods in my head. I really like it in there, and they depend on me.

What I don’t like is having to leave them behind when I come out to do all the mind-bending, endless labor it takes to publish and sell books. Too much time getting headaches when all I want to do is add dimension to my pod family! …And maybe find some time to relax with the hubby. That seems to be a hard-won bonus these days. I mostly get to see him when he comes to visit my pod people. He’s very amenable that way.

But I’m being honest here… I mostly want to run screaming back to the confines of my imagination. There are scenes needing to be written! More characters that lay dormant waiting for the words to make them whole. Why must I go down a million internet vortexes that lead to galaxies, that lead to universes where it seems I might never find my way back out, just to get them out into the world?

Do they really need to go into print? Maybe my pod people are happier where they are.

The bottom line is, I tell their stories for my readers to enjoy.

So, grow pod people, take shape, and fly off the page and into cozy reading nooks everywhere.

***

This was inspired by my recent time spent on Draft2Digital loading up my books. Soon, they will finally be available in all the stores, and not just Amazon. Sigh of relief…

Artwork above and below by:

Vic DeLeon Art Director, Ark II, Studio Wildcard – ArtStation.com

Characters, or alien pod people?

Character Development,

Since I started writing a year and a half ago, and somehow decided that my first story would become a three-part, 900-page novel, characters have been sprouting, growing and taking on life like so many alien pods. My life is truly no longer my own.

The featureless entities shed their membranes and take on dimension as they flow out through my fingers and over the keyboard, then burst onto my screen. But part of them keeps growing inside me, their tentacles wrapping firmly around my consciousness, and oozing out through my senses. Then they become entangled with my emotions.

I would choose to live no other way. Their stories must be told. Telling them is my reward for being their host.

Soon it will be time to let them go into the world on their own, to make room for my imagination to be seeded again, maybe from a different part of the galaxy. But I’m not quite ready for that yet.

How do you deal with your pod people and the sense of becoming an observer in your own head, loving your characters like children who will leave you and maybe never look back? I’d love to know. I think readers get it.

I’m sharing some artwork by Artist Timi Honkanen. I think artists get it, too.

Artist, Timi Honkanen, ArtStation.com catalog

Timi Honkanen 2D artist