Category Archives: Character

It Lurks Within You

Guest Post by Tonya L. De Marco

 

“I’m gonna kill you!”

How many times do we hear or say that every week? Chances are quite a few. It’s usually a harmless statement, but I like to think about the people that mean it. The people that silently scream it over and over in their heads while hiding it behind a serene smile.  They march through everyday life as if in a masquerade, their faces reflecting only the emotions they choose to show us. Hiding behind the facades are images of spurting blood and victim’s pleas for mercy. The beast must be fed.

Those are the monsters I’m afraid of. And those are the monsters I’m inspired to transform into characters for my stories. Not the green alien creatures, werewolves, vampires or zombies…but the monsters that walk among us every day hiding in plain sight. The killer that sits in the next cubicle vetting her next victim. The classmate of our children who spends his free time studying blueprints of the school building rather than doing his homework. The ones that the neighbors and friends tell the reporters that “he was always so nice, so quite. He just stayed to himself.”

I’m intrigued by serial killers and, in particular, monstrous women. I think my fascination comes from the fact that I believe we all have demons deep inside of us that are capable of the heinous acts committed by these murderers.  We all feel some hate or have a desire at one time or another for vengeance. What is it that keeps us from acting upon these impulses?  What is different about them that allows their beasts the freedom to come forth?

Love and passion can turn to hate and thirst for revenge in the blink of an eye. So what makes someone follow through on those violent thoughts? What’s the difference between a person who “snaps” and may never kill again as opposed to someone that murders over and over again, carefully plotting and planning the crime? How are we, the normal people, able to control our rages? These are the questions I seek to answer in writing my dark characters.

My inspiration comes from real-life killers, past and present. The atrocities that humans are capable of inflicting against each another are far more terrifying to me than the stereotypical monster. I typically make my characters experience horrible things in their past to help explain why they might be the way they are.  Research has shown that the amygdala is enlarged in the brains of sociopaths, which may lead to answers about what drives their urges.

Everyone has the potential inside themselves. Therein lies the biggest fascination for me. People will say, “I could never do that.” And, after seeing the movie SAW, many reiterated that they couldn’t make those life-and-death choices.  I respectfully disagree. I invite those folks to sit down and meet their amygdala, the primitive brain. Constantly alert to the needs of basic survival, the amygdala would certainly trigger a “kill or be killed” reaction even in people that, in their higher brain, believe they have no capacity for.

I’m a petite red headed woman and even I carry this burden. For me, instead of applying a weapon to flesh, I feed my beast with pen to paper.

 

About the Author:

Tonya L. De Marco is a Costume Designer, Cosplayer, Model, and Author. She splits her time between the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. She’s been hooked on costumes and costuming since she was a preteen. Tonya has over twenty years of sewing experience which includes designing and sewing numerous costumes for school plays and local theater.
Tonya cosplays across multiple genres including anime, sci-fi, steampunk, Disney, comic book, and pin-up. She attends several conventions per year across the country and enjoys meeting and talking with people about cosplay. Tonya has been involved in costume contests/masquerades as both a participant and a judge—at different times, of course!
When she isn’t sewing or writing, Tonya enjoys spending time with her family, friends, and her three adopted miniature donkeys – Rogue, Storm, and Phoenix. Visit her at GuyAndTonya.com.

Why I Write What I Do

A Guest Post by Monique Bucheger

The theme of the Fictorian blog this month is “Moments Of Inspiration In Life: Our experiences as people influences our writing.” Which made me ponder: Why do I write what I write? And why do I keep doing it? The answer comes from my individual journey through life.

When I was 12, two of my friends from school were physically abused at home by their parents. I knew they needed help, but since I was also a kid, I didn’t know how to help them. That feeling of helplessness stuck with me for many years—so I decided to do something about it.

Soon after we married, my husband and I applied to be foster parents and were licensed. Through the years we have cared for over 100 foster kids as well as our own 12 children. The feeling of helplessness lessened, though the guilt for not being able to help my abused friends never went away.

When I was pregnant with our youngest child, I started writing again—something I did all the time as a teen—but had put on hold to raise our family. I had intended to write one book about a quirky, spunky 12-year-old girl named Ginnie West to keep a promise to my high school creative writing teacher.

Ginnie West 4 covers squ (1)Instead, it has turned into a four book middle grade series with at least three more books to go.

The series features half-orphaned Ginnie West and her best friend, Tillie. Ginnie’s mom died in an accident when Ginnie was three. Tillie’s dad abandoned his family six years before the start of book one (The Secret Sisters Club) after abusing Tillie and her mom.

Tillie’s parents have been divorced for four years. Now, Ginnie and Tillie want to be sisters—for very different reasons—and since Ginnie’s dad and Tillie’s mom aren’t dating other people, the girls decide to nudge them toward each other.

Mostly the series is about friendship, BFFs, horses, finding out who you are, changing what you don’t like, and belonging—important things to kids aged 8-14, as well as everyone else.

My Ginnie West Adventure series also deals with surviving the ripples of child abuse, defining who you are, being okay with who you are, accepting other people within safe parameters, going outside your comfort zone to do the right things and not defining yourself by other people’s weaknesses—among many other things.

It is also a fun, funny, wholesome series set on a modern day farm where kids “candle” eggs they gather and milk ornery goats. Where family is defined by people you choose to associate with as well as by those you are born to. Where kids concoct schemes that often backfire—resulting in both humorous and not-so-funny opportunities to solve problems and mature in unexpected ways.

In short, I write contemporary realistic fiction with humor. Helping kids (and adults) navigate the murky waters of pre-adolescence in what I hope is an empowering way.

Kids may not be able to change certain realities in their world but I want them to know they get to choose how they think about themselves and and their reality. If there is something they don’t like, they can make changes. If there is something they do like—I want them to embrace their uniqueness.

Middle grade is the time when kids start realizing that the world (and themselves) are full of possibilities. It is also when peer pressure begins—in both positive and negative ways. Kids hear and embrace certain messages about themselves—and they believe them.

This can work equally as a benefit as well as a detriment. When kids live in a safe home and have good self images, they flourish.  When life experiences haven’t been so kind, kids believe the worst about themselves or other peoples’ bad opinions of them.

Because of my background as a foster parent, overcoming child abuse and other hardships are  themes in my books. Even if a person wasn’t or isn’t a victim of child abuse, we all know people who were or are.

Bruises on the body heal and disappear, bruises on the soul linger and color lives in unexpected ways—often resulting in poor choices that complicate life unnecessarily.

Child abuse and its effects are not something people want to talk about, but something way too many people live with or were wounded by, and something that affects how people make decisions for the rest of their lives. When you are the victim of child abuse, you want to know why—and you want it to stop.

Sometimes I wonder if the time spent writing my books would be better used doing something else. Then I hear from someone who has read one or more of my books and lets me know that the book or story line helped them deal with something they were struggling with in their life.

Before I was published, a lady I’ll call Lily, messaged me one day and told me that she had read all of my books on our critique site. She had grown up in an extremely abusive home—her mother locked her and her sister in closets for days on end-not feeding them, beating them, allowing boyfriends to have their way with her daughters.

In short, Lily grew up with horrific, vile, damaging experiences. She told me that she couldn’t believe that any family could be so loving as the West family, but it was healing to her that such a family could exist. She told me that reading about how the West family helped kids like her comforted the abused little girl inside her—and gave her hope for other kids like her.

Lily’s story encouraged me to pursue publication—not an easy journey as people familiar with the process can attest. However, since my series has been published, I have heard from many other adults who lived with an abusive parent who have found peace and strength in my series.

Adults who weren’t abused (many teachers and parents) have told me they welcome an opportunity to read an age appropriate series with their kids so they can have open discussions that deal with the ripples of child abuse (poor self image, wrongly thinking they deserve to be abused, feeling powerless to change things).

I have been pleasantly surprised to find my books resonate with kids and adults alike—one of my biggest fans is a 72-year old man. Last year several tween and teenage girls rushed over to my table at a book signing, wanting my newest release, Being West Is Best. They were fully invested in Ginnie and Tillie, and wanted to find out what happened next.

My main character, Ginnie, is a spunky, courageous girl with a strong sense of loyalty and adventure. She loves trying new things and while she doesn’t often outright break “the rules”—there are often piles of twisted and bent rules in her wake.

Her BFF, Tillie, is more timid—but no doormat. In each successive book, Tillie realizes that she can overcome her rough beginnings and that she is  worthy of being treated well. Together, they give each other strength and permission to explore this thing called life and make their own definitions of who they are.

Like Ginnie’s great-uncle is fond of saying: “You may not be able to help the whole world, but you can do your part to help your corner of it.”

Empowering kids and adults to overcome bad experiences and to find courage to redefine their world and how they view it—in effect to become superheroes in their own lives—is why I continue to write the Ginnie West series.

About the Author:Author
When Monique Bucheger isn’t writing, you can find her playing taxi driver to one or more of her 12 children, plotting her next novel, scrapbooking, or being the “Mamarazzi” at any number of child-oriented events. Even though she realizes there will never be enough hours in any given day, Monique tries very hard to enjoy the journey that is her life. She is the author of the middle-grade Ginnie West Adventure series, a picture book titled “Popcorn,” and in the process of releasing two new series in the near future-a family drama and a middle-grade fantasy.

 

Character Names that Mean Something

Sometimes it’s hard to think of a good name for a character, location, or object.  When I first started writing, I would ponder for days, sometimes weeks, trying to find the right name.  Once I got on the Internet, though, I realized that the World Wide Web contains all sorts of resources that can make the task of naming your characters (and locations, and McGuffins) easier.

First and foremost is the wide variety of baby name sites on the internet.  If I know a bit about my character’s personality, I can search “baby names meaning warrior, baby names meaning beautiful, baby names meaning leader, baby names meaning sorrowful.”  I’m often able to come up with a name that suits my character and yet doesn’t sound painfully obvious (hint:  if you’re naming your male character “Rad” then you’d better have more to that choice than just wanting to be sure your readers understand that this character is awesome.)

I’ve often wanted a character to belong to a particular real-world ethnicity (including Indian, Polish, Anishinaabe, and Celtic) and had difficulty naming them, because I don’t like to give characters the same names as real-world people I know from those cultures, and I really don’t like making up some nonsense word that “sounds Chinese, Polish, Celtic, etc” as that can be truly offensive.  Online resources have provided me with lists of authentic names from those cultures.

Three cautions for baby name sites:  as with much information on the Internet,  verification is key.  It’s easy for someone to say that a name or word means something when it doesn’t, and some names have a variety of interpretations (like my own, Mary, which means “chosen by God,” “bitter,” or “rebellion,” depending on who you ask).  Cross-check your source to be sure it’s reliable.

Secondly, consider the culture of the character(s) and the setting of the story.  If your setting is a modern medical school, it’s relatively easy to explain a character with a Greek name, a character with a Swahili name, a character with an Arabic name and a character with a Sri Lankan name as co-workers.  If your setting is in Steampunk England at the turn of the 20th century, the explanation becomes more challenging.  If your setting is a fantasy village and your characters are all natives of the same village, it’s almost impossible to explain why their names are from completely different languages.  And while there can be interesting character hooks in, say, the Italian boy with the Pakistani name, or the Chinese girl whose name, translated, becomes a boy’s name in English, it can be confusing at best and insulting at worst if characters have ethnic names, but no other links to those ethnicities.  Conversely, if your character has immigrated to a society where there is prejudice against her ethnicity, she may deliberately choose a new name that will be easier to pronounce and “fit in” with the majority of that society—or she may be forcibly given one.

Thirdly, recognize that some names carry pre existing associations.  I love the idea of a girl’s name that means “to think like a man”—but the name in question is “Andromeda.”  Andromeda’s already a well-known mythological figure and if I don’t want to conjure ideas of constellations and sea monsters in the reader’s imagination, perhaps another name is a better choice for my character.

Google can also be an invaluable tool if you’ve just made up a name that you think sounds really cool.  The subconscious can play tricks on us; it’s possible that we might be borrowing a name that we’ve heard somewhere before and not realize it.  Do you really want the star of your space opera to be named Luke or Kirk?  Or the name that sounds neat to us might be similar to a word that’s embarrassing or offensive in another culture (witness the word “slag”, where the word’s literal definition is waste material from coal production.  Sounds like a badass heavy-industrial name for, say, a fighting robot–except that in Britain, “slag” is a derogatory slang term for a promiscuous woman.  Oops!  And this is why a certain Dinobot has recently changed his name to “Slug.”)  When I make up a cool-sounding new alien species, planet, or character name, I always run it through Google to see if it’s already part of some other franchise, or if it has meanings or associations that I didn’t realize.

The World Wide Web can provide writers with all kinds of inspiration for naming characters, places and objects.  Search engines also provide a quick and easy way to double-check that the neat and totally original new name you just thought up hasn’t already been used by someone before you.

 

Just Under the Surface: Subtle Conflict

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In our culture, the bigger the explosion, the better it sells. Action movies rule the box office, and readers ferociously consume romance, fantasy, and thrillers for the intense conflict. Our sensory input sure loves the loud conflicts. But what does the mind love? What does the brain crave? Subtle conflict. Tension between two lovers because of the faint scent of perfume on the collar. A character’s chest pain that doesn’t seem to subside. A character’s gnawing feeling to return home. These are sometimes called “minor conflicts,” but can change the entire ending to a story and leave readers breathless.

When we think of conflict, we think of some pretty violent words: fight, war, blood, feud, anxiety. Okay, maybe I just have anxiety when I think about conflicts and confrontation. But here are words we don’t usually think of right away when it comes to conflict: sleuth, spy, unreliable narrator, slow, time, patience. When does a plot twist truly blow your mind? When the hints and foreshadowing have been so subtle that you didn’t piece it together until it was right in front of your face. This kind of conflict takes time and patience to build.

In subtle conflict, the author dives into character motives, changes in the environment, and/or a slowly-shifting political climate. Not as flashy as a war, say, but an extremely effective tool when planning a book’s climax.

One of the best examples of subtlety in contemporary literature (that I can think of) is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Stevens, the protagonist, is a butler in England that takes great pride in his work. He is very loyal to his job and his employer to a fault. Stevens tells about his day-to-day duties through his own rose-colored lens in such a boring way that you begin to question why you’re reading the book in the first place.

And then, something small, almost inconsequential, strikes you as amiss. Very slowly, you begin to piece together that not everything is how Stevens perceives it to be. By the end of the book you realize, through no major conflict, what the conflict truly is: Stevens lies to himself, seeing only the best in his employer and his life. He is the conflict; he refuses to see things as they truly are.

While I don’t expect very many people would describe The Remains of the Day as “exciting,” or “thrilling,” I describe the book as being “artfully written,” and “beautifully subtle.” When I finished the book, all I could say was: “Wow.”

While anyone would agree that strong conflict is necessary in a compelling book, that doesn’t necessarily mean those conflicts have to be loud and in your face. They can be floating just under the surface, slowly building pressure and tension until the climax.

Fire-breathing dragons are cool, and explosions are nice. But don’t forget the subtle conflicts that can truly make your story memorable, unique, and blow your readers’ socks off.

About Kristin LunaKristin Luna copy
Kristin Luna has been making up stories and getting in trouble for them since elementary school. She writes book reviews for Urban Fantasy Magazine and her short story “The Greggs Family Zoo of Odd and Marvelous Creatures” was featured in the anthology One Horn to Rule Them All alongside Peter S. Beagle and Todd McCaffrey. Her horror story “Fog” will be featured on Pseudopod in May of this year. Kristin lives in San Diego with her husband Nic, and is working on a young adult novel.