When the Character Comes Alive - A Guest Post by Anne Louise Bannon

Anne Louise Bannon is celebrating the release of her latest mystery novel, The Last Witnesses.  She joins us today with a peek at how character development affects the writing process. 

WHEN THE CHARACTER COMES ALIVE

By Anne Louise Bannon

If you’ve ever heard a writer talk as if her or his characters were real, living human beings, you might wonder if said writer was a little wacky. Not really. For many of us (and I’m not saying every writer), we look forward to that moment when our characters stop being words on paper and starting banging around in our heads as real people.

It means, for me, that my characters are coming from that really deeply intuitive part of me that’s the most creative. It also means that occasionally one of my characters is going to say or do something completely unexpected.

That’s what happened when I was writing my latest novel, The Last Witnesses. The mystery is set in 1925 and features Freddie Little, a millionaire socialite who happens to have written a book. Now, in the first book in the series, Fascinating Rhythm, Freddie meets his editor Kathy Briscow, who becomes his friend and (in book two, Bring Into Bondage) his wife.

We first meet Freddie’s mother, Gloria Derby Little, in Fascinating Rhythm, and as I originally saw her, she was this grand matron, completely disinterested in her adult children, kind but in a very noblesse oblige sort of way. So you can imagine my amazement when I’m writing along on book three, The Last Witnesses, and Freddie’s having tea with his mother and she mentions that she’s not only read Freddie’s book but liked it a great deal. In the book, Freddie’s jaw pretty much hits the floor. And that’s pretty much what my jaw did. What? Stuffy old Gloria not only reads but reads F. Scott Fitzgerald (who was pretty radical at the time). What the heck just happened here?

Actually, as I thought about it, it made more sense that way. Freddie must have gotten his love of writing and language from somewhere, and why not his mother, even if he didn’t realize it? Also, in a later scene, I had planned that Gloria would accept Kathy and her marriage to Freddie. The stuffy old matron I had originally envisioned would have had a much harder time coming to terms with Kathy, who comes from a poor farming family in Kansas. So it was much better if Gloria turned out to be a very well-read, lively and reasonably open-minded woman.

Fortunately, it didn’t mess up the plan I’d made for my plot, and Gloria is turning out to be quite interesting, as I’m discovering while writing Book Four. I have had it happen in another book (and another series) where someone came to life in an odd way and changed everything. But the story was much better for it.

It’s all about learning to trust that deeply intuitive place in my brain. And it’s a lot of fun when it happens. Even if I have some re-writing to do. Because if a character is doing something odd, that means he or she is becoming real, and that’s the best part of all, even if it makes me sound a little wacky when I’m talking about it.

About the Author

Anne Louise Bannon is an author and journalist who wrote her first novel at age 15. Her journalistic work has appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Wines and Vines, and in newspapers across the country. She was a TV critic for over 10 years, founded the YourFamilyViewer blog, and created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog with her husband, Michael Holland. She also writes the romantic fiction serial WhiteHouseRhapsody.com. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.

Musings on Serial Fiction, a Guest Post by Anne Louise Bannon

Anne Louise Bannon, author of Fascinating Rhythm, is joining us today to get your feedback on how readers feel about serialized fiction.  Is it relevant and appealing for today's reader?  Please comment below to let her know your thoughts!

MUSINGS ON SERIAL FICTION

By Anne Louise Bannon

 I'm afraid this is not one of those wonderful posts where I solve the problems of the world with my succinct, yet powerful prose. I'm not going to solve any problems. I'm writing because I have a problem and don't know what to do. So I'm going to throw it out there for all of you to weigh in and see what happens.

   I'm trying to figure out if serializing a novel on a blog is a viable way of publicizing it before publication. Or even another way to publish a novel or story, in general. You see, I've got my nice little cozy Fascinating Rhythm out now, in which my two heroes search the streets and speakeasies of 1924 New York City to find out who killed her boss. But there's a sequel, Bring Into Bondage. Would it make sense to publish it as a serial on my blog before putting it into book form? Or maybe serialize one of my other novels?

            I already have WhiteHouseRhapsody.com, a romantic fiction serial about a single president and his aide trying not to fall in love with each other. Years ago, I decided to do that one as a blog because the novel just wouldn't end. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of it. It hasn't exactly taken off.

            Even though there is a sizable community out there publishing serial fiction, I'm not entirely convinced that it's going to get popular enough to use it as a promotional vehicle.

            On the plus side, folks love novel series. And TV series (yes, that's relevant, I'll explain in a minute). And Charles Dickens did very well by the fiction serial, admittedly over 150 years ago, but the way the Internet works, there are some of the same advantages to reading this way. Fiction serials are published in easy digestible chunks, so that you can read an episode or two while commuting, for example, or during a quick work break.

            On the other hand, it's not like novels are that expensive these days, as they were in Dickens' day. Most folks could afford a penny paper every so often, as opposed to a whole novel, which made reading a story over several editions of a paper much easier. Nor is it that hard to pick up and read a bit of a full novel, especially when you've got e-readers that will hold your place for you.

            But there are two more important reasons why I don't think serial fiction will fly. One is that Amazon tried selling it about three years ago and dropped the program pretty quickly. It's possible they just didn't give it a chance, but methinks there just wasn't enough of a market. The other reason is something that's happening in the world of Television.

            Up until last year, I was a TV critic and had been one for over 15 years. So, as you might imagine, I'm usually pretty up on how people consume media. And the big trend these days is binge viewing – watching all of a series' season in one fell swoop, as opposed to watching week by week. Whether they use a DVR or a streaming service like Netflix or Hulu, more and more people are watching series kind of like they read novels – in large chunks at a time.

            This is interesting. People love investing themselves in a great extended storyline with characters they care about, but now have the freedom to watch several episodes in a row rather than wait for a new one each week. And they're increasingly choosing to do just that.

            That being said, it is possible folks just don't know about the serial fiction alternative. Maybe Amazon just didn't give it enough of a chance.

            So I'm putting it out there. Do you like the idea of reading a story over several months in small bits or would you prefer to binge read, like you would a novel? I think it's a question worth asking, even if I didn't have some personal skin in the game.

About the Author

Anne Louise Bannon is an author and journalist who wrote her first novel at age 15. Her journalistic work has appeared in Ladies' Home Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Wines and Vines, and in newspapers across the country. She was a TV critic for over 10 years, founded the YourFamilyViewer blog, and created the OddBallGrape.com wine education blog with her husband, Michael Holland. She also writes the romantic fiction serial WhiteHouseRhapsody.com. She and her husband live in Southern California with an assortment of critters.