murder.booklocker.com

Interview: Bruce Cook

April 2nd, 2007

[This is the second installment of back-to-back interviews with Robert Fate and Bruce Cook on working with characters. See 1st, Fate]

Cheryl: What can you tell a novice writer like myself about creating your characters?

Bruce: For me the easiest way to create characters is to dredge the memory bank. I find colorful folks I have known and see how much of their personality I can borrow for my new character. I don’t make my character resemble them so much in appearance, but in behavior. Usually I find that must conflate two or three people from my past to get the completely fleshed out character in my story line.

For example, in my novel Philippine Fever there is a woman named Sonja. She pronounces her name Sone-juh, rather than Sone-yuh. This pronunciation I ran across in a small town, and have since met two other ladies who pronounce their name that way. The Son-juh I knew was a mild-mannered secretary, and all I borrowed was her name.

However, I also know two female former Marines. One of them provided the physical description of my character–5 foot 10 inches, 185 pounds, single eyebrow, large bosom. She had been an MP in the Corps and was extremely capable physically. I hired her to provide security on a motion picture that I directed. Though she looked intimidating (and I saw her break up fights between larger men), she was quite soft-spoken and polite. From her I got the physical description and fighting ability for my character.

The other lady Marine I knew was a hard-drinking, hard-living, man-chasing, practical joker. She provided the final ingredients for Philippine Fever’s Sonja.

Cheryl: Did you write bios for each?

Bruce: I don’t write bios ahead of time for characters, though I could easily do so after the book is finished. I like to invent their past as I go. It turns out I know several people who do this with their day to day lives, so that they are unreliable witnesses to their own history. Sometimes this is to hide things they are ashamed of, but more often it is a person who simply doesn’t find enough excitement in their past. In any case I find no difficulty inventing detail at the drop of a hat.

Cheryl: Okay, let me put it this way. Did you write back stories?

I don’t intentionally write back stories, but I often discover that I need to delete sequences from my writing because they do nothing except provide back story for a character. The sequence does not advance the plot. In other words, I find that I wrote the information to understand the character’s motivation, but it is too direct (and shows the construction technique of the writing) to tell this back story. Instead I let the back story (which I have now deleted from the manuscript) inform and color all the actions of the character.

Cheryl: How did/do you keep track of all the characteristics/preferences?

Bruce: Once the characters are alive in my imagination, it is no more difficult to keep them separate than it is to differentiate among your siblings and friends. They are so vivid in your mind that you never confuse one for another. For me it is only acquaintances who run together in memory.

Cheryl: Were there any surprises when you put two characters side by side in the novel? (see Unnervedand It’s Happened Again)

Bruce: I am sure you have heard this before, but is amazing how the characters that you have created seem to take on a life of their own when you put them into a scene. I gratefully accept this as a gift from my creative subconscious. If the character seems to want to do something other than what I had planned in my outline, I let them have their head. Occasionally this leads to a story dead end, but more often it sparks a wonderful plot twist.

Another example from Philippine Fever: in my original outline two of the criminals, Olivia and Cheeto, were partners. I wondered if Cheeto (an 18 year old man) could be a love interest/boy toy for the 30 year old Olivia. I discovered that I could have a much stronger plot and motivation for Olivia’s behavior if Cheeto were her son. I’ll leave the explanation of this apparent age discrepancy to the novel, since the explanation provides a major motivation for the final action.