Creating Characters in My Imagination and in Real Life

What an Imagination Does for a Creator

Do you find it difficult to come up with realistic characters to jump off your page? I wonder that all the time. I hope my journey to capture characters with depth will help you. The best part, I had fun discovering who these people are. They came out to tell their story.

I wrote three mystery novel series based on the premise of woodcarvings that come to life.

The first two in a series is The Santa Keepers Mysteries, set in the present day. The stories are about balancing family life with work or other outside responsibilities. My second series is The Cora Chronicles set in 1926.  Cora yearns for adventure, meets interesting people and sometimes gets into trouble. Maybe it could have something to do with mystical, mythical magical creatures that walk across her path.

Writing a series based on living woodcarvings has been a challenge and a joy. The woodcarvings in my stories form a village. They all have names, occupations, relationships, and lots of secrets.  The villagers, what I call them, are fun and funny.  They are village elders and village troublemakers; adults and children.  I have written descriptions and backgrounds for each of the characters. You can read a short description of how they came to be here on The Santa Keepers blog site www.santakeepers.com.

I’ve Been a Woodcarver For Over 15 Years

I carve most human figures.  You can see my work at www.scottcarvings.com.

For me, to get to know my characters I carved each of them in basswood.  So, not only do they have an imaginary presence they also have a physical presence in my house.  Do I believe they are real and that they come to life?  No, I’m not that crazy – yet.

But having them on my bookshelf, looking back at me has been a source of inspiration. Their stories are easier to write. I can look over to remember the color of their hair, eyes, clothing, shoes, etc.  I arrange the families’ groupings so I can remember their relations.  They are portable so I can move them around and arrange them in different order or put them in odd places.  I can take them along with me any time I want. I’ve taken them to the Minnesota State Fair – as part of the woodcarving competition – they earned a red ribbon.

Sometimes I feel like a child playing with dolls as I make up stories about them. However, my behavior is no worse than authors who use Pinterest to create fictional worlds.  I’ve even read about writers who built dollhouse-type models to create fictional worlds. They have gone to great lengths to decorate, paint and carpet to generate their visions for a story.

One of my woodcarvings, Lars, is a herder who manages a group of eight tiny reindeer that play vital roles in the stories. However, time has not allowed me to carve the reindeer yet. But I will before Christmas Eve Night, maybe. It all depends how full my summer will be. One villager is Astrid who often mettles in and hopes to bring humans together for romance.  The beauty of creating fictional characters is that I can add more of them to the line up any time. But then, I will also have to carve them.

Isn’t writing and creating fiction a blast?  As authors, we get to create anything we want from our imaginations.  But in my case, I’ve also created them in real life.

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R. M. Scott Author Site