Long, long ago when I was a young writer attempting to establish my “tribe,” as was all the rage then, I would make posts on Instagram or other social media platforms with the tag #oddwriter. My desire was to share some of my observations about how uncanny the art of writing, novel writing, truly is as the author. There is an element of insanity to writing about fictional people. I’ve seen this excessively spiritualized by many authors, and while, yes, it does involve the human soul, the human spirit, the moving of the muse isn’t the attainment of some new spiritual high or some whispering of the Holy Spirit. That only happened in the penning of the Scriptures, not in the crafting of my newest fantasy novel. Still, there is much to storytelling that is deliciously inexplicable – moments with characters appear out of nowhere, moments when things you couldn’t make work together suddenly click, moments when characters refuse to do what you tell them, and more. They are the parts that are mysterious to anyone who isn’t a fiction writer, and they’re a deep part of the magic for me as the author. They’re what I live for as a writer.

How do I elucidate them without sounding unhinged? That is the goal of the Oddity of the Inner Life of the Author. To talk about these elements in no particular order or schedule as a means of sharing with readers the nonsense that moves like an undercurrent in the background of their favorite stories. A peek behind the curtain, if you will.

Today, I’m going to talk about the odd moment—usually in my first rough draft, or an extremely vivid daydream—when I become aware of the fact that I’m living life in two worlds. I’m in the real world, the tangible world full of flowers, my chickens, butterflies, weather changes, friends, family, social events, church, emails, dinner, dishes, and laundry. All the wonderful things that fill life to the brim. While I go about these things, a small part of my heart and soul is wrapped up in a romance[1] centered on people who don’t exist. (There are four of them for me right now.) I have reached the point in the crafting of the story where I have fallen in love with these particular characters. This corner of my heart is wrapped up in them, bound up in them, allowing them to live rent free in my soul. They’ve grown loud, distinctive, each talking over the other in order to tell their story. My, oh my, what a loud place my brain can be when the voices in my head all want to share their opinions at once. And oh, how much do we strange things called authors love this annoying distraction! There is a special strength it lends me when part of me is wrapped up in my characters just chomping at the bit to move on in their story. It is like having your best friends always at your back no matter what the day holds. It allows me hold a snippet of joy in my soul that, for only a brief time, is mine alone.

One of the things I tend to end up doing when I’m in this stage of romance with my characters is to find pictures of actors that would suit my mental image of them. It is the author’s version of playing paper dolls. Many of us authors play this game, some to the point of distraction from the actual writing. Sometimes the actor you have in mind is obvious. You know it instantly. Other times you can never really find someone to suit your characters. I’ve been watching a movie or a show before and felt like I was suddenly seeing someone I knew, knew well, for the first time (that’s another author oddity to talk about another time), and sometimes I see an actor whose uniqueness has so caught my eye that I want to write them as a character. Either way, this actor assignment became a big part of my craft development as a young author. My sister is probably at fault here. She used to connect with my stories by picking actors to play my characters. She would hunt down people for me, suggesting actor after actor. She made me fan art (absolutely the best) based on actors we’d settled on. It was her way of cheering me on. Through all that, this actually became a part of my creative process, part of my asking the character, “Who are you?”

For Wizard Prison, this character creation started with a desire to write Ben Barnes as the hero. He plays a great villain, but really, would it hurt him to be the hero now and again? Unfortunately, that didn’t really take. I switched to Cillian Murphy as he is in Peaky Blinders. (I have a thing for intensity, can you tell?) But, as I worked on Parth, Cillian Murphy wasn’t right either. Who is Parth? What does he look like? What is his smile like? What does he look like when he gets ready to fight, when he’s dirty, crying, sleeping? Who is Parth?

Around this time, I watched Black Sails. I’d been waiting to watch it for almost a decade, and it was finally on a streaming platform I had. Exciting! Then I realized the level of sexual content and constant nudity. Um, I’m not a prude, but I certainly don’t want that stuff in my head. I also quickly realized this wasn’t the Pirates of the Caribbean, sail the high seas, Golden age of Sail, swashbuckling adventure I had hoped it would be. It was backstabbing, betrayal, and life lived at its grossest and most broken level. It was violent and had almost no redemption, no heroes, not good. These are not my stories. When I watch or read these types of stories, I tend to get depressed and struggle with thoughts and feelings of despair. Not healthy. Every night I almost quit. I’ll probably never watch it again, but it had this one moment that made the whole thing worthwhile, or at least worthwhile for me to watch once: Charles Vane. Charles Vane when he said they would rescue Flint because no one was going to kill Flint but him. I cheered in sheer enemies-to-brothers delight. That one moment made it all worth it. Charles Vane ended up being the only character I really cared about.

That’s how I discovered Parth…and Ross. Parth isn’t anything like Charles Vane, but I could see the actor who played him playing Parth and doing it well.

I found MY Parth.

I also found Ross, Kaizoku, and I think Jael.

Hello friends.

Now, why say all this?

You might be an author if you make a collage of your characters’ doppelgangers and put it on your phone because you want to keep looking at them.

This is on my computer: (Even though they’re dressed more colonial than Victorian, and Toby Shmitz (plays Rackham) isn’t Kaizoku, Takeru Satoh is, it still feels like Parth, Kaizoku, and Jael are looking at me wondering why I’m not writing.)

This is on my phone:

This is my phone wallpaper:

This picture is so perfectly Parth facing the slave market that I can’t stop looking at it.

Do I really think these actors will ever play in a movie of my book? No. (At this point, I’m not sure I want a movie made of my book.) But they’re providing visual emotional connections to the four loud people living in my head and heart right now. When I look at these pictures, I don’t see the actors, shows, or movies. I see my characters with all that I love about them and all I am going to put them through, their friendships, their loves, their trials, their sufferings, and their ultimate happy ending. I see the world in my head that Alana and I are building. They are representations of a greater reality: the story currently pouring out of me. They mean little to nothing to anyone else. No one will ever have the connection to these images that I do, they will see only the actors and the movies or shows. But to me they’re living creations shaping into something that I pray brings hope and joy and magic into the world someday.

So instead of an autumn wallpaper on my phone, I have Parth at the slave market. It is making me so happy.

Being an author is an odd thing.

[1] I’m using the word romance broadly. This isn’t a romance with a sexual component like you find between a man and a woman on the cusp of love, but a sense of wonder, adventure, and growing affection like you have when you find a new friend you are pretty sure you’ll love forever. Or, the feeling you have when you look at your nephew who is no longer a little boy but a man, or the feeling you get when you look at your graying husband and still see the 18-year-old kid you once knew. It is like romancing life. You see the beauty in the ordinary. That is more what I mean.

The Oddity of the Inner Life of the Author: The Romance of Characters and Character Doppelgangers

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