Charlotte is my newest best friend. She is the lead character in my novel What We Leave Behind. I met Charlotte a couple months ago after a visit to Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield stirred up something inside me when I learned that women served in the Civil War. I wanted to know more, precisely why a woman would disguise herself as a man to fight. And possibly die. Charlotte didn’t fight in the Civil War; she was interested in the history of it, but as an Anthropologist, one of the first things I found out about her is she was picking up the pieces of her broken life after she found out that her husband cheated on her.
So, all of my books are character-driven. I meet invisible friends who quickly become my best friends as we sort out the who and what of their stories. With Charlotte, the big question is why anyone cares that her cheating husband sent her crawling back to her mom and that while she is at her mom’s, she finds out about a dig in Southwest Missouri that they believe might be tied to the Wilson’s Creek battlefield.
How do you develop your characters?
As time has passed, I have tried a lot of different character charts, and recently, I picked up an awesome book on Amazon, The Only Character Workbook You’ll Ever Need. This is an awesome resource because it gives you sheets for primary, secondary, minor characters, groups, relationship maps, and anything you might need to get to know your character better before the big day. With only 12 days left to outline and develop characters, it’s time to get serious about the whole process and get ready to churn out 1700 words a day.
