Reading outside your per usual (and I mean way-way outside) boosts your creative juices by exposing you to unique voices and points of view. Something, sooner or later, will knock you for a loop. Your heart will beat a bit faster. Even the fusty/crusty, whether high or lowbrow, writing acclaimed classics or sentimental slop, the (roughly) pre-mid-century authors exhibit exceptional mechanical skills. When I stalk the library sales, I look for work written before about nineteen-forty. Sure, the more recent greats are still great, it’s the lesser lights that suffer in comparison, in terms of command of language. Give me the oldies any day. I enjoy the hell out of that stuff. And I pull gems of ideas out of it, always. Beats charts and exercises hands down to get the gears grinding.

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How do I conjure characterization that feels as natural to me as a well-fitting glove? How, for that matter, have I taught myself to write? The answer to these questions, and just about any question on method that you could throw at me is, I read. I read very often with no goal in mind. My fantasy is history-intense, so I read history, sure. Also fiction, also essays and poetry, anything that appeals to me in the least.

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Searching for inspiration is like shopping at TJ Maxx. You find what you find. Unexpected opportunities come at you, don’t question them, grab them. Don’t worry about whether they answer your current need. Jot them down, file them away. I once filed by subject. I now do it by title. Ideas perform for me like dominos, one idea topples into the next, on and on, until the final product is so far removed from the original that no one would guess where it came from.

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When I say I read widely, I mean it. Here’s what I’m juggling at the moment:

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The Annals of Quintus Ennius, a doctoral dissertation on his work (there’s not much of it, only fragments survive), his influence on other classical poets, and his times. Bits of these fragments will find new life in John Dee’s knock-offs of Nostradamus’ predictions, something I have up my sleeve for book two.

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I’m still gnawing away at Thomas Pynchon. He takes a heap of gnawing.

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Elizabeth Tudor by Lacey Baldwin Smith. Despite having read a score of bios of Good Queen Bess, I’m finding new insights. Incredible!

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Celestine – Voices From a French Village. An account of life in a mid-nineteenth century rural community, based on letters out of attics. I believe life at that time was not so very different from village life of three hundred years earlier. There will be something grand here, and I’ll pounce on it.

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Memoirs of the Crusades, the credits say reprinted in 1951, (written God-Knows-When, no date given) translated from the French, dense stuff, but the style is to die for. Packed with obscure details of exotic travels. The opening line of the introduction promises more than a few delights: ‘Powerful and rich as English literature is, it has little to place in line against the superb array of French memoirs.’ Ha! Here we go: written by Geffroi de Villehardouin (1160-1213) and Jean Sire de Joinville (1224-1317). I’m sold on it already.

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The Gentle Reader. A collection of essays on literature: The Enjoyment of Poetry, The Mission of Humor, The Honorable Points of Ignorance, Quixotism, etc., by one Samuel McChord Crothers, copyright 1903. This one goes immediately on my shelf of favorites. Here is a sample of what thrills me:

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‘… rambling episodes which are their own excuse for being. Hang the plot, says the author. I have something to impart, informative, or entertaining, or whatnot, and impart it I shall, whether it be gossip about the Universe, or debate on the queerness of human nature, until I cut it short with Enough! Time to get back to the story.’

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And: ‘The discussion is often altogether irrelevant, and that is the fun of it. This is the way books were written and read in the good old days. The characters of fiction were built to take up residence in your soul. Explanation was certainly often relentless. Unfortunately, most readers today are in no mood to tolerate it.’

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And: ‘The demon Hurry is not my familiar, dogging my step, nipping at my heels. My motto is this: Be not industrious, or strenuous, but let the moods come, or not. The great thing is not action for its own sake. The world is full of all sorts of people, and they are not all in their proper places, or in their right minds, and to explore these circumstances is the greater part of the fun of writing, and of reading.’

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And: ‘The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. It is generally thought that there must be some principle of selection. I reject this notion utterly. It comes to me, I insist on pounding it in to whichever chink seems most accepting. The principle of selection must depend upon the predominant interest of the writer. The current demand is for a clear sequence, one ought to relate only what is connected to the chosen theme. Alas for the readers of the Omniscient Narrator, he finds a way to relate everything.’ This screwball is my newest literary hero.  Here's how much I am loving this: after two days I am almost through it. This I seldom do, a relentless single-minded read. I bop from one treat to another, a round-robin binge, eventually getting to the end of a group of lovingly chosen pieces (I have hundreds of books waiting to be read) and moving on to the next waiting stack of tempting titles.

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Regarding relentless explanation: Dorothy Parker was once interviewed by The Paris Review. She said, “I’m the one woman you’ll ever know who’s read every word of Charles Reade, the author of The Cloister and the Hearth.” Charles Reade, called a third-rate Victorian novelist by Wikipedia, wrote dreadful Victorian treacle, a real slog to get through, but in a gloriously flamboyant style which I adore. Which Parker seems to have also enjoyed. I can’t help congratulating myself that I have some judgment after all, in spite of my fairly abysmal reviews.

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My running joke of irrelevant comment suits my tastes. I have no fastidiousness in regard to neat storytelling. I do not tax my reader with the monotony of reasonableness. (I stole that last line from Samuel, I admit it.) I have made good and sure that you will regard my book with suspicion and, maybe, curiosity. I hope that curiosity wins out. I conduct you through three stages of fictitious history, the set-up, the major infamy, and the aftermath. I think of my story as a maze, the fun is threading it. You will find a great deal of human nature in a linguistically sophisticated, vocally-enabled smart-ass cat. And if you think these are banged together episodes, you will be surprised by the way they eventually intertwine.   

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The version I have up is not the latest. The newest brain-farts will be along presently. Much has changed, for the better I believe, though some will certainly sputter, ‘Christ! This fool had found even more ways to annoy us.’

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I say qué será, será.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 11/2/2014, 10:33 PM--

I’m still thinking about this. I cannibalize everything I read. I often look up from a book/magazine/what-not and tell my husband, ‘this sounds like something Sly would say’. Or do. Or think. I cannibalize my life, like a method actor. Yeah, I was in a spot like that once, how did I feel about it?

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I have a character who is just starting to flesh out. She will be a London low-life on the make, marrying her way up the social ladder. I had a friend back in Boston who got her claws into a partner of Bain and Company (yes, that Bain and Company). Actually it was the original firm. Bain Capital, run by Mitt Romney, was a spin off. That girl will be the basis for my portrayal of Doll Wiggins, who by the time we catch up with her is firmly attached to one of my villains, with every expectation of coming up roses as a Countess. I wonder if C.C. ever got Mr. Big to marry her. I left Boston and lost contact. I gave her fifty/fifty odds.

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Use what you have in the way of life experience to shape your characters. I don’t think I have a single critter that I can’t relate to someone I knew, or know. I don’t have to make charts of eye color, favorite food, etc. These are living, breathing goofballs to me. I know what I need them to do for me. I have a strong sense of who they are and what made them who they are. I write them from the gut. After sixty-odd years I have more than enough material to draw on.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 11/6/2014, 4:00 PM--

Well, this is splendid, really splendid. Here's how it goes with me: I stew over a problem, in this case a good few years, and the answer suddenly comes to me, after working at it never produced acceptable results. I call this my connect-the-dots strategy. I join a the right threads and suddenly the big picture emerges, like magic.

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I have been at a total loss about Gato’s role in the upcoming struggle. I created him on a whim, to fill a need. (The way I almost always operate, which explains why my story seems so haphazard. It is haphazard.) I wrote him so charmingly that he has to play a larger role.

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After all the agonizing, I finally see the way forward. I haven't felt under pressure to nail it down, this business is part of book two. I've played with possibilities but nothing has knocked me out. My new idea is as elegant a solution as it can be. If I had conceived/ outlined from the start, like any sane person would do with a tale this intricate, it couldn’t have come together any more delightfully. I have been dreading getting my yo-yos across the Channel, where I will have to finally make my skullduggery work out, make perfect sense, no loose ends to trip over. I’ve been in near-despair over this for a long, long while. In the blink of an eye I suddenly see who is manipulating who (out-manipulating, that is) and in several cases it is exactly the opposite of my long-time rough conjecture.

This is a good, good day.

--edited by Mimi Speike on 11/7/2014, 4:47 AM--

I like your ideas of creativity and tips of how to be creative. I honestly don't know how my creativity happens (even though there is know evidence of my creativity available on Book Country). It just happens. But sometimes I have a habit of taking character traits from other characters and mixing them all an original character.

For example, one character I truly am fond of is sort of a combination of my favorite dark superheroes. He's rich like Batman, he has supernatural powers like Spawn, he made a deal in exchange for his soul like Ghost Rider. But I still leave plenty of originality to make him completely separate from my favorite heroes such as being a Catholic, young, emo, and has a younger sister. Also the ability to control and destroy human souls and wields Death's scythe. To match your Doll Wiggins, meet Carlisle Saint aka Grim, The Son of Death.

In truth, creativity is hard. I spend about half an hour trying to customize my character from Skyrim. When it comes to creativity to your story you want to make sure that it is unique in some way. You want to leave an impression that will impact your readers in some way. Am I right?

--edited by Zach Heher on 11/7/2014, 12:14 PM--

Characterization has to come from within. It is not a matter of choosing a list of attributes. Who is your guy? What drives him? When he jolts awake at two am, what's on his mind? Talk to me about motivation, and life experience that makes him what he is, not he's rich and he has a brother or two. Did the brother inspire him to hurt by bullying him? It's payback?

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Why does your guy want to destroy human souls? He's mad as hell about something. Why is he mad as hell? That would hook me. You may answer these questions in your story, but I find it odd that you give cosmetic details as the reason why the fellow merits our attention. Why should we care about him? That's the crux of the matter.

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Do I want to create a character that makes an impression? I don't think that way. I want to create a character who feels genuine to me, even if he is a talking cat. Do I worry about writing something unique? My point of view is unique, that's all the unique I need. It's not anything I've borrowed/adapted. I've been a weirdo all my life, never in the mainstream, and it's finally paying off for me. Anyway, I'm not the one in charge. I let my creature tell me his tale. I don't give him his marching orders, he gives me mine.

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Does this sound like a lot of work? It is a lot of work. But it's fascinating work. For me, characterization is an obsession. My plots function as the stage on which my dopes do their song and dance. I refer to my plot as my so-called plot. That describes it to a T. And that's why I feel I have carte-blanche to anything I want with it. 

--edited by Mimi Speike on 11/9/2014, 3:47 PM--