Characters Off Camera

What do characters get up to when they’re away from the page?

Zoë Sharp

When you write crime, mysteries, or thrillers, you need to create conflict for your characters. They tell you to put your main protagonist up a tree and throw rocks at them. After all, if everything goes smoothly right from the start, it would be a very short—and probably very dull—story.

 

When Charlie Fox became a professional bodyguard—which she did in book four in the series, having spent all of book three at a bodyguard training school in Germany—I knew I couldn’t always have things going Horribly Wrong for her. Not without her becoming the Typhoid Mary of the close-protection world. So, occasionally I made mention in the narrative of other jobs—the ones that took place in the cracks between books—when everything went like an oiled machine.

 

The jobs when nothing went wrong, there were no ambushes or kidnappings, no attempted heists, no natural disasters, and nobody gets butchered.

 

The boring ones, in other words.

 

Likewise, when a character disappears from one story and crops up again later in the series, I need to know what they’ve been doing in the meantime. They don’t just hang about in cryogenic suspension, waiting to be defrosted and fed back into the plot.

 

Hence, a character from book two, private security contractor Ian Garton-Jones was running a business that involved a horde of glorified security guards, trying to bring order to a north of England sink estate ravaged by violence and racial tensions. When I decided to bring him back, it wasn’t until ten books later. By that time, he’s progressed to the far more lucrative private military contractors’ market in Iraq.

Hopefully, though, if you read book twelve without having read any of the other books, you wouldn’t feel like you were missing an inside joke. At the same time, I tried hard to reintroduce Garton-Jones in such a way that I wasn’t repeating myself too much for people who’d already met him before.

 

When Charlie was almost run off the road on her motorcycle by a van driver with more than the usual homicidal tendencies in book five, she sought shelter at the nearby workshop of a bike customising Hell’s Angel called Gleet, on his sister’s farm, with destructive results. I made a return visit to the siblings’ farm two books later. A new reader to book seven might take that crackled stone gatepost as merely a bit of description, rather than a memento of their previous encounter. As was mention of the expertise with a crossbow of Gleet’s morose sister, May…

But, there’s one character who has been notable by his absence from the latest book, and that’s Sean Meyer. He’s been a part of the series—and Charlie’s back story—right from the beginning. And, I confess, that over the course of the series I’ve certainly put him up a number of trees, and thrown the largest rocks I could find at him. He spends almost the entirety of book nine in a coma, and only appears in book eleven in flashback.

 

Still, readers do ask what’s happened to him. Where is he now? And what’s he up to? I mean, when you’re an ex-Special Forces soldier who’s suffered serious head trauma and realised you want a complete break from life as you know it, what do you do next?

 

Until recently, I had to say I’d no idea.

 

But now I know.

 

And the answer is—something completely different.

 

After the events in the Middle East and Bulgaria, Sean dropped off the grid. Several military contractors working in Iraq got the idea into their heads that he’d killed one of their own. Not to mention double-crossing a crime lord in Bulgaria with ties to the Russian mafia. The close-protection world in which Sean had always moved with such self-assurance had already become alien to him.

 

In the back of my mind, I have the idea that Sean is now in the Mediterranean, travelling, sailing, seeing the world not through a gun sight for possibly the first time in his life. He’s trying to keep a low profile, to stay off the radar and out of the way of trouble.

(Yeah, like that’s going to last for a guy like Sean.)

 

And will he ever get back together with Charlie? Well, never say never. I try not to plan more than a couple of books ahead, and there’s nothing to say their paths won’t cross again. It will be interesting to see whose side they’re on, as and when it does, won’t it?

 

I think I may feel a new story coming on. When I can leave the UK long enough to do the research, of course.

 

In the meantime, there are always videos like this one available on YouTube—Tristan Mortlock, aka Super Yacht Captain, taking the motor yacht AWOL into a very tight berth in Portofino Harbour in Italy, with the assistance of the harbour authorities, several crew members, and a drone. Enjoy!

 

This week’s Word of the Week is horripilation, meaning goosebumps—having the hairs on your body stand on end due to fear, excitement, or cold. From the Latin horrere, to stand on end, to bristle with fear, or to tremble, and the Latin pilus, meaning hair.

Creating Order From Chaos

Zoë Sharp

A couple of weeks ago, I resigned myself to the horrors of a new computer. 

This is always a nightmare of acclimatising to upgraded operating systems, trusty programs that are no longer available, and incompatible files.

I hate it.

It’s one reason, I confess, that I finally went over to the Dark Side with my last computer and bought a MacBook Air. It’s been absolutely wonderful, and has served me faithfully for the past seven years—far longer, I have to admit, than any of my previous PC laptops lasted.

And it’s not ready for the great parts bin in the sky quite yet. Removing all the accumulated rubbish and rebooting the operating system will apparently see it keep going for quite a while longer. At least, I hope so…

The real problem is that when I first gave myself MacBook Airs and graces, I was not doing nearly as much photo manipulation as I am now, having taken a deep dive into cover design. I need something with a faster processor and now seemed the ideal time to go back to a desktop. So, I’ve bought myself an iMac and, once I stopped cursing at it and threatening to throw it out of the window—and when I discovered how to switch off the dreaded Cloud that seemed to be eating all my files and regurgitating them in corrupted guise—I think I’ve finally made friends with it.

The almost blank desktop screen is strangely calming.

But, I did say ‘almost’ there. Because already four or five folders and icons have crept onto the right-hand side and I know I won’t ever get a better time to bring some organisational order to the way I work.

The question I face is…how?

At the moment I have, for example, a folder marked FICTION. That leads to more folders titled things like CHARLIE FOX SERIES, LAKES TRILOGY, SHORT STORIES, STANDALONES, etc.

Those in turn lead to more folders, one for each title. So, in the case of the latest Charlie Fox novel, I have a pathway that goes FICTION > CHARLIE FOX SERIES > BAD TURN.

So far, so good.

In the {TITLE} folder live all the peripheral documents, such as:

Acknowledgements. There’s nothing worse than the book coming out and you realise you’ve forgotten to thank someone who provided vital information right at the start of the project. I keep a document on the go and drop names into it as soon as they occur.

Jacket Copy. This is the brief book synopsis that normally appears on the back of the book jacket, or on the retailer page. I usually write this before I even start on the book itself, to keep myself tuned to the basic idea. It can be very helpful to run this by interested parties and watch their reactions carefully. If they look intrigued, you know you might just have something…

Metadata. By the time I’ve finished a book and it’s ready to upload, this file usually runs to about 25 pages. It contains every piece of information on the book that I need in order to register the ISBN number and upload it, including keywords, categories, page counts, descriptions, etc. Trying to go through this process without a giant crib sheet is incredibly difficult. I can’t believe it took me so long to put together a template for this file.

Outline. Sometimes this is the kind of thing I could show a publisher but more often than not, it’s my own personal writing outline, with a full character list, back story, and what happens off-camera to explain how the elements of the story slot together. It changes—a LOT—during the course of writing the book. I will usually also have:

Story Breakdown. This is more like a conventional publisher synopsis, with the plot divided into three acts and the turning point of each act noted. This is more of a note on structure than story.

And then I have my Summary. Even if you don’t plot beforehand, I always recommend keeping a summary of the book as you write it. Just a paragraph on each chapter with the main point of action, dialogue, and character development. If structural edits are needed afterwards, I note them on the summary to work out how best to incorporate them into the book as a whole.

Other folders in the {TITLE} folder are BOOK, which is where I actually keep my work-in-progress documents. I’ve always written each draft chapter in a separate document, then dropped it into the overall book doc when it’s done.

There’s also a COVER folder, where I keep different versions of the final cover images, including the spine and back cover, hi-res for print use, and lo-res for website or internet use.

Another folder is called EDITS AND FEEDBACK, which is fairly self-explanatory. It’s where I keep all the emails and notes from beta readers, my Advance Reader Team, copyeditor, and proofreader.

A further folder is marked RESEARCH, where I store any articles on related topics, and images that might come in useful while writing, such as this one of the layout of a truck braking system, which anyone who read BAD TURN will realise the significance of.

I also keep any pictures of actors, etc, who have the look of characters in the book. I labelled this one of Everett McGill as ‘Conrad Epps’:

Everett McGill as Conrad Epps

And this one of Oded Fehr as ‘Khalid Hamzeh’:

Oded Fehr as Khalid Hamzeh

I also keep a folder for REVIEWS, although I try not to look at them too much. That way, madness lies…

And then there are the folders for book production—PRINT and VELLUM & EBOOK.

PRINT contains the content pdfs for the paperback, hardcover and large print editions, the cover templates and actual full-wrap cover files, and the downloaded proofs. If I’ve used any special fonts, they’ll be in another folder in this folder.

The VELLUM & EBOOK folder contains the Vellum document, which is the program I use to convert a Word doc to ebook formats and print-ready pdf, plus the mobi and epub files for both the ARC and the final versions, and the Vellum-produced cover images to upload.

And that’s about it.

What you have to bear in mind is that BAD TURN is book 13 in the Charlie Fox series. I have another 12 {TITLE} folders in the CHARLIE FOX folder, each of which contains all those elements. Often, when I’m putting together a metadata file for one book, I check back to see how I did something on the last. It involves quite a bit of hopping about and I regularly have so many folders open on the desktop I struggle to work out which is which.

It’s not enough to label a folder COVER, I have to call it BT-COVER just to be sure I know which folder I’ve found. Because, that’s not the only place I keep covers…

In the main FICTION folder, I then have another called COVERS. This is where I keep the PhotoShop files of all the covers I’m working on, the jpg images of the final cover, the original images that make up the different covers, their attributions and picture credits, as well as all the draft versions, and covers I played about with that didn’t quite make the cut. I also keep versions with and without a border. The latter feature is something I realised I needed when I started having covers that were either black or white, to make sure the cover edges are visible on all backgrounds, as you can see from the image below.

BAD TURN and BONES IN THE RIVER,
with and without borders

The reason these are all together like this is because, when I’m building one cover it’s very important to get the elements lined up with those that have come before it. I need to make sure the author name and series indication is in the same size font and in the same position on the cover. For that, it’s easier to keep everything in one place.

Or, at least, I think it is…

Things have become a little easier since I discovered how to use an Alias on a Mac desktop, which is basically a shortcut. (And I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to work that one out.) But I’m still left wondering, is there a better way to do this? A more logical layout? A better critical path analysis?

What do you use? All advice gratefully received!

This week’s Word of the Week came courtesy of EvKa. It’s trophallaxis, meaning the mutual exchange of regurgitated liquids between adult insects and their larvae. It also means the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community through mouth-to-mouth or anus-to-mouth feeding. Along with nutrients, trophallaxis can involve the transfer of molecules such as pheromones, organisms such as symbionts, and information to serve as a form of communication.

(Note to self: if asked to 'communicate' with EvKa, ask questions on method before agreeing…)

What Happens When You're Alone on an Island Paradise

Photo by Thanasis Krikis (Mykonos Confidential)

Jeff—Saturday

I can’t believe how quickly the summer’s flown by!  My Texas granddaughter and grandson already are back in school, and my New York granddaughter is gearing up for her entry onto the Long Island kindergarten scene.

Over here on Mykonos, the tectonic shift in tourists is underway. The hard partying young Southern Europeans have moved on, the Gay XLSIOR Festival crowd has moved in for a week, and all the island awaits September with its promise of returning old Mykonos hands lingering on into October.

I’ve spent many an August on Mykonos, and to be honest, I no longer feel affected by the dreaded August madness—other than incidentally impacted by the choking traffic, late night marauding crowds, and steeply escalated prices.  No doubt that’s because I rarely leave my writing garrets.  That’s plural, because I have several, depending on my mood. 

Outdoor office #1

View from OO#1

Outdoor office #2 

Outdoor office #3

Indoor office #1

Indoor office #2

Deadlines must be met.  It’s a curse I’ve labored under since my days as a lawyer, and mine always seem to fall at the end of summer.  This year, I started writing Kaldis #10 during the last week of May, aiming for a stride of 1000 words per day.  I hit that mark, and once Barbara abandoned me to the island for August (see above for reasons why), my output increased considerably.  After all, what else could there possibly be for me to do on Mykonos without her?

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. For example, I bet you can’t imagine the sorts of responses I received to this simple research question: “What are high season rates this year on Mykonos for prostitutes?”  Trust me, it’s integral to my story line.

One would expect such a question to raise an eyebrow or two, but each person I asked answered matter-of-factly, as if I’d asked for the time of day.  Was that reaction indicative of how islanders have come to accept the sex industry, and all it represents, as part of a new island normal?  Or were they simply treating it as just another of Jeffrey’s “crazy writer questions.”

Whatever their reasons, I obtained the information I needed, wrote my book, and two days ago, transferred it from the screen to hard copy pages for the next stage in the process. 

I’m comfortable in knowing that the book will meet its deadline (puh, puh, puh), and all I’ll have left to worry about is whether this is the Kaldis novel that will have me “swimming with the fishes.”

No matter, once Barbara returns, we’ll be off for a bit of vacation among the Greek Isles.

Ah, the joy of being a crime writer living on an island paradise.  You get to fictionalize its intriguing warts, while enjoying its honest pleasures.

—Jeff