Got insecurities? Use them in your stories!

There’s nothing more boring than reading about characters who have no flaws. Why? Because they don’t seem human, of course. Even if your character is a werewolf or from another planet, as readers we want to feel that we have something in common. And if there’s one thing we humans have in abundance, it’s insecurities.

So stop trying to cover up yours and use them in your writing instead. Heck, all that angst should be useful for something, shouldn’t it? Think about the situations in which you feel the most awkward, or even the worst moments of your life, and use them in your writing–it will make your characters much more real.

Sensitive about your size?

For example, although I can be a pretty tough customer, I am vertically challenged (aka “petite”), so I am sensitive to comments about height. So I’ve used that insecurity in many of my characters. My mystery series character, Summer Westin, is 5’1″ but has accidentally developed a sort of Wonder Woman reputation, and she worries about not being up to the various physical challenges she encounters in Endangered. She can also be socially awkward and has foot-in-mouth disease, which she contracted, of course, from me.  (I once stepped into an elevator full of people as I said to my companion, “…and then he threw me down and he won.” The awkward looks I got from strangers! Hey, I was talking about a judo match I’d lost, people–get your minds out of the gutter!)

In my romantic suspense, Shaken, my heroine, Elisa Langston, is short, dark, and half-Mayan. But her Guatemalan mother deserted her at a young age, so she was raised in her father’s family–all tall fair Anglos. When her father’s sudden death forces her to take over management of the family plant nursery business, she feels out of place even sitting at his desk, which is way too big for her. No, I’m not half-Guatemalan, but I do know what it’s like to squirm on uncomfortable furniture and be the shortest adult in the crowd.

People talking about you?

Characters in my mystery The Only Witness are less directly “me,” but I can empathize with them. Detective Finn is new to a gossipy small town and a somewhat hostile police department. Everybody was already talking about him, and then his wife left him for another man. Yikes–the humiliation! We’ve all been there. Well, not with the deserting spouse, I hope, but with a public embarrassment that there’s no choice but to live down.

Ever ignored the warning signs?

Ever made an impetuous and very wrong choice? Yep, that was the basis of my novella, Call of the Jaguar, where Rachel decides to look up an old lover whom she has romanticized over the years and ends up in trouble in every way.

Whether you think your nose is too big or you stutter or are deathly afraid of spiders, take that feeling and put it into your writing, and your story will be better for it. But remember to have your character triumph over those worries and conquer her or his world, at least for a while. Yes, we all want fictional characters to have human flaws, but we usually want them to be a little bit better than mere mortals, too.  That gives us hope for our own futures.

Wild Times with Wildlife

ENDANGERED - On shelves December 6, 2011

I have two Advanced Reading Copies of my new mystery, ENDANGERED, to give away to two visitors who post the most entertaining answer to my question.

The book takes place in the backcountry of a Utah park, the plot involves cougars, and I’m an outdoorsy gal, so I wanted to use an outdoorsy question. Here it is:

What’s the wildest, craziest, or scariest event involving a wild animal that has ever happened to you ?

Cape Buffalo look sorta like this and sometimes kill people

I tried to think of my most dramatic moments while out hiking, camping, kayaking, or scuba diving. It would be nice to come up with one that sounded appropriately death-defying, but nope, I’ve had a lot more terrifying moments on the freeway than in the wilderness. But I have had some interesting encounters, and a lot them end up in my books.

There were the Cape buffaloes in Kenya that kept coming closer and closer as I was changing a flat tire on our Rover. Fortunately, due to a youth of poverty and tire-borrowing, I am one of the fastest tire-changers in the world, so we escaped before the herd settled on a plot to do us in. I won the title of “Most Valuable Woman” from the locals for that escapade. (Gotta take praise wherever you can get it…)

There was also the hippo just a few feet outside my cabin door. A little worrisome, since I had just locked myself outside with said hippo (and comrade hippos a little further away). Thankfully, we agreed to ignore each other.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself. And bears!

I was hiking on an overgrown trail near Mount Rainier when a black bear cub came racing down the trail and we nearly collided. I looked frantically for Mama Bear, but thankfully she was quite a distance down the flank of the mountain and the cub didn’t complain to her about me.

In another bear incident, my mom and her friend and I were enjoying a snack along a trail in Glacier Natl park when Mom suddenly murmured “Bear!” Yep, a grizzly had just emerged from the woods and was ambling down the trail in our direction.  Silently, we packed up our muffins and backtracked in a hurry. The grizzly was happy enough to get the trail all to itself.

Great Horned Owl - They don't like flashlights.

I was attacked by Great Horned Owls one night in my backyard. Guess what–they REALLY don’t like having spotlights shown in their faces during their midnight hoot festivals. Don’t even think about it.

I’ve had skunks and raccoons brawling outside of my tent on occasion. Pretty scary. You can throw something at a raccoon, but how do you argue with a skunk?

No way to argue with skunks

But probably the scariest events happened to me in Arkansas. It was a November backpacking trip gone wrong. First my companions and I couldn’t find the right trail. At one point we stepped over a log on the path, and I happened to notice a flash of reddish color along the bottom of the log as I hopped over. The biggest and reddest copperhead I ever want to see was stretched out at the bottom of log. Fortunately, copperheads are pretty passive snakes. They tend to lie there until you step on them, and then they

Rattlesnake! I'm actually more scared of copperheads.

bite you. This one continued to lounge there, and since it was growing dark, my friends and I decided to go back to the drive-in campground and stay there for the night. As I was gathering firewood among all the fallen leaves, I started to reach for a stick. It moved. I froze. As I looked around, I noticed two more snakes lying among the leaves. Brown patterned snakes–might have been copperheads or rattlers or just bull snakes. I didn’t care to examine them closely. All night long there were shouts among the campers: “Copperhead!” “Rattler!” or just “Snakes!”  Nobody got bitten; the evening was cold, and so the snakes were slow, if they were moving at all. I can only conclude that we must have been camping very close to a favorite winter den for all these serpents. After one of my companions choked during dinner–the Heimlich maneuver really works!–we decided that the fates were not with us, and we went home, to hike again another less snaky day.

So, now please share your stories. I’ll pick two winners on Friday October 28th to receive an ARC of ENDANGERED, so please be sure to check back then or provide an email address so I can contact you if you’re a winner!

Write Like You Know

Manta Ray

I once started to read a book by a mystery author that I wanted to like, but she started off with a scuba scene in which a diver was attacked by a predatory manta ray that tried to rip the tank from her back. I put the book down, and I haven’t read anything by that author since. All scuba divers know that manta rays may be impressive giants, but they are gentle filter feeders that eat plankton, shrimp, and very small fish. There are a lot of scuba divers in the world. As an author, wouldn’t you suppose that a LOT of readers out there, especially readers attracted to a book with underwater scenes, would be divers or at least somewhat knowledgeable about marine biology? Yeesh, it would have taken the author two minutes to look up a few facts about manta rays on the internet! Frankly, it pisses me off when authors succumb to this sort of laziness.

Even in fiction, stories need to be plausible. It would be my worst nightmare to have a reader walk up to me and say “This could never, ever happen!” We can invent people or places that don’t exist, but when we stick in real places, events, animals, people, and so forth, I think all writers owe it to their audience to look up the basic facts to get the gist of the story right.

Gorilla

Whether they write about  cooking or quilt making or courtroom drama, a lot of hardworking authors out there are writing about what they have experienced. I do that as much as possible, too. I’m a hiker/kayaker/snowshoer/scuba diver, so I have many outdoor scenes in my books. I’ve worked as a private investigator, too, so a lot of my knowledge of investigation and legal procedures goes into the mix. But when I want to write about something that I haven’t experienced, I try to find someone who has had that experience, and read everything they have written, or talk to them in person if I can. My mystery THE ONLY WITNESS has to do with a gorilla who knows sign language. I don’t personally know any gorillas, but I’ve read all the books I can find about all the apes who have been taught sign language over the years, and I did my best to remain true to what the researchers reported about their subjects. My book ENDANGERED takes place in a fictional Utah park, but it’s an amalgamation of various parks I have explored in Utah, so the various topographical descriptions should feel real.

Diver Photographing Coral Reef

I’m currently working on a mystery that takes place in the Galapagos Islands. It’s been awhile since I was there, so I’m reading everything I can in English and in Spanish, to update my knowledge. I’m sure I’ll make a few mistakes (and I am intentionally inventing a few dive spots that don’t exist) but I’ll get the basics right and so my story should be believable.

Good writers do research. And it’s so easy these days that there’s no excuse. If you can’t find the information you need on the internet–and verify it with several different sites–you can probably find someone who knows by simply asking on Twitter or another social site. And then there’s the old standby–our wonderful library system. Talk to librarians; odds are they can help you find exactly what you need.

I don’t think writers always need to “write what they know,” but I do believe they owe it to their readers to write like they know what they’re talking about.