Terry Shames on Minor Character Magic

RHYS BOWEN: It's amazing how attached we get to minor characters in our series, isn't it? I've had characters who were only intended to have a cameo role but would not go away--Sid and Gus in the Molly Murphy books and the Princess ZouZou in the Royal Spyness books who inserted herself into the story in a major way!

well, today on Jungle Reds we are hosting my good friend Terry Shames who has had interesting encounters with her background characters and is going to tell us about them today.

TERRY SHAMES:

Thank you so much to the “Reds” for hosting me on the occasion of the publication of my eighth book in the Samuel Craddock series.

Today I would like to have a conversation about background characters in our books.

I base my mystery plots on real life events or tales that I craft into stories complete with clues and red herrings. But to me what feels like magic is how background characters participate. When I start a new book, I feel like I walk into town and say, “What has everybody been up to?” And they tell me.  This has not always been the case. I’ve had to grow into it.

I like to read series, because I like to watch characters change over time, sometimes in surprising ways. But I had no idea when I started my first Craddock book whether it would become a series.  I barged into the first book without a thought of how an older protagonist would stretch and grow, much less how minor characters would change over time.

The first three books had a natural arc and they were centered around the protagonist, Samuel Craddock. I wanted  Samuel, an ex-chief of police, to become the chief again. In the third book, Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek, when the town went broke, it gave him the opportunity to step into the role of chief. Craddock didn’t need a salary, so when the town couldn’t afford to pay a police chief, it was natural for him to step in.

By the fourth book, when Samuel’s neighbor, Jenny,  became the focus,  I was beginning to see that the stories of supporting characters were important in their own way. I could keep the series fresh by having minor characters’ lives change—the way real people’s lives change. But I couldn’t depend on “magic.” I had to have a sense of direction.

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But what direction? Sometimes, characters seemed to take off on their own. One character had an affair—and his wife did not take it well. Another left town. One got a new hobby. In one case, I took direction from my readers. Fans asked if Samuel, a widower, was ever going to have a relationship with a new woman. So in book three, I introduced a new character, Ellen Forester, who moved to town to start an art gallery and workshop. She became Samuel’s love interest. They didn’t have much in common, and after the next few  books, I began to grow a little weary of her. Meanwhile, Dru Ann Love asked me to do a “Day in the Life” portrait of Ellen, and to my surprise, at the end of the “interview” Ellen revealed that she had a secret. I didn’t know what the secret was, or how it was going to play out, but I knew it would come out at some point. And did it ever!

By book five I felt the series needed a jolt. I was still okay with Ellen and Samuel’s relationship with his friend Jenny had been thoroughly explored, so what next? More tweaking of minor characters .I decided to give  Samuel a new sidekick, Maria Trevino. It turned to be the perfect foil: Samuel’s wisdom and experience played off against Maria’s idealism and fresh perspective.

Several people were interested to know how Samuel “became” the man we know as an older man. The prequel, An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock, was written to explore Samuel’s past—including his relationships with his destructive family and his wife.

My last book, A Reckoning in the Back Country, was a particularly hard book to write because it was about dog fighting. I had to make the back story really enjoyable and compelling to balance the horrendous main story.  I was tired of Ellen and I wanted Samuel to have a frisky new “main squeeze.” Wendy Gleason showed up at a Thanksgiving feast when Ellen was out of town, and they were off. But what to do about Ellen? Aha! I remembered that she had a secret. The way it played out was so perfect, that it seemed as if I must have known long before what was going to happen. That’s magic at work.

In the book that just came out, I wanted to feature long-time character Loretta Singletary, whom  I think of as a Greek chorus. She provides a lot of knowledge about Jarrett Creek’s citizens that Samuel uses in his investigations. I was also interested in doing a story about on-line dating. Again, here’s where magic seemed to be at work. In the end of the previous book, Loretta had showed up at Samuel’s house with a new hairdo and wearing stylish clothing. At the time, I had no idea why she was doing that. So when I started A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary, I realized that the reason she had been gussied up was to find a new beau. On a dating website!

 Mystery plots unfold against a background of “real life” for ongoing characters. The characters grow, and learn, and try new things, sometimes at their peril. If that didn’t happen, the stories themselves would be stale. For me, it seems to have an element of magic to it. Their growth is not something I plan. It’s something I take advantage of.

How do  other series writers come up with movement for their minor characters? Do you meander along letting characters act much the way real life seems to—without particular intent, letting magic happen? Or are you keenly aware of exactly the direction you want your characters to go?

RHYS:  Terry is on her way to Malice today. Do say hi to her! I wish I could join all of you.