When Characters Know They Are Fictional

A reprint of a post from November 2010.

Is there a Dimension where characters wait for authors to find them? 

I and all of my original characters say yes!  Just ask Elerde , the "darkly sensual mercenary"of my novel's back cover blurb.  He and the others from An Involuntary King have been my constant companions since a friend and I drew them out of their waiting place over forty years ago.  It has only been since I started to talk with other authors, such as Helen Hollick, that I started to have my suspicion that they existed somehow before I came along confirmed.  Now as I read Ursula K. Leguin's Lavinia, I discover a self-aware fictional character where the title character meets her creator Virgil and comes to understand that she and the events of Th Aeneid are fictional.

OK, I know there really aren't characters who sit around some sort of mystical place waiting to be introduced to our world where they remain long after their authors are gone... but I love the idea, so relax and bear with me.

Here is the concept: there is a dimension, fourth, sevemth, sixteenth, who knows? where fictional characters live until someone, a novelist, a poet, a playwright, reaches in and draws one or more out to put them in a work of literature.  Once they are in our world they persist without end, no matter what happens with the author, the book, the society.  Why do I say this?  Because to an author, or so I am told by so many of them, the characters are not under our control.  They are so real to us that we speak of characters refusing to go along with a plot twist or simply taking over and telling their stories themselves.  I go so far as to believe on some level my main characters actually live with me.  The king once had his own room.  And yes, my husband thought that was a fine thing.

Now for a long time I thought I was the only author to believe this nonsense, but then Helen Hollick and I talked about how her pirate, Jesamiah Acorne, came to be.  This hero of the Sea Witch Chronicles literally appeared before her on a British beach as she sat pondering the direction of her next artistic efforts.  She had been challenged to write something new, something with some magic of the paranormal  variety, and was walking alone thinking what to do.  She told me she started to get an impressions of a piratical rogue from the 18th century, and lo and behold, as she looked to the edge of the surf, there he was, his back to her, looking out to sea.  He had a blue ribbon tying up his hair, and as he turned she saw an earring with a tiny gold acorn and then a brilliant, saucy smile.  It was Capt. Jesamiah Acorne, real, perfectly aware he was fictional, but happy to have become part of our world.  And he is such a vivid and enjoyable character, so are we who have read his adventures.

Another author whose work I love, Ruth Sims, told me that when over a twenty year period she wrote The Phoenix her characters defied her absolutely, taking shape in spite of what she had originally planned for them.  The original Nick was an American Civil War era physician, courting a woman whose name Sims does not even remember,  who has a friend, an actor, named Kit.  By the end of the twenty years a time shift made it Victorian England and Nick and Kit were now the romantic couple.  Sims says she has no idea of how this came about, that she had little or no exposure to gay people nor had set out to write a gay love story, but Kit and Nick were not to be shoehorned into what they were not.  This mirrors exactly the conversation I had with my as yet unpublished book's heroine, Elisabeth von Winterkirche, who is a lesbian and be damned!

So it was particularly gratifying to me to listen to the conversation between the LeGuin novel's heroine and "The Poet", where the princess of Latia realizes that whether or not she ever truly existed, her effectual reality is as a minor character in a great poetic epic, The Aeneid.  The Poet is amazed to meet her and discover just what a well-rounded character she is, despite his short shrift in depicting her.  From this Lavinia concludes that not only is she fictional but the other characters, the settings and the events, are all "made up", like the woman warrior he tells her about.  This influences her awareness of all that happens about her, but she accepts the plot, which others call "fate", as "how it should be."

One reason I so enjoy the collaborative writing groups, ghostletters and ghostletters-tng, is that I have been able to take characters from my first novel and let them interact knowingly as fictional characters.  In one situation my Irish bard, O'Neill, explains to someone else's character in that brief story line, what it is like to experience an edit.  "'Tis a momentary sensation of shift, a shimmering where what you thought you knew and did changes, then shortly after you don't remember what had happened in the first place."  His companion asks if the experience is not more than a little disorienting.  He admits, "Aye, a wee bit of vertigo, but ye get used to it, so ye do."

And of course he knows and I know who is doing that editing, and it ain't me.

But Why Did the Character DO that?

Have you ever been in the middle of a novel and wondered why an author had a character do, or not do, something that seemed either illogical or out of character?  Of course you have.  I recently have read two novels like this, and I know perfectly well I have something in An Involuntary King that fits this category. I just suggested my own strategy to an author, and I would like to share it here.

First I would like to describe the three instances I picked up on.

In Helen of Troy Helen, when her beloved Paris is dying from a poisoned arrow, forgets all about her lifelong friend, Gellinor, who just happens to be a poisons expert, runs all the way to the mountain to find Paris's ex-main squeeze to beg her to heal him -- she's a water nymph.  They can do those things..  I asked author Margaret George about this, and she explained that she was being true to the original story of The Iliad.  Understood, but after several hundred pages of Gellinor's smarts and knowing, as we do by then, that the nymph promised to turn her down when the day comes, I should think that Helen would at least have sent for Gellinor to look after Paris while she went so far away.

In Susan Higginbotham's The Traitor's Wife the male protagonist, Hugh le Dispenser, spends an afternoon in bed with King Edward II and then goes home to his wife.  Now, be honest, wouldn't you love to know what was going through his mind when he first encounters his wife?  "How was day at work, honey?"  There is nothing in the book about this.  I wrote to Susan and asked her about this omission.  She told me it had veen too long and she couldn't remember that much about the scene.

In my own novel, An Involuntary King, the character MacDhui helps first the man MacDhui's lover, O'Donnell, has condemned to hang for rejecting his advances, and later helps the queen and Shannon to escape over the river to Críslicland.  His motivation is never explicitly stated.  he would have every reason to betray the three, yet he chooses inexplicably to do the opposite.  Why?  The real reason is I just wanted the story to go that way.  I knew it was a very flawed bit of writing.

So what do you do when you realize you have done this in your novel?  Easy: you asked the reader who is quizzing you about it, "What do you think?  Why do you thing he or she did or did not do that or even just what he or she did?"  hey presto, you get to listen to a reader talk about your characters in a way that is exceedingly gratifying and you are off the hook.

Though neither George nor Higginbotham asked me, I decided to give an answer.  For Helen I said she either knew Gellinor was not there or perhaps was just so upset she did the dumbest thing.  Or perhaps she doubted Gellinor's skill more than she lets on.  With Hugh le Dispenser I told the author that what I imagined would have happened is that he would come home, and in order to prove something to himself, he would have SO made love to his wife.

I actually have an answer for MacDhui.  I only came up with it later, partly helped by how reader's interpreted the situation.  I decided that he felt sorry for Rory, was a little grateful the man had not responded positively to O'Donnell's seduction, and acted out of understanding and decency.  Then when Rory's friends show up, he does what he can to sweep them and the whole topic under the rug by getting them out of the country.  Well, it's not a good reason, but it's a reason.

So I hope these two authors and the rest of you will remember when a reader says, "Why the heck did so and so not...?" just to answer, "What do you think?"

Do our Characters Inhabit Another Dimension?

Vivid characters can become as real to a reader as the living breathing people in our lives.  Is it any wonder then that many authors who originally believed they made the characters up soon find the characters taking over the story?  I propose  that there is another dimension, besides the ones mentioned in the voiceover of The Twilight Zone, where our characters exist, not only once we release them but before and forevermore? 

I know several authors who either have told me they have actually seen their characters or heard them speak, such as Helen Holick and her pirate Jesamiah Acorne from her Sea Witch series.  She described how she drew him out of his fictional dimension while sitting on a beach, looking up at last to see him there, smiling back at her.  Something makes me quite confident that she did see him.  For one thing, he's a delightful and memrable character!

Laura Vosika, author of The Bluebells of Scotland,  today told me how a minor character whose scene she tried to change simply refused  to let it happen.  If you are an author you know exactly what she means.  I like to write character panels where the heroes and villains of my stories get together to discuss a plot change.  In several that I wrote for An Involuntary King, two of the characters, the king and the mercenary in love with the queen, invariably disrupt the prgress of the discussion, with traded insults and the King blowing his top.  More than either of these examples is the experience I know many authors have that their characters take over, that at most they are channeling the characters, not creating them.  It has happened to me often that I wake up from the writing trance to discover the story has gone a way I did not plan, and several fictional beings are grinning triumphantly in my direction.

Of course, my assertion of another dimension is tongue in cheek.  It is comforting however, as my characters are so real to me that I cannot bear the idea that they don't somehow exist, that they always did and always will in that wonderful dimension crowded with these astonishing, magical creatures.

Authors, share your own experience in the Comments section below.. and readers, tell us how you can tell when an author has released a particularly compelling character from this other dimension.

How Sea Witch Began – or How I Met Captain Jesamiah Acorne, by Helen Hollick

A bit of magic has been going on of late between Helen Hollick in England and me in Washingto n State. Not only are we both passionate devotees of Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon king of England, but we have discovered that certain of our characters are more real to us than many factual people we know. She sent me this marvellous story about how she met the protagonist of her Sea Witch series. Ass my own protagonist shares an office with me, I understood completely. Here Helen recounts how she came to know one Captain Jessemiah Acorne.

The agent sat thoughtfully in her office chair puffing at her cigarette. "What you need to do, darling, is write a fantasy novel."

"But I don't really do fantasy, do I? I spent ten years writing my Arthurian trilogy without any fantasy whatsoever because I wanted to remove Arthur from the myth and magic."

"Yes but Harry Potter is all the rage. Why not write something for teenagers?"

The author trudged down the four flights of stairs and out into the London rain. She crossed the road opposite the Ritz, wondering if she could afford tea there. Checking her purse, she toddled into the less expensive Joe's Cafe instead.

She wasn’t sure about writing fantasy. Nor for teenagers anyway. She liked writing historical fiction, she liked character interaction, the what motivates people, the invention of characters and what makes them tick. She liked writing about rugged heroes that were the sort of men you wouldn't want to get into a drinking contest with, but who would, all the same, be there to fix the fuse... and know where the torch is!
A Holiday. Dorset. England. A wet, windy October afternoon. The rain had poured all morning, but by early afternoon a weak, apologetic sun was squinting from behind a barricade of grey cloud. The author decided to walk the dogs on the beach. She armed herself with weapons against the weather. A hat, a coat, wellies and her ipod.

All week she had been researching her latest interest; the truth behind pirates. Now the film she had seen (and the character she had fallen hook-line-and-sinker in love with) was all very well, but it was not historically accurate. Tortuga, for instance, was cleared of pirates in the 1600's, Port Royal was no longer a town, just a naval base. Pirates did not turn into skeletons. But they DID wear bright ribbons, wave cutlasses about, get drunk and have an awful lot of fun.

As she was walking down the steep cliff-path, minding the bunny burrows and reminding one of the dogs that it was not a good idea to get stuck down one again, as he had yesterday and the day before, she wondered, "What would happen if a charming rogue, such as Jack Sparrow, met up with a white witch? Not someone like Hermione in the Harry Potty books, someone more like Yoda in Star Wars – but prettier? A good witch, who had the Craft. She can't do magic, has no wand or spells, but she can summon a wind, or talk to her lover via telepathy - if he is not blocking her thoughts.

The author crossed the stream at the bottom of the cliff, that smelt suspiciously of things that were not fishy (or were fishy, in the dodgy sense of the word) and stepped onto the beach. Immediately she was almost knocked over by a blast from the wind and the dogs went haring off after those two seagulls that had been bugging them all week.

The tide was ebbing, the breakers all white-foam and rolling excitement. She walked along the wet sand, listening to the soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean, cursing because the earpiece kept falling out of her ear.

She had the beach to herself, even the seagulls had gone, although one of the dogs did find a dead crab.

Sitting on a rock she gazed out at the Spanish Main. Well, it was the English Channel really, but an author has a vivid imagination. It was not too difficult to picture the hot sun of the Caribbean, waving palm trees, the rich turquoise blue of the sea .... although it would have been easier if it had not rained again. Quickly, she switched to a different scene. The Florida reefs, 1715. Eleven Spanish galleons went down in a storm, laden with treasure.

What if... what if.... her mind was racing, her heart beginning to thud with excitement. What if there was a 12th ship that went down? A pirate ship? A ship that a young, handsome rogue had just commandeered? His first captaincy ... he survived the storm, would want to get another ship as soon as possible.... he had a brother, a half brother, who had bullied him as a child... a brother who had burnt his only possession, a boat called ...... called..... Acorn! Yes, boats were made from oak ... yes, Acorn! The Author was getting REALLY excited now! The boy - for he was only a boy then ... fled the Virginia tobacco plantation and became a pirate.

He had a few adventures, got rich on plunder, but was, underneath all the swagger and pretence, lonely. It was alright having whores crumpets and strumpets, but there was also the horror of the hangman's noose dangling over him. Then one day ... one day he meets a girl. He was in deep trouble, wounded and being chased by East India Company agents and this girl... no, not a girl ... the white witch ... rescues him. They fall in love, but he misses the sea. Because of ... er, because of (the author decided to think of a ‘because of’ later) because of dah di dah happening, there is a mix up. The pirate assumed the girl didn't love him any more. And the girl, who was really a white witch, thought the pirate didn't love HER anymore. So they were both very miserable for a few months. The pirate found solace in a rum bottle (as pirates do) and the girl gave in and married the rich creep who had been pestering her all this time.

Then the pirate's brother caught up with him (very annoyed because the pirate had stolen his ship - one that happened to be full of tobacco to be taken to England to be sold)

The author's backside was getting a bit numb, so she moved to a softer rock, but found that the cushioning sea weed was wet, so walked on up the beach instead.

The annoyed bully brother is in league with the creep who married the girl... Tiola! the author thought, her name is Tiola. Tiola what? The author kicked at a piece of drift wood, cursed in true pirate fashion. There was a rock behind the piece of wood that she hadn't seen. Tiola is a good witch, she is all that is good... a.l.l. t.h.a.t. i.s. g.o.o.d ... an anagram! An anagram of ... furious muttering .. an anagram of Tiola Oldstagh. Yes! Only it will be pronounced Tee-la not Te-OH-la.

The author walked on, she was nearing the far side of the bay now, and the tumble of rocks that were full of fossils and things. Or so the guide books said. She was blowed if she could find one.

The annoyed bully brother is in league with the creep who married the girl Tiola. The two men are plotting to capture the pirate and have him hanged - Captain Woodes Rogers, a real figure in history, has just become Governor of Nassau and is offering a pardon to all pirates. The two bad men arrange to meet at Nassau, guessing that the pirate will turn up, looking for amnesty. Which he does - but the bully brother nabs him & chains him up in the bilge of a ship & heads off back to Virginia where he has promised the other man that he will hang ... only the bully brother has no intention of hanging the pirate, he wants to have his fun first and punish the pirate for stealing his ship.
Tiola is a witch and she loves her pirate. She tells the baddie who is her (forced) husband to go jump in a lake and boarding the pirate's ship (which he has called Sea Witch) sets off in pursuit of her true love - having to conjure up a wind to do so .... meanwhile because the witch is a witch and because the ship is special, the girl and the ship sort of become one and .... and the author could see a small fantasy sub-plot coming here, something about Tethys, the goddess, the Spirit of the Sea who wanted the pirate for herself ....

The author was quite pleased, it seemed a good basic plot. Lots of character interaction, the chance to get to know these two young lovers, the boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy loses girl then finds her again plot, but if Shakespeare could use it over and over ... not that the author was anywhere as good as Shakespeare, but she had five other books published and loads of people seemed to enjoy her writing style and the way she brought life into her characters and made them real ... and her fans particularly said she was good at creating loveable rogues.

So all she needed was her pirate.
She couldn't use Jack Sparrow (as much as she would like to use him!) ... she had reached the rocks, turned around. The wide sweep of the beach was deserted. The rain had washed away everyone who normally came to the beach of an afternoon. She looked at the wet sand where the tide was scurrying in with lace-edged patterns of foam. Saw a man standing there, twenty or thirty yards away. He was tall, rugged. Had an untidy chaos of curled, dark hair, with a few blue ribbons fluttering in the wind tied into it. He wore knee high boots, a faded coat and a three cornered hat. He was looking out to sea but he turned, grinned at her, showing the flash of two gold teeth. With his left hand, he took off his hat and with his right, gave the author a small, acknowledging salute.

An earring dangled from one ear... an earring shaped like an acorn.
"Hello Jesamiah Acorne," said the author.
(and I swear that is all true!)

The Books

Sea Witch: Being the First Voyage of Capt. Jessemiah Aciorne (Sea Witch Chronicles #1) / Amazon UK

Pirate Code: Sea Witch Series (Sea Witch Chronicles) / Amazon UK

Bring It Close: Being the Third Voyage of Capt. Jessemiah Acorne and the Ship, Sea Witch / Amazon UK

More from Helen Hollick

---

Letters from Ghosts

o all novelists come to see their characters as more real than they themselves are? i have.

I started Ghostletters, an email group, almost fifteen years ago. In it subscribers post as historical or fictional characters, never as themselves. For these very many years we have had every conceivable type of character, both original and derived fictional characters, and historical figures from Richard III to Samuel Clemens.

Today one of our number in his guise of a humorous little blue demon posted a tribute to a former member, Lisa Schmidt, who recently died. The tribute was lovely, speaking about how the mind and heart of the individual called Lisa had made worlds with us that will stay with all of us who knew her and loved the characters she "played" with. I happened to be on "sabbatical" from the group for most of the time Lisa was on it, so I read the little demon's words with a touch of envy for not having a share in that magic.

We lost another bright creative light on the group about a year ago. Anne Fraser was a bubbling font of laughter and creativity. I only knew her briefly, but others had spent long years in her company in the guise of a French vampire queen, an Elizabethan actor, and numerous other choice creations.

We miss Lisa and Anne of course. But for some reason the loss of the gray matter that created and shared Clem and Connell and Genevieve and Gabriel Tallant is striking me harder. I already knew my whole purpose in writing my own first novel was that one day I realized I would not be here forever. I thought of my king and queen and my Irish minstrels and could not bear the fact that when I was gone, so would all of them. I had to give them a separate home from my memory. Now I can hope that at least some people feel they know Lawrence, Shannon, and the rest.

What's hitting me after reading the post today on Ghostletters is that in many ways I can cope with the idea of my own passing better than I can with the snuffing out of the neurons that store my stories. I wonder if this is true of other novelists? Even if you write about historical figures, the essence of their personalities and lives that you made from the sketchy details of their reality makes them more real than real somehow.

I think of Lymond who lives on after Dorothy Dunnett, his author. He is keenly real to me. Is that what it means to succeed by giving a concept flesh? I hope Dunnett knew that there were people who would keep him alive, for long after she slipped off this mortal coil.

I think of all your characters, too numerous to list, that include Piers and Simon and Llewelyn and Brian and Elizabeth and Amparu and Patrick and Richard and Robin and... and... all of whom will reside in my head and heart though your location on this Earth is unknown to me.

I hope I can take Lawrence and the others with me wherever I go after I die, or if that is nowhere, that in some form they will remain alive and vibrant when I am nothing more than a name on a book cover. After all, they are more real than I am in the long run.

Our Favorite Fictional Females

In honor of the launch of a new companion blog to the acclaimed History and Women, Imaginary Women: Women of Myth and Legend.. and fiction, by the way, we invite each and every visitor to this blog to leave a comment stating your favorite fictional female and why she is your favorite.

Just click "Comments". You can choose from myth, legend and fiction of any medium, any genre. There is only one exclusion. She cannot be someone who really existed (in that case she belongs in History and Women!)

You are welcome, as well, to write about your favorite "Imaginary Women" and any others you wish including characters in your own work -- just let Nan know what you'd like to do at hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com.

I am off to think about my own answer. I can't use Aethelflaed -- she's real. Hmmm.

Thanks for participating!

Special Request:Speaking of History and Women, as one of the editors for I have set myself a task to write a bio on a woman from every country's history. I have to start somewhere, I decided to start with countries that start with my favorite letter of the alphabet, N, but am having a devil of a time locatng information on women from countries other than North America and Europe. Can you help? Just drop me a bote at the address above.. and thanks.

---

Free copy of the ebook of An Involuntary king: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England -- limited time offer. Just write to hawthorne@nanhawthorne.com.

Biography: Lawrence, King of Críslicland and Earl of Cleethorpes

This is a fictional biography of a character in the novel, An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, by Nan Hawthorne. If you plan to read the novel, you should be warned that the biography covers the events therein as well as after.

Lawrence, King of Críslicland (764-795), Earl of Cleethorpes (795-832)
An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England, by Nan Hawthorne

Born 3 January 746, died 17 September 832.

Lawrence was born in Lincoln in the fictional kingdom of Críslicland in 746 AD, the second surviving son of King Arneth of Críslicland and his wife, Edith. His elder brother was the ætheling or heir to the throne, Arneth. IN about 756 King Arneth traveled with his two sons to Tatherwood in the neighboring kingdom of Affuynshire, also fictional, and the boys were betrothed to the two daughters of King Edwærd and his wife, Mairéad. At that time, the two kings, who were strong allies, arranged to create a stone bridge over the Riber Trenta near Cromwell in Affuynshire.

In 764 King Arneth's brother Nifhmund was convinced by ambitious men to begin one of his several rebellions against the crown. The ætheling and Lawrence, now a housecarl of his father's, participated in the battles. While they were away they got word that Edith, the King's wife and the two young men's mother, had died after a long and painful illness. Not long after Nifhmund made a last desperate ploy for amnesty for his deeds by claiming that he had the monks at an abbey hostage as surety of peace. When Arneth and his two sons and their army arrived at the parlay place, Nifhund killed first the king and then the ætheling. Lawrence in turn killed him while a battle between the two forces raged behind him. The battle was won and Lawrence, at 18, found jhimself the apparent heir to the crown of Críslicland.

The Witan was scheduled to meet some months later to choose either Lawrence or another member of the "cyning" to be king when word came that Nifhmund's old allies were laying sieve to the river town of Spalding on the souther border between Críslicland and East Anglia. Lawrence's decisive victory there assured his election as king. He was married to his childhood betrothed, Josephine, and crowned on the same day in June of 764.

The first few years of lawrence's reign were filled with tragedy, battle and treachery. First King Edwærd of Affynshire was killed. As his wife and their elder daughter were already deceased, this left only the ætheling Lorin and his sister, Lawrence's queen. Lorin was a bookish youth so his nation's Witan offered the throne to Lawrence and his wife, Celtic kingdomn's often giving positions of governance to the female line. Lorin became a high functionary in Lawrence's court.

The large kingdom of Mercia that lay on the southwest border of Críslicland was ruled by the historical King Offa, an empire builder. His border lords continuously raided lands near the Críslicland fortress of Grantham. In an ultimately successful war to drive these lords back into Mercia, Lawrence was badly wounded. He recovered and rejoined his wife in Lincoln soon after she gave birth to their first child, Peter. Lawrence behan his buiolding of a fortress in the northeast near the estuary of the River Humber which others christened Lawrencium. He and his young family took up residence there and soon after Josephine gave birth to twin daughters, Caithness and Elaine. A close friend of Lawrence's was murdered by Nifhmund's son, Gadfrid, whom Lawrence had generously pardoned afte Spaldin. Believing the friend's death was a suicide after the man's own bereavement when his wife died in childbirth, Lawrence and Josephine adopted their son Tavish and raised him as their own.

Learning of the head of her mother's family's illness, Josephine traveled to Keito Uxello in Affynshire. While there she was caught behind the lines when a cabal took military control of the kingdom. Lawrence and his army arrived at Ratherwood to find the leader of the cabal, Malcolm of Horsfort, locked up in the strongold. While engaged in besieging Ratherwood Josephine, who had been fighting alongside her cousins oppsing the cabal, was reunited with her husband briefly and set out again for Lawrencium and their children. Learning that her party had been ambushed on the road east, Lawrence took a contingent of soldiers and was met by two of the cabal leaders and suffered a damaging defeat. He returned weakened to the siege of Ratherwood. Just before diplomatic efforts by Josephine's cousins succeeded in bringing the Briton lords back to Lawrence's side, the king learned that Josephine had made it back to Críslicland. The siege was over, Lawrence took Ratherwood, and the army prepared to return home.

As they prepared Lawrence learned that Gadfrid, the cousin he had left behind in charhe of the home guard in Lawrencium, had seized power and was holding his wife and their children hostage. His efforts to rreturn to Lawrtencium were stymied by the need to retake LIncoln and other strongold's from the usurper. One of his earls, Harold of Grantham, turned traitor and imprisoned Lawrence, who with the hellp of supporters, escaped and returned to punish Harold. In the meantime Josepphine and the children escaped Gadfrid with the help of a Breton mercenary lord in love with her. When Lawrence finally arrivbed at Lawrencium he had no idea his famly was not within the strongold. He personally led a company into the stronghold through a secret passage and killed Gadfrid. Not finding his family he lerned that they had fled but not where. He sent couriers to all ports, finally locating and being reunited with the queen and their four children.

The years following the usurping were relatively peaceful. Offa continued to harry the southwestern lands and also Affynshire, which Lawrence had put in the hands of his wife's cousins. It was the shocking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 by Vikings that led ultimatley to the decision, in 798, for Lawrence to give up his throne. With offa encroaching to the south and the worsening raids by Vikings, followed by King Ruallauh of Affuynshire's declining health, lawrence decided to treat with Offa to take over both kingdoms believing that Offa would be the stronger barrier to the Norse and Danes. He abdicated in 798 and became Earl of Cleethorpes, formerly known as the town and strongold of Lawrencium. His son, the ætheling, Peter married one of King Offa's daughters and became an important leader in the Mercian juggernaut. At the time of Lawrence's abdication and King Ruallauh's death, Caithness was married to the King of East Anglia and Elaine an abbess. Tavish remained with his adopted parents, married Lorin's daughter Ystradwel and remained a loyal supporter until Lawrence's death in 832 at the age of 88. He was survived only shortly by his wife, Josephine, who died in 835.

Not very much is known of Lawrence's life after 795. He had to fight off Viking raids continuously. It was during a short lull in the incursions that the former king of Críslicland spent his last days in contented peace with his beloved Josephine.

[Source, Lawrence's creator, Nan Hawthorne. The image of King Lawrence at the beghinning of this biography is not original. If you are the artist and object to our using it to represent the character, just contact us and we will remove it. The drawings of Lawrence with his wife and with his young son Peter is an original Hawthorne drew in about 1969]

Your Choice: Historical Fiction or Fictional History?

s an author, have you chosen - or would you choose - to write fiction about real historical figures or purely fictional characters in a historical setting? Or do you portray historical figures within a story that is mostly fiction about fictional characters? Why did you make that choice?

As a reader, do you have a preference? Why?

Please share your answer in the Comments.

I am fascinated with everyday people's lives, so although my first is about a king and a queen, they are figments of my friend's and my imaginations. I intend to pursue completely fictional characters in historical settings in most if not all of my future novels. I am more interested in how average people interacted in these intriguing times. And I must admit I prefer novels that at most drag historical figures through like props or preferably offer me the more obscure. Just personal preference.

So let's hear from you!

Job Discrimination

"Fictional characters need not apply."

Characters - Shaken, Not Stirred

Mario, a friend of mine the other day told me that the one problem with my beloved lifelong friends of characters in An Involuntary King is that they were my beloved lifelong friends of characters. He said he would like to see what I did with a whole new slate, as I have with some of the stories on Ghostletters, such a Leona, my ex-Seattle cop who can morph into an African lioness and her various adventures with trickster gods and were-underworld criminals.

I thought about this. I talked to my mystery writing instructor and a classmate. I consulted my own druthers, which always win out in the end. I decided I was gonna do it. So out the window go the clones of my old characters, Shannon and Rory poorly disguised, and Leofric, Rhys, Ystradwell and the others only slightly more so.

I am happy to announce the birth of a new hero and trusted friend duo, dynamic or not. I need to read up on Cornish family naming practices, but for now let's meet Krrick, a traveling musician just as Shannon was, but with a decidedly less quirky and devil-may-care personality. This time the friend, who nevertheless still has a sunlit smile, is Aki Elricsson, not exactly Lenny to his George, since Aki is really quite bright, just remarkably quiet.

I am actually relieved to have come to this decision. I was actually rather looking forward to adding to my supply of imaginary friends.

The group gathered around the long rough-hewn table in the tavern.

"Phew!" exclaimed Aedan. "I wasn't even in the first novel until the epilogue, but I was already exhausted thinking of being in a whole series!'

Leofric nodded and drank from his ale bowl at the same time. "You're telling me. And I wasn't too crazy about the demotion either."

Ystradwell gave them all a wistful look and sighed, "I thought it was going to be nice, so romantic, and getting to be the center of attention again..."

Shannon patted her lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry. You would be the center of attention in any novel."

The tavern keeper put her hands on her ample hips and smiled. "I get to stay in the book. I'll miss you all."

Aedan reassured, "But think of it, you get to meet Aki and Kerrick!"

THE END

Soemone tell me you are in awe of my courage...

The End of My Writing Career.. and the Beginning of my Career As a Temple Priestess

I came to an important conclusion yesterday. I don't really want a writing career as I formerly understood the concept. I thought that because I was able to pull together such a good novel from my mission to gibe the characters from Laura's and my old stories that this meant I was a Writer. I know I can write.. I have known that for years. But what I thought was implicit in my success is that not only can I write other stories and characters but that I should. Now I am not sure that really is what I should do.

My original purpose in writing An Involuntary King was to take the characters that existed mostly only in my own head and make them real to others. I found my old friend who had developed them with me and discovered she had not even thought of them for years. Clearly they were not the life force of their own they were and are to me. My husband knew all about them now, thanks to typing all the the old stories for me, and I got a taste from his reaction to the characters, dear sweet man that he is, of what they could offer other reeaders. I started writing about them, adding a more mature insight into their lives and motivations. Then I realized anew how important they h ad been and always were to me. So I gave them an existence beyond myself. I won't last forever. They can.

Thanks to what I learned yesterday and what I realize today has lurked under the surface of my attempts to write other books is that being a novelist was n3ever the prime mover. The characters and writing about them was. So why do anything else? Why relinquish the role I cherish most, that of being the temple priestess to their lives?

Non-writers may find this all odd. They are fictional! These people never existed! Writers will get it though.. get that there is no lack of reality to these vivid characters, these old friends of mine. It's time for the chanting, the libation in the temple. Sacrifice? It doesn't feel like one.

So Random Acts goes on the shelf to wait for its own time.. since it is almost all written, why toss it? Those who have read it liked it. And Adam and Jacques will be translated almost in the spiritual sense to mix with my archetypes of the strong but thoughtful general, the loving but self-absorbed beauty, the intense and driven mercenary, the too good for his own good bard and the innocent wastrel. Their clones may take ovber the story for a while, in a later time and a real setting, but the originals will never let me shelve them. I have already started telling their story here on this blog. The paranormal mysteries in late 10th century Wessex exist and will be my ne project.. starting today

What sweet contentment I feel, back in my proper role again. And how grateful I am to Jim, who last night heard my plans and smiled and affirmed he had know it all along.

Now I just have to break the news to my characters. I think they will be pleased... and a little smug.

It's a Crying Shame

Last night I had trouble going to sleep and staying that way. I know why. I kept thinking about stories I would like to write and book trailers I would like to put together. I thought about how much I enjoy immersing myself in the world of my novel. It occurred to that it really was a crying shame that I don't dream about that world populated by my fictional king and queen and their friends. A crying shame, I say.

I don't know if this will work, but I want to do it anyway for other, better reasons, but maybe if I get back to writing about them I will dream about them too. This begs the question, "Well, did you dream about them when you were writing the novel?" Nope, not much if at all. Hope springs eternal and all that jazz. At any rate, you can expect to start reading "the rest of the story" in bits and pieces here. I will also put them on the An Involuntary King website.

I actually managed a tiny bit of a dream about my Crísliclanians last night by thinking about them as I fell back to sleep... often I realize I have dozed because something I was thinking about no longer made sense. I seem to recall for a moment thinking about the queen in my novel at some task. I know I did not think consciously about that. I do wish that would happen more often.

I wonder... is it possible that the part of the brain that is in charge of creating fiction is not wired directly to the part that squeezes out dreams?

I am having a moment of déja vu with the following question, but even if I have asked this here before, I'll ask. Do you dream about the characters you write about.. or read about?

• "...dreams serve a purpose for the brain, allowing it to make necessary emotional connections among new pieces of information. " How the Brain Turns Reality Into Dreams, from MSNBC.com "Science Mysteries"

What's In a Name?

Authors: How do you come up with character names?

The character pictured at the left is from An Involuntary King: A Tale of Anglo Saxon England. It is Rory McGuinness, and I put him up to answer my own question above. I stole the name Rory McGuinness whole cloth from the novel by Elizabeth Linington, The Proud Man, pictured below, which I read when I was about 14. He is one of the only two entirely fictional characters. I created both Rory and Shannon as a result of reading it.

Of course many of you write about historical figures. I know where Susan Higginbotham got the name Hugh le Despenser.. all of them. I know where Brandy Purdy got the name Piers Gaveston. I know where Morgan Llywelyn got the names Finn MacCool and Brian Boru. And I know where Sharon Kay Penm an got the name Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

I generally prefer to write about purely fictional characters. In a much earlier post on this blog I explained where the names of my central characters in AIK came from. The only original -- meaning coming from the early years of "The Story" -- character whose name I change is the king's cousin Gaylord, whose new name came from a web site called "Proseography" that listed Anglo Saxon names drawn from legal documents and other contemporary sources. (Greta Marlow said the name Gaylord wasn't evil; enough.) Most of the rest of the characters also came from that site or other sites listing names in Brythonic, Breton, and so forth.

I have had to come up with a few names of entriely fictional characters from the Napoleonic era of late, and I have to say they just occur to me. I might go through several names before I hit on the one I think fits the character.

So, authors of the world, how do you come up with the names for your characters? Please answer in Comments below.

Elerde of Brittany Gloats

I can see him there, the king, that hulking fellow, perplexed,. annoyed, uncertain what he can do about it. I smile my supercilious smile and drive him that much further to madness. It seems the reviewers like me, the villain, more than he. Were I a kind man I would reassure him. Villains, especially sexy ones, are almost always the favorites. But I am not kind. That is part of my charm.

Look at him, standing there in his Aragornian splendour. For all that, one reviewer judges him dull. I cannot keep a chuckle from erupting from my lips. The lady, my heart's desire, was promised him by her father. She did not choose him. He thinks she will choose him now and forever. If that is true it is because she likes how safe he is. That other, the Ulsterman, the bard that plays at being a catamite, is safe but mayhap too much so. Under her chill exterior there beats a heart full of lust, of longing for the dangerous, for a fierce Breton mercenary who will fulfill her every submerged fantasy. Just you wait and see.

You may think the rivalry is at an end, your grace, but you may be mistaken. I am not so easily dismissed. Unlike you, my liege, who must remain tethered to your land, I am free to wander the round world, and thus may I turn my steps back to your land, your fortress, your lady. Be aware, my king, that everything in life is but held by a silken thread. She will become tired of you, sirrah. It will take far less than my sword to sever that tie between you.

Why do they find you boring when your doting creatrix did not design you so? You are too human. You are strong but your feet threaten to become clay. You are impulsive and make mistakes. You are, I suppose glad of it, not the melodramatic oaf of the Old Stories, banishing yourself for killing my predecessor/twin, or lying foolishly on your sword and wounding yourself, or being enchanted by that sorceress and killing her in your delusion. Mayhap the reviewers would have liked you better thus. The creatrix made you less puerile but even your badness leaves then cold. You tried to kill me, I tried to kil you, but I have all the points on my side. You are too good, too kind, too just, and make them weary and wish to turn vack to me. How long will it be before like them, your lady, your queen, does the same?

It seems that I am capable of no end of perfidy yet I am absolved. I court a woman who is wed to the king I serve. I betray my position and help a wicked friend elude the very law I am charged with maintaining. I join with him and the most iniquitous of men to despoil the very homeland of the woman I love. I take arms against her kin. I join with a blackguard to destroy your lord and do not move to protect your brother until it is almost too late. I send my servant to murder your husband in cold blood. I put your children through a hell of fear and misery. Yet not only do the reviewers love me, you, you my Josephina, allow me to take you away where your larhe Saxon husband with his big cow eyes shall never find you. If that does not prove I am the better man, then what shall?

So go on puzzling, O Great and Oafish King, for your creatrix may care for you, but few others do. Do not bother to try to think of a way to be more interesting. You haven't the imagination.

Cretrix's Note: Don't forget, Elerde. I get the last word... literally.

Alas, Poor William de Braoise..

I am reading Celia Hayes' Aldsverein: The Harvest, the third of a trilogy about German immigrants in Texas in the mid-19th century. I can tell already that when I get around to the second book, the death of a central character is going to devastate me... I tear up just knowing about what happens to him.

It was that way with William de Braoise, Princess Joan's lover, in the second of the Heaven Tree Trilogy by Edith Pargenter. When what happens to him when he is caught at it by her husband had me sobbing. I grieved for a couple weeks. And I often say "Now I am going to have to kill myself" when I reach the end of a novel I have been thoroughly engrossed in. "How can I go on without these people?" I ask myself.

It strikes me that even if some of these dearly departed who are breaking my heart were not in fact fictional, if they were in fact historical figures, the fact is given my reading tastes -- i.e., anything that takes place after 1600 is science fiction -- these darlings would be dead now anyway. Long. long dead. Llewellyn, Joan, William, the whole lot, would all be pushing up a gazillionth generation of daisies now.

So clearly the author has been effective! When I sat chilled to the bone at the sacrifice of Conal in Edward Rutherfurd's Princes of Ireland or sobbing at the killing of Patrick Smith on Vinegar Hill in his Rebels of Ireland,it's his marvellous characters and stories that are doing it to me, not that I am, like, a sap, or anything, right?

Let's not even get into what Nicholas de Fleury did to me at the end of Book 6 of House of Niccolo! I used to love that man...

Sigh.

A Tragi-nasty Hero/Villain

My husband Jim has been reading my novel to me most nights after we go to bed. It's an interesting experience. I cringe a lot: ""Oh why did I use that word?!" I notice patterns I hadn't seen before now that I am not embroiled in it: "Lawrence is a tad theatrical, isn't he?" And I admit I nod with admiration for my own skill often enough: "That was a pretty good scene with the brigands, wasn't it?"

One thing I am enjoying is actually getting a better sense of the characters than when I crafted them. That's gotta be a good thing, right? The queen really does come off strong in much of the novel, which should make The Muse pretty happy. The character I am looking at with new eyes though is Lord Elerde (eh-laird')of Brittany. He's supposed to be a bad guy kinda sorta, but it's getting harder not to feel sorry for the guy. When I said "Well, he shouldn't have gotten mixed up in it all in the first place," my husband replied, "The heart wants what it wants."

Elerde is the "darkly sensual mercenary" of the back cover and the ads. He is employed by one of the entirely bad bad guys who sends him to the king's court to be undercover. He comes to want to be undercovers with Josephine, whose character flaw is primarily not knowing when she's encouraging men to fall in love with her. Elerde is well educated, erudite, gallant, continental as he is. Her Saxon husband is sexy as hell and admirable, but let's just say Roman love poetry doesn't thrill him the way Beowulf does. Elerde ingratiates himself to the queen, but she's a good girl, she is, and there is no hanky panky. But her brother has sent for her royal hubby and Elerde finds himself posted to the Críslicland equibalent of Siberia.

Elerde of course does an exemplary job. Lawrence has to give him credit for that, but he also likes to get under the king's skin. Lawrence and he get into an unlooked for situation where hthe king almost kills the mercenary. This sparks Elerde to ally with a group of his old army buddies who lack his finer sensibilities in taking over the queen's homeland. He admits he is doing it to get Lawrence's goat and to further his own ambitions, but when he learns the queen is caught behind enemy lines, it all changes. Now he is bent on protecting her. When in spite of his best efforts someone else does a better and incredibly noble job of that, he throws up his hands and goes back to Críslicland where he just happens to know the king's evil cousin -- remember the earlier employer? -- is about to usurp the throne. So smolderingly sexy Elerde has to go protect the queen there.

Elerde's devotion is part of his appeal I suppose. He reveals himself as a big softy a couple times, and frankly he deserves better than Josephine. He deserves someone who will love him back and not just turn a blind eye to his sacrifices. He loves her kids, he hellps take care of her sick daughter, he saves her life more often than anyone else, he really does love her, and what's more, he gets most of the best lines.

The Breton met the earnest even imploring gaze. He nodded slowly. “Methinks the lady has at least two champions besides her husband. Alas, that only one may win her.”

Rory’s gaze changed to a challenge. “If it came to me to make that choice, sir, that champion shall be the king.”

Elerde dismissed Rory with a gesture. “Well then, it is a good thing that you will be unlikely to be the one to choose.”

True, he sends his lieutenant to kill the king. True, he really does want Josephine for himself. True he is a savage fellow in many ways. True, only one of the three men who love her can have her. But there comes a time in the story when you find yourself rooting for him, or at least hurting for him. Well, I did, and I know at least three readers who did also.

One reviewer told me she wants a sequel just about Elerde.

The photo above, by the way, is Ioane Guffudd, the Welsh actor who portrayed Lancelot in the 2001 film "King Arthur" with Clive Owen. He is exactly how I picture Elerde.