Make It Real

I’d like to talk about how we as authors put a little bit of ourselves into each of our stories. Sometimes it may be conscious on our part and at other times not, but it’s virtually impossible to not inject some of our own personality into our work. As for me, it’s mostly conscious.

When writing a character, we give each of them some subtle—or not so subtle—characteristic that identifies them somehow. Sort of like a fingerprint, if you will. In one of my works in progress I have my heroine use the phrase, “Hells Bells” quite often. This particular story is set in the south—of course—all my stories are southern--and that expression just seemed to fit not only my heroine, but the locale as well. And it just so happens to be a phrase I personally use quite a bit.

I can also honestly say I find it hard to write things through the eyes of my heroine that I don’t personally agree with or at least am able to stretch my imagination far enough to live with. And that’s another bit of personality thrown into the mix some of you may not have realized you do.

Probably one of the things we all do a great deal of though, is to write the hero exactly the way we want him. Personally, that is. lol My great Alpha males range from having “long, coal black hair dusted with the same silver as the stars” to “close-shaven head, giving him a forbidden look”. My heroes are never blonde or red-haired because I’m not personally attracted to fair- haired men.

So is it wrong to use so much of ourselves in our writing? No. If you can’t feel it, visualize it, and basically believe it—neither will the reader. So the realism you use from your own life experiences and preferences injects that much needed believability into your manuscript. My advice? Always go with what you know—what you feel—and you’ll have a winning story every time. Just forgo all the boring stuff in your life!

Thanks for reading. Till next time.

Tess MacKall