Wednesday, September 15, 2010

New from old

I had a lovely email from a reader asking if I'd thought of writing the story of one of the minor characters in one of my books. Oz - in Fight to Remember - is a demon who has a few issues. He's bad and good at the same time and rather sexy. I did leave this fifth and last of the Trueblood books with a way to write another if I was asked to - though not with Oz! ha ha. In fact I quite often insert a character with the thought of giving them their own story and then wonder if anyone will ask me about them. In'Anna in the Middle' - there's a character I'd planned a whole story for and as yet haven't got around to writing. It would be a MM and though I write that within stories, I've never tried it for a whole book.
I've been asked about Stefan - in Finding the Right One - and he's another that could easily have his own story. But when I've finished a book, I find myself wanting to do something completely different rather than revisit a character I've used before. I found it quite hard to write about Will in Doing the Right Thing and then again in Finding the Right One. Was I being true to his character? Did he 'feel' like the same guy? etc etc.
I suppose the ultimate compliment is that a reader has loved a character so much that she wants to hear more about him. I DO take it as a huge compliment so thank you!! Thanks to all those who contact me and ask about my stories and I will think about Oz and whether he deserves love - because in the end, that's what all my books are about.

3 comments:

Fred said...

Cool. That has to feel great. I'm jealous again.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I just gave up on critting something on the CC newbie queue. I felt sorry for someone and started it, but basically my suggestions would have been to take out the characters, plot and setting, and just leave the conjunctions, start there.

Barbara Elsborg said...

Thanks, Fred!
I remember the days when I didn't even get POV right!! Or the punctuation with dialogue tags. It's strange how you can read for years and not notice the actual mechanism of writing a book. Course, once you have, it's still not that easy to put it into practice.

Arlene said...

You've got so many interesting, lovable characters, you just have to find a way to live forever so you can keep writing about them. A spin off I'd like to see is the parents of the vamps. Alicia and Syren (er, whatever his name is) would be cool. And Thomas, Jo's father, has one hell of a story to his life.