I have about three books in publication and… honestly, I have some ideas for other stories that I think about do well, but I spend so much time writing that I’m starting to feel like it’s consumed my life. I don’t want to let some really good ideas go down the drain, but there are other things I want to do and I have a family that I want to spend more time with. Have you ever thought about calling it quits or is there a time when you think you’ll retire the keyboard?

Thanks,
Ned

Hi Ned,

Spending time with and taking care of your family is the most important thing you could do. It should never take back burner to anything, even your writing. If you believe that your writing is interfering with your life, then indeed, it may be time to hang it up.

I ran into this issue a while back and decided that the best time to write would be when I was on break at my other job, or after everyone else goes to sleep. That way it doesn’t affect family time. I will say that devoting your time to writing can and will take a toll on your health as well.

I’ve honestly thought about calling it quits many times, but I don’t know that I ever will. I am planning on taking a much-needed long break after the next one is published. Perhaps that might be a good compromise? If you’re worried about missing some inspiration for a good story, then keep a small notebook with you and jot down a few notes to remind yourself.

In any case, I think it’s unrealistic to expect to be able to give up your art altogether. A prolonged break is not unreasonable. I hope this helps and I hope you can get everything on track. If you need any more guidance, feel free to email me.

Readers, what do you think? How do you handle thoughts of literary retirement?

Thanks,
Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

So I’m published and like you, I have a blog with a fairly decent following. Over the past few months, I’ve gotten a number of friend requests to my personal facebook page. I’ve ignored them, but they keep coming and I don’t want to seem unprofessional. Do you have any advice on how to handle this?

Thanks,
Lindsey

Hi Lindsey,

I think it’s absolutely important to keep your personal and Professional space separate. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong by rejecting or ignoring these requests. My advice to you would be to create a separate account of author’s page on Facebook. You can take a look at mine on the left, for reference if you like.

I would link it to your WordPress and other social media accounts. Once done, I would lock your private Facebook page with the highest security settings and then make adjust your page so that you’re unsearchable. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more secure that way. I’ve had the same issue from time to time and it’s really the best way to handle it. I love interacting with my readers and fans, it’s what I really enjoy about releasing books.

However, my Facebook page has personal interactions with close friends and family and I prefer to keep that separate.

So anything you want to keep out of the public eye, you need to secure as best you can. It won’t be perfect, but that’s really the best thing you can do.

I hope this helps. Authors and readers, how do you handle issues like this? Do you interact with the people who send you friends requests?

Thanks,
Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

I read a few of your other pieces about character creation and was hoping you could expand more upon how you create a character based on a historical person. I’m trying to do something similar right now, and am really having a hard time. You said that you wanted the character to be as close to the historical person as humanly possible, so I just wanted to know how you accomplished that.

Thanks,
Danny

Danny,

I don’t know how much more I can say on the subject without retracing what I’ve already said, but I’ll do my best. In my writings, I’ve incorporated a few historical people as main characters… Let’s take a look at them.

From left to right, Federico II Gonzaga, Pope Leo X, and Mary Jane Kelly.

Each of these characters presented their own problems in character creation and each had different levels of detail.

Federico and Pope Leo X were both portrayed in Divinity, and for those who have read it, Divinity is basically a story criticizing the church of that time, and by default, institutional religion in general.

Basically, I wanted to show the problems with blind adherence to strict interpretations of doctrine that was, in my opinion anyway, used way outside of its purpose. To do this, I posed the question; What would happen if an angel appeared in 16th Century Europe? What would happen if she were wounded and in need of help? How would people react to what she had to say or how she behaved? Would they take her in and help her, or would they fall back on what they’d been taught, not considering that those teachings might be wrong, and thus assume that she was actually a demonic presence?

To frame the story, I needed to choose the right time period and the right church leader. Yes, the Pope was a villain in the book. I wanted to be careful as I didn’t want to portray someone in a negative light who didn’t deserve it. There were plenty of Popes from the time period I had in mind that did their jobs and were, on a scale, considered benevolent.

Pope Leo X shows up on many of the ‘Worst Popes’ lists out there. He’s was extremely indulgent, driving the church deeply into debt, and then prayed on the ignorance of the faithful in order to sell indulgences to pay down that debt. He was not a priest and he’d had his hands very deep in the pockets of politics of the time.

My portrayal of him is based on that. I presented Leo X as a man who would view an angel potentially going around countering the teachings of the church as dangerous. Especially given that this was a time when the Protestant Reformation was really taking off. Other than his dealings with the church and some backstory of growing up as a member of the Medici family, there isn’t much on his personality traits. So basically, I had to envision what someone would be like who made the decisions he did. What I came up with was an intelligent, well-spoken individual, who was, unfortunately, too easily seduced by power and luxury. He lived by the silver spoon and would go to great lengths to preserve his way of life.

Federico II Gonzaga is a lot more complicated. Aside from allowing the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to pass through his land unmolested, and sack Rome, there really isn’t much on him. I had to dig a little deeper to find more info on him. He was somewhat subversive and underhanded at times, and he had very poor military experience. He essentially was a young man who was thrown into a role he was not equipped to handle. He was deep in the politics of the church, however, given a more passive nature and his manipulation of the system, I was able to portray him a little bit more as a skeptic of what was going on around him.

The lack of information on the personalities of people from several hundred years ago is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, with limited information, you have a lot more freedom. However, if you value history the way I do, you have a responsibility to dig as deep as you can and uncover every scrap of information you can find to make sure you get the character right… and even then you’re more than likely way off.

So let’s take a look at Mary Jane Kelly.
(Spoiler Alerts for Soul Siphon. If you don’t want to know about Mary Jane’s character yet, skip ahead.)

Now… obviously I took a LOT of dramatic licenses here… If you don’t believe me… these three pictures portray the same person:

Mary Kelly was a little easier to deal with for a few reasons;

1. Outside of her death, she was a relatively insignificant person on the stage of history and it’s likely that her name wouldn’t show up in any historical texts otherwise.
2. We do have historical accounts of her personality. However, those accounts are based on hearsay and the testimony of a few people who knew her. A lot of it was based on conflicting stories that she herself had told. So there you can pick and choose which ones sound feasible and which ones do not.
   Example:
   According to her, she had a brother in the military. This is likely. A lot of people served back then.
   On the other side, she also has a number of brothers… I think the number was 7. Arguably less likely, especially from the same mother. Not helping matters was that sometimes it was 7, sometimes it was 2 or 3, or sometimes just one and a sister. Needless to say, I kind of dismissed that.
3. I wasn’t going to portray her as she was back then. My character was the historical person, still alive in the 21st Century. In other words, she’d have 150 years of new experiences and development.

So here’s essentially what I did with her. From what historical accounts we can find on her, she was an Irish-born brothel worker with a sharp tongue. She was known for being quarrelsome and had earned the title of ‘Black Mary’,  which suggests that she knew how to handle herself in a dangerous neighborhood. She was also known for getting drunk and singing Irish folk and patriotic songs… so perhaps I could add some of the cultural characterizations and stereotypes to her behavior. I also based some of her personality on my own experiences with Irish culture, people I’ve encountered, and friends I have from the homeland itself.

So with that information, I was able to build the character personality around those traits and behaviors. However, that original build would have been appropriate for portraying Mary Kelly as she was during the late 1800s. I had an additional hurdle to overcome with her in that she was going to have an additional 150 years of development.

So what would a character like that be like? Well contending with immortality, having to watch friends die, as well as having full memory of her murder, I tried to create a character who voluntarily isolated herself from the rest of the team and shies away from forming bonds out of a fear of loss or abandonment. I then created a backstory where she spent years protecting other prostitutes and brothel workers. When she finally located Jack the Ripper himself, she set out to kill him, only to lose her chance when he attempted to escape to American and drown when his ship wrecked. She later discovered that her failure to catch him sooner resulted in more deaths at his hands.

I used that backstory, coupled with the harsh life she lived, to create a bitter character who was justifiably mad at the world. So when our hero meets Mary, she’s harsh, rude, and extremely condescending. She continuously objects to the main character joining the team and gives him a wide berth. I’ve gotten emails from people who read her character and ask why she’s so mean… and I always smile because I can usually tell where they are in the story.

Truthfully, readers aren’t meant to like Mary at first. I’d actually understand if they didn’t like Mary at all. However, I did want people to understand her. I wanted to make a character that wouldn’t necessarily change, but people would at least grow to understand and even empathize with. You may not like her abrasive personality or attitude, but at least you’d develop an understanding of how she got that way in the first place.

So in the end, the major hurdle is whether or not these people would actually be like the characters I created. Honestly, I have no idea. I used their historical profiles and what personality traits I could find to build a character that is as close as anyone could reasonably get without actually knowing the person. That being said, I fully recognize that I could be completely off. One, because as I said, I never met these people. Two, because I’m exposing them to fictional situations. Given that, it would be impossible to predict how they would react, even from someone who knew them personally.

So I guess in the end, my advice is simply to be careful. Do your due diligence and… I’d personally avoid anyone living or recently deceased. It’s true that you can’t slander the dead, but you’d be surprised at the legal loopholing a famous person’s family can do if desired. If that’s what you want to do though, I’d contact a lawyer first to see what your options are and what you should or should not consider saying about said person.

If they’re from an ancient time period, any surviving family members would have a much harder time making a case against you, and many would first have to be able to trace their line back to said person which isn’t always easy to do in a way that would be accepted by most legal systems.

Anyway, I hope this helps, but let’s open it up to the readers. Does anyone else in the WordPress community have experiences with creating a character from a historical person? Feel free to share your experiences and the steps you took in creating said character in the comments.

Thanks,
Jim

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

I’m actually in the process of writing a novel, but I’m having a hard time getting the characters together. At times, it seems like the storyline kind of interferes with any chance to get them together. Do you have any advice on how to write a story with a romantic element?

Thanks,
Marylou

Hi Marylou,

It’s not always the easiest thing in the world, admittedly. In my books, I kind of like to leave the romance either to the beginning or middle of the story and just kind of allude to it through the body of the book. What I mean is, have the two characters forge a relationship before or in the middle of the main adventure. If your novel is fast-paced where there is no downtime, it may be a good idea for them to start off together and then have their relationship grow throughout the story.

This is more personal preference, but I don’t typically like stories where the relationship begins at the end. There is an old anecdote… that’s been mocked in several action movies; “Relationships based on intense experiences never work.”
Again, it’s an anecdote, but a pretty accurate one from what I’ve observed. This is just my opinion, but if you want a romantic element, don’t end on that note. It’s contrived, cheesy, and really doesn’t draw an audience in.

Since I’ve given you some do’s and don’ts, there’s another one I feel like I should bring up. This is something I see all the time in modern literature, tv, and movies and it really drives me insane. Do not write a story where the obvious ‘breeding pair’ has several close calls where the almost get together, but either one of them backs off or has second thoughts… more than once, and then another character comes in and interferes, only to disappear once his purpose has been served.

This is relationship drama and, while a little bit of it is okay, prolonging your story this way will annoy readers very quickly. This can be considered a form of baiting and readers don’t tend to like that very much.

Create a Dramatic Relationship, not Relationship Drama. What’s the difference? Well the opposed to what I wrote above, a dramatic relationship is one that responds and evolves due to outside stimulus, but remains strong. That’s really what you want if you’re going to draw people in.

So I went off on a bit of a tangeant there, and I apologize for that. Really all you need to do is create two likeable characters and let them work through things together. Create two characters who either compliment each other or work well off each other. Do that, and you’ll be just fine.

Hope this helps!

Readers,  do you have any advice for Marylou about adding a romantic element into a fast-paced story? Let her know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim

Hello,

A good question. Well honestly, I have to admit that my initial reasons were not as altruistic as one might think. I’d gone through site after site looking for good ways to advertise your writing. My books weren’t getting much traction with what I’d already had set up. Then I contacted another writer to see what he recommended. One of the main things was maintaining an online presence through a blog or other social media. He said the best thing you can do is give back some of that success you earned.

So I started my blog. At first, it got almost no traction because I was mostly advertising myself and my writing. I decided that, at that point, if I was going to get any traction, I needed to actually become part of the community. So I began looking at other blogs on WordPress and … sigh… tumblr… and a few other places. As I began commenting on and sharing what other’s had written, I began to notice a recurrent problem; There was plenty of talent, but not much in the way of experience. Too many skilled writers were having problems.

I started handing out advice in the comments section of a couple of the blogs that I frequented. I started getting a lot of compliments and gratitude. At that point, I really found my niche and started writing pieces about how to write and how to get published. Before I knew it, I started getting questions in my comments field.

My books got more traction and I set up an email for both fan mail and advice questions. Before long, I was inundated with emails from both. Unfortunately, I made a promise to myself to personally respond to each of these… and have since been paying the price for that.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love getting messages and will continue to respond. It has become a labor of love for me and I really enjoy doing it.

So that’s it really. What started off as a way to advertise my book, became an advice and geek culture page.

Hope this helps!

Thanks!

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Note:
If you have read my books, PLEASE log into Amazon and post a review. I really love to hear everyone’s thoughts and constructive criticisms. Reviews help get my book attention and word of mouth is everything in this business!

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim