On Character Work…

How I make my characters rich through my experiences.

Today I wanted to talk about character writing and how I infuse them with stuff from my own life. These are the dos I engage in. I’ll write on the don’ts another time. I’ll be using examples from the central characters from my upcoming book, Intersection.

*Minor spoilers for Intersection ahead*

The first character Intersection introduces is Molly Eldritch. She is a custodian at a hotel. We see her waiting in line to clock out in the early morning.

I have been in the custodial work space for nearly all my adult life. So I gave Molly the same job that I’ve had, and while her time clocking out isn’t unique to the custodians, it is eerily close to what I’ve experienced.

Molly wants to clock out and get away quick because she has to get to a taco restaurant before they close. While in her car, she gets distracted looking for her wallet and forgets to turn on her headlights (the parking lot is sufficiently lit).

I would often grab Taco Bell after work on a Friday night, and they would close shortly after I got off of work.

There was a time at night a few years back when I was driving someone else’s car and I forgot to turn on the headlight. That experience was wild. The streets were lit well enough that I didn’t notice to turn them on. I was driving with my wife, and I went down a street whose lights were all off. The darkness enveloped us. The dark seemed strange, but I still didn’t think my lights were off–neither did my wife. A car almost hit us twice. One car tried to turn into my lane. And the other car was doing a U-turn, into my lane, right in front of me. I said, “It’s like we’re invisible.” Well, we were. I finally noticed the lights weren’t on, and I’m extremely fortunate to have come to the other side of that night.

It’s these little things that make a character seem more alive. Giving them real experiences is something that’s vital.

There are other things in Molly’s story that I’ve put in from myself, but I can’t give away too much.

Aiden Reeves is the second character Intersection introduces. As he’s driving, “Rats” by Ghost plays from his iPhone.

This same song played for me while I drove to work one day, and I really enjoyed driving to it.

Aiden hears whispers that warn him about events in the future.

There has been at least three times in my life where I’ve felt something like a premonition. I was given a heads up about important events in my life. These events have all been relating to big transitions, so Aiden gets a more fictionalized version of what I’ve felt.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Pumping my characters full of my own experiences is a great way to flesh them out. I’ve put at least some small part of myself into the vast majority of the characters I’ve written.

Intersection is currently available on the Kindle Store for pre-order. It’s $0.99 during this pre-release period, so if you’re interested, here’s a link to check it out.

Next time I’ll continue with my self publishing journey. I’ll talk about the editor I found and my experience with that.

Until then, I hope you have a wonderful day,

Colin J Switalski

*This was originally posted on my old blog on June 7th, 2023.