Let's all welcome Traci Borum, author of Painting the Moon, Book 1 in the Chilton Crosse series. She is currently on tour to support the newly released novel and I'm very happy to be a part of it! Today, she will shed some light on how she writes characters. It's quite interesting, really. Find out what she has to say about it here. And don't forget to enter the awesome giveaway at the end of this post. :)
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When I’m brainstorming a novel, I usually always find a pretty significant piece of myself inside my main characters. It’s just easy to relate to them if they have at least one quality that I already possess.
But what about those characters who are nothing like me? Surprisingly, they’ve become a lot easier to flesh out than I first assumed.
Take Jill Bartleby, for instance. She’s a minor character in my novel, Painting the Moon, and she’s pretty much nothing like me. She’s tall and waif-like, outgoing and chatty, confident and fearless. But I found that when I let go—when I embodied her character, tried to figure out her tone of voice, her thought processes, her decision-making—I could relax into it. While I wrote her, I became her, in my mind.
I’ve often equated writing a novel to being an actor-director. I tend to “stage” scenes (picture what’s in a scene, who’s standing where, what they’re holding, what they’re doing). And I also act. I play the roles of the characters. I try to be them, figure out what they’re thinking, how they’ll react to something. That’s the only way it feels genuine to me.
So, with Jill, I pretended to be her. I moved aside my own personality as much as possible and played Jill’s role. I wore designer clothes and enjoyed having tall, skinny legs (in real life, I’m a mere 5’1’’). I said outrageous things with a posh British accent and lived in a fancy London townhome with a gorgeous surgeon husband. And it was fun! I became someone other than myself.
And perhaps that’s one of the biggest joys of writing—escaping who you are, even for a couple of hours a day—to become someone else, entirely.
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Know more about her newly released novel:
Painting the Moon by Traci Borum
Release Date: June 2014
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Amazon Kindle | Amazon Paperback | B&N | Kobo | Google Play
When Noelle Cooke inherits a quaint cottage and an art gallery from her famous British aunt, she’s happy to leave her boring life in San Diego and take a trip to England. A locked room, a detailed diary, and a rich history of eccentricity make her visit even more interesting. Added to that, the art gallery is on the verge of financial ruin.
Noelle is shocked to run into Adam Spencer, her childhood sweetheart. Old feelings stir, and she has to remind herself that she’s only there for a short time. Then, Adam takes on a restoration project in her area and becomes involved in the mystery her aunt has left behind. New love ignites, but Noelle doesn’t know if Adam feels the same way.
Book Trailer:
About the Author:
Traci Borum is a writing teacher and native Texan. She’s also an avid reader of women’s fiction, most especially Elin Hilderbrand and Rosamunde Pilcher novels. Since the age of 12, she’s written poetry, short stories, magazine articles, and novels.
Traci also adores all things British. She even owns a British dog (Corgi) and is completely addicted to Masterpiece Theater–must be all those dreamy accents! Aside from having big dreams of getting a book published, it’s the little things that make her the happiest: deep talks with friends, a strong cup of hot chocolate, a hearty game of fetch with her Corgi, and puffy white Texas clouds always reminding her to “look up, slow down, enjoy your life.”
.. Enter the Giveaway here:
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