“…don’t get annoyed when your characters misbehave. Pat yourself on the back for creating such thoroughly believable fictional beings. Let them take the lead and see where they take you.”
From Geri Shear’s blogpost: “When Your Fictional Characters Ignore You.”
Geri Shear has a lovely author blog, filled with writers wisdom. Her posts always inspire me to write. This one is about how characters don’t always act as we intend. You are going along writing a scene as you planned it and a character acts up and takes the scene elsewhere or enthusiastically changes their original characterization.
Stephen King shares in On Writing his use of this behaviour of characters. He recommends putting your characters into an environment unique to them, watch what they do, and scribble it down as fast as possible. I also find this to be a great way to get beyond where the novel is stuck.
It is the ability to “misbehave” that brings our characters to life. As authors we want the characters of our novels and stories to be engaging and to live in our readers’ minds and hearts. They are not to be locked away in some file to be used whenever we want and however we want. They do not stagnate there, either. What we truly want from our characters is for them to take on a life of their own and bring us along with them. And then onward together to fame and fortune, however, we define it.
Arthur Conan Doyle and his character of Sherlock Holmes is my best example of how a writer builds a character. Many of us involved in the reemergence of Doyle’s characters know how vibrantly alive and how demanding this character can be. Though it is a small part of the mystery market, there are hundreds of authors writing new Sherlock Holmes stories. Why? Because the characters are so compelling, they have stood the test of time, are in the public domain, and because for many, Sherlock has transcended the page.
Alistair Cooke once said to Jeremy Brett, that the three most memorable people in the last hundred years were “Churchill, Hitler, and Sherlock Holmes.”
Sherlock engages our imaginations while reading Conan Doyle’s stories or a good pastiche. Embodied in the singular illustrations that accompanied the author’s words, the character of Holmes seemed to leap into the world fully formed. His coming alive was further enhanced by the magnificent actors who portrayed him: William Gillette, John Barrymore, Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone, Carleton Hobbs, Roger Llewellyn, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ronald Howard, Vasily Livanov, and Robert Downing Jr., to mention just a few. And we will champion to all comers, our choice for the embodiment of Mr Holmes.
Doyle was not only creating a character when he envisioned Holmes. He was generating a way to keep himself and his family supported while he followed his talent for writing. To this end he created a new mystery genre, where the detective used science and scientific method to solve crime. For the same reason, he created the sidekick character, and the series. Most powerful of all his reasons for Sherlock was that by writing his detective’s fictional accounts, he would encourage and advance the science of forensics to the forefront of detective work. Something he achieved.
That he modelled Holmes after Doctor Joseph Bell, one of the most dynamic members of the teaching staff at Edinburgh Medical School, gave Sherlock a foundation based on genius and the warm friendship between Doctor’s Doyle and Bell. And last, he chose the capital city of London as the container for his stories. Doyle turned the city into a character by impartially revealing her glory and her squalor. All these ideas were essential to Conan Doyle’s creation of Sherlock Holmes. Wrapping them in such momentous intentions is how one builds characters that live forever.
The rather vivacious character of Rachel Marcello was formed by studying the psychology of eleven-year-olds and young geniuses. I researched her large family by interviewing the last remaining members, and searched 19th-century photographs for her image. I visited her hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York and imagined Rachel battling her bullies, meeting Sherlock Holmes, flying an ice yacht, and discovering a refuge at Vassar College for Women. My intentions were to write my first Sherlock Holmes novel and become a published author. To stage the rescue of a member of the Marcello family from the historic Hudson Asylum. Thereby highlighting how asylums were used to enforce the strictures of patriarchy during a time when women’s behavior was severely prescribed and a husband’s choices were sacrosanct.
For today’s author to return with each book, story, or screenplay to the most familiar address in the world, is a homecoming to the friendly environment of No. 221B Baker Street. The possibility to uncover more about the lives of the people within while posing as Sherlock’s biographer is for me too tantalizing a prospect to pass up. For Conan Doyle, success went beyond the page:
“My view has been justified, as I understand that in several countries some change has been made in police procedure on account of these stories. It is all very well to sneer at the paper detective, but a principle is a principle, whether in fiction or in fact. Many of the great lessons of life are to be learned in the pages of the novelist.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Preface to Sherlock Holmes – The Complete Long Stories, 1929.
Photographer: Ray Wells. Gayle Hunnicutt who plays Irene Adler in “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Barbara Wilshere who plays Violet Smith in “The Solitary Cyclist.” Rosalyn Landor portrays Helen Stoner in “The Speckled Band.” Alison Sulbeck portrays Annie Harrison in “The Naval Treaty.” Betsy Brantley plays Elsie Cubit in “The Dancing Men.” And of course a triumphant Jeremy Brett in the centre who portrays the greatest Sherlock Holmes, here encircled by some of his fantastic co-stars.
Gretchen Altabef is an award-winning author of new Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Her books brim with imagination and a news reporter’s excitement for the true history of the day. THESE SCATTERED HOUSES brings Holmes to New York during his ‘great hiatus’. REMARKABLE POWER OF STIMULUS follows in London. During the investigation of a gruesome murder, Sherlock seizes a second chance with the woman, and they marry in an anarchist-ridden Paris. The trilogy continues with FIVE MILES OF COUNTRY, where Holmes returns to New York to solve a murder in Thomas Edison’s premier film studio, and Mrs Irene Adler-Holmes triumphs on Broadway. THE KEYS OF DEATH is a genesis story of the world’s most famous address, 221B Baker Street and it’s new inhabitants, as told by Mrs Hudson.
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