Living with a character

 

James Holloway had moved in with me. He'd been visiting me regularly.

Who is he?

I'm about halfway through a novel with him as the hero. This happens when I write a book at different points in the process

At first, I'll see something, a flower, a tree, an apple, a building, a word and think, "Oh (fill in the character's name) and I'll add it to the story. Then as the story develops, they sit with me, sleep with me, shower with me (especially shower where I do a lot of my pre-writing). I wake in the middle of the night and they are in bed with me, my husband and Sherlock the dog. And yes, the next morning I do remember.

The idea for this book was decades coming. Visiting the Lexington Battle Field where the first battle of the American Revolution took place I first came across this tombstone in the photo above. Because it is a tourist attraction, I've seen by many times, and each time I wonder who the men were, what were the lives like in England, why did they join, did their families ever know they died.

I've been told it is against the laws to do a DNA so they might be traced.

Thus I decided to create a life for one of them. With enough research and the help of the Park Rangers and others, books, videos and the internet I was able to devise a realistic character. Enter James Holloway. Originally I names him James Hathaway until I realized that was the name of a detective on a British mystery series. 

I chose James after my father. Naming characters is fun. At the moment I'm using the names of the passengers on the Mayflower. No Madisons, Aidans, Jasons would work for the 1700s. I even asked my former assistant from another life if I could use his name. He had an ancestor on the Mayflower. He agreed readily.

James, a 21 year old new widower, wanted to escape his life as a baker in Ely, UK when he ran into a recruiter. Although he found the excitement he was looking for, he was sure that army life wasn't for him, but that didn't stop him for trying to be the best soldier he could.

Spied by General Gage, he ends up working part time as his orderly because of his reading and writing abilities which gives him insight into the growing tension in Boston. Can't let that research go to waste, but at the same time it has to be woven into the story it doesn't look like to the reader that as the author I didn't want to waste the time I spent on research and I'm going to put it come hell or high water. It has to be a natural part of the plot.

There is a modern component to the book. Daphne and Florence are not living with me yet, but they do go on walks with Sherlock my dog and me. They will allow me to provide more background information that keeps rolling in. 

Characters from my other books, Annie, Roger, Ashley, Sally, Liz, etc. have moved on. 

They haven't even sent a postcard for the times we shared slaving over my laptop.