Making Your Lead Detective Character Your Own
When I first embarked on the task of writing my new novel, ZION'S WEB, I actually had no concept what kind of book I wanted to writeâ€"other than I wanted my book to be a thriller. Despite involving Mormons in the book, I definitely was not trying to write LDS fiction, nor do I believe I succeeded in accomplished thisâ€"at least not in the conventional view of things. But what I did write, in my opinion, is absolutely uniqueâ€"and, more importantly, it's mine.
This naturally goes for the hero in my novel, Zachariah (Zack) Burton, an ex-FBI-Agent-turned-private-investigator who lives on a 50-foot sport fisher in San Pedro, California. In deciding precisely how I wanted to craft Zack, it may be helpful to inspect the underpinnings of detective fiction which is where I got my cue. In examining private investigators, I learned that many of these personalitiesâ€"at least those of the male variety set in the twentieth century and laterâ€"seemed to have at least a passing similarity to the hard-boiled detectives created by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. These men were all rough hewn, no frills kinds of men, with a somewhat cynical view of life.
My lead personality Zack fits this profile in many ways due to many of the events that have occurred in his life. Zack recently lost his wife to cancer, for example, an event that forced him to begin drinking too much. This behavior eventually led him to lose almost everything he had in life, including his job with the FBI. The one thing he was able to hang onto was the Kajiki, his sport fisher berthed in a marina in San Pedro. True to his hard-boiled image, Zack starts out as a loner and a near-total recluse but through the progression of the novel matures as a person until by the end he is far more approachable and sympathetic.
What makes Zack different , however, is the Mormon element. Because of the nature of the case he is entangled withâ€"the rescue of a female escapee from a polygamist compound run by so-called fundamentalist Mormonsâ€"I thought it was crucial to differentiate these people from the mainstream Mormons headquartered out of Salt Lake who gave up the practice of plural marriage over a hundred years ago and excommunicate any of their members who continue practicing it. For similar reasons, I also thought it was crucial to include background information about mainstream Mormonism in my story.
The girl Zack was married to for example was a Mormon, even though he is not. His ex-brother-in-law is also a Mormon and provides the main vehicle through which assorted historic items about Mormonism are presented, though these are never allowed to interrupt the primary story line.
The upshot of all this is to indicate that your lead character in detective fiction should be crafted around something you identify with personally, which is how you'll make him or her your own. If I had copied Dashiell Hammett's character, or Chandlers, or any one of a half dozen others, my character would not have been unique, which would have influenced my book and made it somewhat commonplace. And if your story is not unique, it is has little likelihood of developing a strong audience or differentiating you as an author.
.
This naturally goes for the hero in my novel, Zachariah (Zack) Burton, an ex-FBI-Agent-turned-private-investigator who lives on a 50-foot sport fisher in San Pedro, California. In deciding precisely how I wanted to craft Zack, it may be helpful to inspect the underpinnings of detective fiction which is where I got my cue. In examining private investigators, I learned that many of these personalitiesâ€"at least those of the male variety set in the twentieth century and laterâ€"seemed to have at least a passing similarity to the hard-boiled detectives created by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. These men were all rough hewn, no frills kinds of men, with a somewhat cynical view of life.
My lead personality Zack fits this profile in many ways due to many of the events that have occurred in his life. Zack recently lost his wife to cancer, for example, an event that forced him to begin drinking too much. This behavior eventually led him to lose almost everything he had in life, including his job with the FBI. The one thing he was able to hang onto was the Kajiki, his sport fisher berthed in a marina in San Pedro. True to his hard-boiled image, Zack starts out as a loner and a near-total recluse but through the progression of the novel matures as a person until by the end he is far more approachable and sympathetic.
What makes Zack different , however, is the Mormon element. Because of the nature of the case he is entangled withâ€"the rescue of a female escapee from a polygamist compound run by so-called fundamentalist Mormonsâ€"I thought it was crucial to differentiate these people from the mainstream Mormons headquartered out of Salt Lake who gave up the practice of plural marriage over a hundred years ago and excommunicate any of their members who continue practicing it. For similar reasons, I also thought it was crucial to include background information about mainstream Mormonism in my story.
The girl Zack was married to for example was a Mormon, even though he is not. His ex-brother-in-law is also a Mormon and provides the main vehicle through which assorted historic items about Mormonism are presented, though these are never allowed to interrupt the primary story line.
The upshot of all this is to indicate that your lead character in detective fiction should be crafted around something you identify with personally, which is how you'll make him or her your own. If I had copied Dashiell Hammett's character, or Chandlers, or any one of a half dozen others, my character would not have been unique, which would have influenced my book and made it somewhat commonplace. And if your story is not unique, it is has little likelihood of developing a strong audience or differentiating you as an author.
.
About the Author:
Michael Snow is the author of ZION'S WEB, the first in the Zachariah Burton detective series. As well as writing stories, Michael maintains a blogsite which incorporates some handy and highly fascinating blogs including information about creating a fictional detective.