Miss Demeanors

Tag: characters

characters

That Time I Threw a Book At the Wall

January 12, 2022
Susan Breen

I don’t generally throw books against the wall, but when I read Tana French’s book the first time, I was so aggravated by the ending that I tossed it. The story was engrossing. The characters richly detailed. The book won an Edgar when it was published, in 2007. But the ending drove me crazy because it left something important unresolved. I actually thought I’d got a misprinted book that had lost the last twenty pages.

August 25, 2021
C. Michele Dorsey

What is it about Kinsey Millhone? I didn’t realize how much I miss Kinsey Millhone until I saw the ad for dusting slippers on Facebook. Kinsey, the beloved protagonist in Sue Grafton’s alphabet mystery series, lived in a garage apartment and was known to dust her way up the stairs with her socks on. Sometimes, it’s the little things about a character that make you love them. Like when they cut their hair with manicure scissors, another of Kinsey’s quirks. The New York Times even took note of Kinsey’s odd love of peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. While I do not share Kinsey’s taste in sandwiches, I adored her and her peculiar habits. I once had a chance to chat with Sue Grafton, whose annual addition to the series I still miss every year. Kinsey had a little black dress made of a mystery fabric that didn’t wrinkle which she pulled out of her purse when the jeans she standardly wore didn’t fit the occasion. Grafton lamented that she had been unable to find such a dress in real life. I have read and enjoyed every one of Sue Grafton’s books, but what I remember most about them are the […]

August 12, 2021
Connie Berry

Last of the Summer Wine, the television series about three Yorkshire lads who got old but never grew up aired from 1973 to 2010, an amazing 294 episodes, making it the longest-running scripted sitcom in Britain and the world. That’s impressive.

July 12, 2021
Emilya Naymark

If you write something and publish it, someone is going to have a nagging suspicion you wrote about them.

March 30, 2021
Susan Breen

How trees help me understand people better.

April 21, 2020
Connie Berry

What we remember best about the books we’ve read is usually not the plot or the setting, as wonderful as these can be. We remember characters. Some of them walk into our hearts and never leave us. I recently finished reading the New York Times Bestseller We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet for my book club. The novel is set in the south of England (a favorite setting), during and after World War 2 (a favorite time frame). The story begins when a young woman, Ellen Parr, finds an abandoned child, little Pamela, asleep on a bus. The theme is courage and love—the fierce love of a woman’s heart for a child. The plot, spanning decades, is beautifully laid out, but what will stick with me forever is Ellen herself—a believable, relatable, flawed, lovable human being. Some fictional characters achieve immortality—Miss Havisham (Great Expectations), Elizabeth Bennet (Pride & Prejudice), Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird), Sherlock Holmes (The Complete Sherlock Holmes), Gandalf (Lord of the Rings), Lisbeth Salander (The Millennium Trilogy), Celie (The Color Purple), Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing), Peter Pan (Peter Pan), Scarlett O’Hara (Gone With The Wind), Mole (The Wind In The Willows), Armand Gamache (The […]

November 15, 2019
Susan Breen

Last weekend I had the opportunity to meet with Ann Cleeves (at Crime Bake), which was a treat on many levels, one of them being that she has created one of my all-time favorite characters, Vera. Of course, when I tried to tell this to Ann Cleeves I felt like one of those babbling brooks, but I did mean it quite sincerely. Vera has been a good friend to me. So my question is, do you have any fictional characters who you connect to powerfully, and if so, who?

November 7, 2019
Cate Holahan

For more than a month, I walked the dog with Shonda Rhimes. Ms. Rhimes’ MasterClass is one of the longer and, in my opinion, more informative courses for writers on the podcast service. She demystifies breaking into television, discusses writing in general and also gets specific with the structure of various types of television episodes. She’s also has an amazing work-ethic, approach to her craft, and incredible talent. Plus, she’s funny.

August 13, 2018
Alexia Gordon

Yesterday, I posted about authors getting into shape. That got me thinking about the physical fitness habits of fictional characters. “Person versus nature” is a classic literary theme. A character engaged in an outdoor activity like backpacking, skiing, or trekking might find themselves combating nature’s fury in the form of a landslide, earthquake, or avalanche. A character might undergo physical training as preparation for battle against their antagonist. Even if you’re not a fan of sports films or boxing, when someone says, “Rocky,” you imagine Sylvester Stallone’s triumphant run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Dr. Strange” features several scenes of Benedict Cumberbatch enduring physical as well as magical training. Superheroes require physical toughness to fight the forces of evil. Two my favorite movies, “Stripes” and “Private Benjamin,” present the rigors of military physical fitness as both a literal antagonist to overcome and as metaphorical antagonist for the characters’ battles against themselves and others who are betting on them to fail. Christine Sneed, one of the authors interviewed for the article, “How the bookish stay in shape,” (William Hageman, Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2015) includes college athletes and distance runners as characters in her novels. Author Philip Brewer wrote a 2013 blog post, “Fictional characters getting in shape,” describing how he enjoys scenes showing the protagonist engaged in fitness activities. He lists Man on Fire, Wise Man’s Fear, Critical Space, and, of course, “Rocky,” as examples. Commenters on the post mentioned the Travis McGee, Doc Ford, and Elvis Cole series as others. What about you? Are you a fan of physical fitness in fiction? As a plot device to put a character in jeopardy? As preparation for the ultimate battle? As a metaphor for a battle against self-doubt? Or as a way to show that characters are as human as we are? Leave a comment on the blog or come over to Facebook to share and discuss.

November 27, 2017
Tracee de Hahn

Every writer, and many readers, have heard stories about character names. One famous example is how Scarlett O’Hara was Pansy before the final printing. I’m not saying Gone With the Wind wouldn’t have survived this, but Scarlett certainly set the tone for the character in a way Pansy wouldn’t have. I’ve working on names for book three of the Agnes Lüthi mysteries and I’ve already had a few naming issues. Since this is a continuing series the main characters are established. The Vallotton family plays a prominent role in each of the first two books and will in the third. So why did I think Veillon was a good last name for an important character in book three? To me, Vallotton and Veillon are two distinct names. To my Beta readers, evidently not. (To make matters worse, I hastily changed Veillon to Langren before sending to my writers’ group…. except I didn’t really. I substituted a misspelling. This meant that when I tried a auto substitution to the final name (Rochebin) I only had one instance to change. For a moment I thought: how is it possible I used the name of one of the most important characters one time in the entire manuscript.) For me, names carry connotation. My books are set in Switzerland which means the name can have a regional association. Do I want to emphasize their linguistic affiliation? Or the fact that they are a foreigner? (Smythe, for example.) Beyond a sense of historical place or ethnicity, names carry connotations that are personal or cultural. Trendy names, classic names. What does a nickname say about a person? Any favorite or least favorite fictional names?