Showing posts with label Leo Blue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leo Blue. Show all posts

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Round Robin Blog Post Sept 23 2017

Hi ho! Welcome back to another Round Robin Blog Fest! This month's topic:

This month's topic: What characters in other author's books have not left your mind? Have written a character who wouldn't leave you? Why do you think this happens?

Earlier this year I was introduced to a novel called "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski. A bizarre book that takes a reader on several different story line all in one compact 705 page novel. Of all the characters in that book one has haunted me for months afterward. The character of Johnny Tremaine. While the structure of the book is unconventional, there are varying fonts, page layouts, and images, it is the footnotes of the book that unravel Johnny's story. An apprentice in a tattoo shop, he starts off a relatable, just another kid with problems. He goes from an everyday assuming punk kid who follows a descent to madness.

Of my own characters, Leo Blue is the one who hangs around the most. He started off as a sidekick to Danny Walker in my Wild Blue Mysteries and gradually took over his own role as a leading man in The Bakery Lady and will appear once more in my latest work in progress, The Painted Lady.

Leo emerged from the wild side of me that longed to say what was on my mind no matter the consequences. He is also the kind of person who does as he pleases. No family. No one to worry about but himself. He is free to work as he chooses and run off to other parts of the world when life gets him down. A loner, just like Johnny Tremaine, Leo does his best without giving up anything to anyone.
Until he meets Christina Davidson, that is...

Buy your copy of The Bakery Lady

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/bator-diane-mystery-canada/




Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Heidi M. Thomas http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Saturday, June 24, 2017

May 2017 Round Robin Blog Fest


Welcome back to the Round Robin Blog Fest!


After a brief hiatus for some family events and crazy work schedule, I'm back and ready to blog!

This month's topic is:

How do you go about developing your characters for a story?
How much time do you spend or does it just happen in the writing process?
What inspires it?

I'm a pantser. For the uninitiated, I write from the top of my head, flying by the seat of my pants so to speak. My words and my characters flow from my head and heart through my hand and pen.

Aside from the romanticism of creating my own characters, I observe people. I glean mannerisms from customers I serve, people I know, and from people watching in general. Once I have a basic character, I begin to work on backstory and finer details. For the most part, all of the bits and pieces fall into place during the writing process.

Anything can inspire a new character - a dream, someone on television, a voice on the radio, even just a "what if."  What if a woman met the man of her dreams and he was far from dreamy? What if the homeless man on the corner had a dark secret? What if the beauty queen wanted to win so bad she killed her competition one by one?

By asking the what ifs, I created a character from either the inside-out or the outside-in. Sometimes the heart and soul are more apparent than the outer shell at first. But there are also times a character just appears. Larger than life and in so much detail that I can't write fast enough to capture them.

Leo Blue from my Wild Blue Mysteries series was one of these. He pushed his way into the story without prompting - or being invited for that matter! He will be making a reappearance in the fourth book in the series called The Painted Lady.

As an example of one of my characters, this is what I wrote for his brief description:

Leo Blue: One of Danny’s partners at the Wild Blue Detective Agency. Leo’s background as a boxer and martial artist made it impossible for anyone to get the jump on him. He is also a veteran severely wounded in Afghanistan.
He has muscular arms, broad chest and scars everywhere. He has long copper hair and cat-like gold eyes. He looks like he could bench press a bus. Leo is “two-parts Rambo and one-part Einstein.” He would never turn his back when his friends needed his help.




While Leo first appears in The Bookstore Lady, he takes the spotlight in The Bakery Lady with the lovely Christina Davidson who takes over Daisy's Bakery and turns the confirmed bachelor's head.

You can buy any or all of my books on Amazon at Diane Bator.


I hope you all enjoy the rest of the blog fest! Stop by to check out how my fellow authors develop their characters!

Saturday, March 18, 2017

March Round Robin

Top o' the mornin' to ye!
Welcome to a wee bit of the blarney post-Irish Whiskey, to be sure.
Pour a cup of Irish Breakfast and put your feet up for a wee bit of readin'....

Today's topic was suggested by gent named Dr. Bob who knows a lovely lass named Anna Jacobs, a bestselling author who has 77 books to her credit! She was complainin' of being emotionally drained by writing a scene and asked him, "Are you sure our characters aren't real?"

That leads us to today's topic:  Are you ever a wee bit drained writin' certain scenes and how real are your characters to you?

I have always been told I have an overactive imagination. Storytelling and writing have always come as naturally to me as breathing and my characters have always been my constant companions. In fact, the more I write, the more real my characters feel to me. I described it to someone lately like having a song in your head that just won't leave. For me, a lot of the time, it's a character or two.

I become absorbed in scenes and either feel drained or elated when I write certain scenes. Working through the climax of a novel certainly keeps me on edge and I ride the waves of emotion along with my heroes and sometimes even my antagonist.

My characters always tend to feel real to me. They become my constant sidekicks wherever I go and whatever I do. In fact, I often think "what would _____ do?" I find it difficult to turn off that creative part of my brain, especially when I'm working on a new novel. As I live with my characters, they develop around me. More often than not, they tend to take over my stories and create all new plot twists without much effort at all.

Other times, as with my character Leo Blue in The Bookstores Lady, the sidekicks can become such strong characters on their own that they demand their own books. For anyone who has read The Bakery Lady, Leo will have one more book so readers can find out what happens to him next.

My newest work in progress is a great deal grittier than my past cozy mysteries. I find I need to dig even deeper to create the background stories and understand what makes a psychopathic killer tick. I kind of hope he doesn't become one of those characters who consumes me, but the detective who has to track him down just might! Stay tuned!!

Now take a little trip to visit the lovely Helena Fairfax and find out what antics her characters have pulled...


Participants:
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Dr. Bob Rich htt  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-Wo 
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Kay Sisk http://www.kaysisk.com/blog
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Round Robin Blog Fest Aug 23 2014



      Welcome back to another edition of Round Robin Blog Fest!

Pour a cup of coffee and pull up a chair while we discuss this month's topic:


      "Have you ever read or written a story that had a secondary character take over?"


For those of you who don't know, I have written a series called Wild Blue Mysteries published by Books We Love. The name comes from the detective agency my main character Danny Walker has opened as part of an undercover operation while he is a police officer on the Newville Police force. When I first started writing The Bookstore Lady, one of the secondary characters seemed to struggle with playing second fiddle. Danny, my leading man, suddenly had to compete with his sidekick Leo Blue for the limelight. From Danny's point of view: "Leo, severely wounded while stationed in Afghanistan, was both a former professional boxer and third degree karate black belt. He was the one person Danny wanted to have watch his back..."

Leo Blue remained a secondary character in The Mystery Lady, where mystery writer Lucy first sees him outside her house and labels him the Ponytail Man:  "Ponytail Man's face seemed carved from marble, yet handsome in a rugged way like the photo of the hunk she'd pulled off the Internet. Unlike the male model, this guy scared the crap out of her even from afar."

I'm glad to say the third book in the series, The Bakery Lady, is all Leo's and readers get to know this mystery man a whole lot better. "Leo tossed his cell phone onto the sagging green couch that doubled as his bed by night and sighed. A detective by trade, he wasn't in a big  hurry to take on a new case, not since his nightmares had returned. He blew out a long, bracing breath and reached up to work his hair into a braid. Instead of a foot and a half of red locks, he scrubbed his fingers through the inch-long do he had to endure after Lucy's daughter Gina cut his braid off. Someone fighting cancer somewhere, would get a soft, manageable wig. In return, Leo got a brief bout of the warm fuzzies and cold ears."

I guarantee Leo Blue will hang around for the next two books and will be the male lead in the series finale.

Be sure to stop by and visit Margaret Fieland who is next on the tour and have a lovely weekend!
Hopefully you get a chance to stop and see the other amazing authors who are a part of this tour:




Escape With a Writer Has MOVED!

  You can find all of the latest and greatest releases, interviews, and books at: https://escapewithawriter.wordpress.com/