People

When trying to wrap my mind around a new character it's always - naturally - good to have own experiences to go on. It's not always possible, for example: I've never actually encountered a vampire, or stood in the presence of a wolf in a lone forest, or been to France, so what to do then? Well, imagination goes a long way, but as a foundation for it I need something tangible or what I write won't sound true, and the truth is necessary to manage the trick of making the reader believe in it, even if the situation is stemming only from my own mind.

So, for that first example, I draw from what I know of vampires - the old clichés, the new ways that have already been created to view them, and then I pick and choose what I am to use.

The one thing that I don't mess with when it comes to vampires and their folklore is the allergic-to-daylight bit. They cannot exist in daylight, and that's that. As for all the rest, I take what I know of how they've been portrayed throughout history and literature and I weave my vampire character around these facts, even if I leave most of them out of him or her. Once I know my vampire, I can begin to imagine what I might feel if I ever encountered him or her, and presto - I'm ready to write my story, because the humans that are meant to be in it will ring true since I can now empathise with them.

Empathy is one of the big commodities for a writer, I believe; the ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes. You can't personally be every single character - you have to go out of yourself and be inspired by people you know or have met and base characters on them - but for you to infuse them with actual life you will have to write them with delicate fingertips and truly understand them. Psychology is a good thing to know a bit about for this. :)

It's difficult to make every character separate from each other and yet interact in a casual and un-forced way, but once you've written fifty pages or so, you will begin to learn their habits, and you will begin to know what it is you want them to do, what their story is. They reveal it to you as you go along, and even though you can guide them sometimes, those first pages are almost always theirs and not yours. It's very cool.

Of course, research is inevitable when writing about places you've never seen or times in history that you haven't lived through. My latest project that needed a lot of research I believe I will actually research lightly as I write it, get the gist of what it is I'm trying and wishing to say - it begins in the 1100's and spans 800 years into the present day - and once the book is actually finished, and I have figured out where the characters are going and why, then I will begin researching it more heavily, breathing more life and authenticity into the pages dealing with surrounding and behaviour. Of course, some of the ground work for what the era encompassed, both in human thinking and doing, must be found out beforehand. Partly because it will keep the characters in character for that time, but mostly because the storyline needs to see my main character grow and learn from her experiences, and how can I empathize with her if I have no idea what she would be seeing, remembering and learning from?

Without

The images above are from the finished product stemming from a short film script that I wrote a year and a half ago. I'm so excited looking at these stills because I was unable to be there for the big filming event, and it's the first substantial confirmation I've had that the short has been completed. It is ready for distribution among whatever festivals its director and producer - Natalia Andreadis - sees fit and this is even more exciting to me because I can actually list this film on my rapsheet. Natalia is absolutely amazing and has done a stellar job. I could not be happier with the result. She took my vision and made it her own and it has worked beautifully. I can only thank her most humbly! :)