Crash Into You Blog Tour

I'm posting after a long time and I apologise for disappearing on my readers but now that I'm back, I’m back with a bang. I'm honoured and pleased to say I have Katie McGarry on the blog today talking about her characters as part of the Blog Tour for her latest book Crash Into You. So without carrying on with my chatter I shall take you straight to what Katie has to say.

How do I add layers to my Characters

 

My process for each book is unique, but it generally follows a pattern. Here is the process or my latest young adult book, CRASH INTO YOU:

A story question: What would happen if a girl from an affluent family with a reckless streak and a penchant for drag racing ended up saving and falling in love with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks?

Sounds cool, right? But for me, what really makes a story are the characters. After I come up with the idea, I free write for a bit, taking my time to find the voices of the characters. While I may know the overall plot of the story, my characters are the real mystery.

In Isaiah’s first chapter, we first meet him as he’s waiting in his car outside the social services office. His social worker has set up a visitation with his mother.

Eleven years, two months, seven days. 
The last time I had physical contact with a blood relative.

This opening line became a Pandora’s box when it came to Isaiah. Why hasn’t he seen a blood relative in so long? How does he feel about seeing his mother? Why won’t he get out of the car?

I’ll be honest, when I start a scene like that, I don’t know the answers. Some days, the writing is smooth and my characters are more than happy to cooperate.

Other days?

Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada.

More days than not, Isaiah made me drag the answers out of him. For me as a writer, that means endless hours of staring at a blank page and a blinking cursor. But I’m not sitting completely idle. In my head I interview my characters.

Yes, you heard that right, I interview my characters.

Strange, I know.

 Yes, I understand that my characters are not living, breathing people who I will bump into at the store, but in my mind they are real. They have favorite songs, foods, and colors. They have habits that they hate and people they generally prefer to stay away from. They prefer certain types of clothing over others and each one of them has a want, a goal, a need, and a desire.

Don’t mistake that any of those are the same things, because they’re not. What I want isn’t necessarily my goal, what I need may not be what I desire, and I may be too scared to really go for what I desire so I settle for something I merely want.

It’s important for me to know all of these things about my characters. It makes them real. Believe it or not, it’s the little things about my characters that make them emotionally relatable.

From Rachel’s point of view:

When I was four I had an infatuation with electrical outlets. Dark holes that led into the wall and if I plugged something in, the machine would spring to life. Electricity! What would electricity look like? Feel like? Submitting to temptation, I stuck my finger into the socket at the moment someone turned on the vacuum. My body jolted with the shock. I learned two lessons that day. One: don’t stick your finger into the socket. Two: I liked the rush.

Closing the door to my Mustang, I fumble with the buttons of my black winter coat. My blood pulses with the same buzz of electrical energy. I’m going to see Isaiah.

From Isaiah’s point of view:

I went to the zoo once in elementary school on a field trip. Being the smallest kid in the class, I never saw much other than the back of someone’s head. The zoo had built a towering three-story glass house over the tiger’s habitat. Everyone else in class ran to the top to watch the tiger cub playing with a ball in the roughage. I stayed where I knew I belonged: on the bottom.

Isaiah’s story about the zoo continues and it becomes a very telling moment about why Isaiah behaves like he does.

Both of these paragraphs were born out of a question I asked these characters: what is the clearest memory you have of yourself as a child?

Sometimes I ask my characters questions and the answers never make it into the actual story, but knowing these things about them make them three dimensional. It makes them alive.

Exciting process isn’t it? When I read Crash Into you could really feel what the characters were feeling and what was going through their mind. I personally feel that Katie McGarry books are not just about the heart touching romance but also the evolution of these unlikely people coming together and metamorphosing into something truly amazing.

Okay that’s not it folks. I have 3 copies of Crash Into You to Giveaway (Thanks to MiraInk) so enter below for a chance to win. 

Crash Into You realeased on the 26th of November, 2013 by MiraINK

  a Rafflecopter giveaway