Novels

There’s an old trope about authors writing people into their novels. The late Michael Crichton reportedly did it with a critic he didn’t like, who turned up in his next novel as an under-endowed child molester. 

For most authors, though, creation of character is more subtle and complex. Even for Steinbeck, whose Cannery Row was filled with characters based on real people in a real place. The people an author knows – along with everyday life experience – are all grist to the mill.  Yet there is also an awful lot of creativity that goes into characters. Some are composites. The intent, ultimately, is to build a wholly fictional character – who is also wholly believable. Think Herman Wouk’s Captain Queeg. 

Often a lot of the author is infused into them. Jack Kerouac made his own life into an art-form.  But very few authors go that far. Janet Frame’s debut novel Owls Do Cry was sort of autobiographical, in an oblique and inspirational sense. The distinction became clear in her autobiography, To the Is-Land, which revealed a different character. And when it comes to character-creation, aspects of other people can also intrude. It is an act of creativity – of origination, using experience and life as inspiration.

Still, when I mention to people I know that I’ve got a novel on the go, they always say the same thing.  ’Am I in it?’

What can I say? But of course! Only the names, events and characters have been changed to protect the innocent.

Visit Matthew Wright's blog at Wordpress and click the 'Fantasy Novels' tag.