Mixing up the Great Character Recipe
The flour, sugar and butter of a manuscript
Deep into writing my new manuscript, what’s been a challenge is getting the mix of characters right. As a baker, it’s what I call my Great Character Recipe or GCR.
My ideal GCR should bake up a confection rife with conflict, suspense and humor. Ingredients have to include a variety of ages, sexes, ethnicities, and compelling backstories.
Inspiration often strikes me in my local supermarket parking lot as I watch people going in and out to pick up their weekly groceries. Then, when I’ve got a bunch of possibilities, I approach the process as a recipe.
Let’s say I’m going to make carrot cupcakes. The variations are endless, but for the result to be satisfying, the carrots are non-negotiable. The same goes with my GCR. Those variations are endless too, but for a reader to be satisfied, the non-negotiables are a killer, victims, suspects, and a sleuth.
The impact comes from how you combine them. For my carrot cupcake, I can plan on a cream cheese frosting, but if I decide to adjust the batter using walnuts instead of raisins, I might switch over to a maple buttercream topping instead.
I tossed out my original GCR a few days ago because, based on my evolving plot, more of my characters needed to be related. It was like using a mix of olive oil and sour cream in my batter instead of butter. I wanted fat and moisture in my cupcake, but needed another way to get it.
Scrivener’s cork board view allows me to mix and match my GCR, adding and subtracting easily until the recipe feels just right. Then in a couple of days, I’ll pop my batter in the oven and see how it rises.
-- love this analogy, baking queen.