By
Amanda Kyle Williams
What
connects us to a character? What makes us fall so hard we will track down every
book in a series and worry about our hero’s safety, state of mind, finances,
family, job, or marriage? We want to put our hands around his or her neck and
squeeze when they veer off-course. We want to see them victorious, but we want
them real.
When
I read a review that refers to my protagonist, Keye Street, as flawed,
realistic, damaged, vulnerable, gutsy, and a character you can empathize with, I
know I’ve done my job. Crime fiction has a rich tradition of scarred and
complicated detectives. I want her to be the person we’ve all been at times—imperfect,
damaged, fumbling, aching, trying, failing—and the person we aspire to
be—courageous, funny, quick-thinking, loyal. I want to pack the heart of a lion
in my five foot, three inch detective even as she wrestles her own
demons—addiction, self esteem, an inappropriate sense of humor, and a tendency
to set fire to the things she loves most. This balance is a tightrope. If a character
has too many flaws and continues on with their same behavior without giving the
reader a sense that they’re growing and learning, it can frustrate and drive the
reader away just as quickly as a too-polished, too-perfect character who
delivers too many clever remarks. Readers want to know that everything we’ve
put our characters through has meant something, changed them in some way, and
made its mark on them.
Many
years ago, a friend read one of my early manuscripts and told me it didn’t feel
genuine. She said, “If you’d just write like you talk, that would feel real.
That’s something I’d want to read.”
So I
took this piece of advice the way most writers take advice, even when we’ve
asked for it—I politely thanked her and walked away thinking she had absolutely
no idea what she was talking about. It took me a couple of days of stewing and obsessing
to realize not only was it great advice, but some of the most difficult to
execute. What we’re really talking about is how to write with honesty. As a new
writer, I was self-conscious. I wanted to impress. Writing without restraint,
stripping a character down to their bones—to all their selfishness and
self-indulgence, to their lust and demons and jealousy, and to all the petty
and heroic deeds we all commit every day—means showing the world something vulnerable,
raw, and something close to home.
Keye
Street tries to be a decent human. Sometimes she makes it. Sometimes she falls
short. But we care about our flawed characters because their struggles remind
us of our own. We root for them because they’re trying to find their footing
just like we are.
I
try to let the world inspire me. We, writers, use everything from how we’ve
felt to every experience and person we’ve encountered, especially when it comes
to our family. Lord knows there is gold to be mined in one’s family for a
writer. These are the most complicated, comfortable, uncomfortable, wonderful,
and sometimes scarring relationships we will have in our lives. Use them.
There’s validity to that age-old advice of writing what you know. That doesn’t
mean you can’t write about Berlin from your Charlotte living room, or write a
detective without having been a detective. It means write what you know in your
heart, deep down in your bones—what love feels like; what grief feels like;
what excitement and adrenaline feel like; that fear that can rock up at you
like a big black wave; the gray areas we have all traveled in from
time-to-time; the ethical struggles. Give that to your characters, and their
hearts will begin to beat.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Amanda
Kyle Williams has contributed to short story collections, written small press
novels and worked as a freelance writer for the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. She was a house painter, a property manager, a sales rep,
a commercial embroiderer, a courier, a VP of manufacturing at a North Georgia
textile mill, and owned Latch Key Pets, a pet sitting and dog walking business.
She also worked with a PI firm in Atlanta on surveillance operations, and
became a court-appointed process server. The job was wonderful preparation for
developing the Keye Street character. The Stranger You Seek is Amanda’s
first mainstream crime novel and the first in the Keye Street series. Her second, Stranger In The Room. She lives in
Decatur, Georgia, which produces unending fodder for her fiction. Her 3rd,
Keye Street Thriller, Don’t Talk To Strangers releases July 1, 2014. Her website can be found at
http://amandakylewilliams.com/biography/
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