Where Characters Come From

I have recently finished a draft of a second novel, tentatively titled "Saving Nuria," in which most of the main characters are based pretty closely on members of my family; however, some are completely invented. When I read the novel (chapter by chapter as I wrote it) to my children, they recognized themselves and events and places from our life, but there are two major characters who are not based on anyone.

I had always imagined that authors either borrowed from life or didn't, but my own experience now shows me that one author in one text can take both approaches. The character Elizabeth, for instance, is loosely based on me--she's the mother in the story. The things that she experiences are (for the most part) not things I have experienced, but her general character is mine. In contrast, Nuria is someone I made up. She's not based, as far as I'm aware, on anyone at all. I invented her. Yet, I feel just as strong a sense of who she is, what she looks like, what she would do in different situations, as I feel about the other characters who have at least distant roots in real people.

As an example, I was in a shop the other day, and a young woman came in. I was sure I knew her or had seen her before, but I couldn't place her. Finally, I realized she looked like Nuria, but Nuria is fictional! Still, she is real enough in my head that I was able to recognize someone like her in the real world.

So, where do characters come from? The protagonist children in the novel--Micah, Jamie and Celia--are versions of my own children. They are fictionalized, certainly, but I can clearly trace their origins. Nuria is a different matter. Is she based on someone I know but I haven't myself made the connection? This is possible, but I don't think so. Is she based on a fictional character? Not that I'm aware of.

To be honest, when it came time for Nuria to enter the story, I had to stop writing for a few days because I wasn't sure how to craft her. I had a sense of her, but it was vague, abstract. Finally, I envisioned a pretty face with a crinkle of worry between bright eyes, and then Nuria came to life for me. I knew Nuria before I used the crinkle to develop her character, but I don't think I could have put her on the page without the vision of the crinkle.

I don't think I've answered my question. I guess I still don't know where Nuria came from, but I do know that characters are strange creatures that come from life and from imagination and grow into people who seem truly, deeply real. I don't flatter myself that my characters are as vibrant as some of the great characters we all know and love, but they are real, at least to me.

Meter Tag

On Friday, I visited my son's 4th grade class to teach the kids about poetic meter. I used an activity that I actually use at Bucknell where the students invent movements to go along with each metric foot (like a skip for an iamb -- an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one) and then have relay races to see which metric form is fastest. On Friday, dactyls won the race. It was highly entertaining, and showing kids that poetry can be fun is pretty awesome.

Today, I got a packet of thank-you notes, many with pictures of the kids leaping around and some with poems they wrote. They thanked me for teaching them about meter, and many of them wrote about meter in ways they showed they really understood it. One kid wrote, "Thanks for showing us how to dance to poetry," and another wrote, "I learned more about meter and poetry than I will ever learn." Reading their notes has completely filled me with joy!

In my novel, the main characters attend a poetry camp, and I feel a renewed sense of commitment to that part of the novel. Poetry is accessible and interesting and entertaining to children! Maybe I can find a way to get some of the joy from meter tag and from the thank you notes into my book.