When Characters Just Won't Let Go
Last week I went to the book release event for my author friend Leanna Renee Hieber's latest, The Spectral City. And just as Leanna had served as my conversation partner for the Courting Anna launch event a few months ago, author Zoraida Cordova partnered her here. Both Leanna and Zoraida write in the realm of the fantastic, so most of their books come in series . . . and they both talked about how attached they get to their characters over time. Some just won't let go even when their own stories are done, and occasionally pop up as secondary characters in new series, too.
I'm currently working on a historical mystery which isn't directly connected to Courting Anna. But I find myself chatting with friends -- one in from out of town over drinks, another during a reception, another at work -- about the characters in my first novel. Courting Anna was intended as a standalone, but the inhabitants of Carter's Creek, Montana, keep telling me what happens next.
I've lived with these characters, and I know them -- I know what books they read, what they like to eat, the furniture in Anna's home and office. I know how the various characters would react in situations that never made it to the page. And as it turns out, they won't let go. I have a pretty clear idea that while Anna and Jeremiah have their Happily Ever After, there might be a few bumps along the way. After all, Jeremiah fell in love with an unconventional woman -- a practicing lawyer in the 1880s -- and he loves that about her, but occasionally he must half-wish for a wife who does normal wife things. And while the curious-minded, silver-tongued storyteller ended up running the local newspaper, will that keep him happy in the long run?
But it's Sarah, Anna's former ward, who I think about most. At the end of Courting Anna, we know Sarah has managed to get a divorce from her abusive husband, and that a new love is hovering on the horizon. But we haven't yet seen the emotional consequences of all this, or the social stigma of being a divorcee at that time. Also, I've hinted that her parents had a romantic story of their own, that Sarah is half-Native. But what I know and Sarah doesn't, is that her father is still alive but he has no idea that he has a daughter. . . yet. I think a lot about what will happen when they finally meet.
So, Prairie Rose authors -- which of your characters have lingered for you? Have you given in, and continued their stories? Prairie Rose readers, is there a story you wish would continue? Which characters have become real to you?