Characters and the problems they bring...

I haven't been writing this week as it's half term, plus I've been recovering from the accident I was involved in last Thursday, so pain and discomfort have pushed my characters to the back of my mind.

Every writer has their own way of creating their characters. But today, mine decided that I'd had long enough ignoring them and demanded attention.

Now I have one, Jack, in his rented cottage needing to find a document that is important to a group of people, but he's not cooperating, or he just doesn't know what he's doing!

There's Marcus in the eighteenth century patiently waiting for a rewrite...

Another is a young woman in a lift- that's all I know about her at the moment...

Then I have another unnamed couple lurking in my head. I have a few possible scenarios for them, a location where the story takes place (a picture from an item in Radio Times a few months ago) and my heroine in a half mask looking mysterious (courtesy of a magazine tidy up).

Generally my novel characters present themselves in a scene-almost a still. I may have a vague idea about one or more of them, but usually it's as if I'm looking at them through a fine net curtain.
From there I have to find out about them, for example their past and what they look like- okay that character may have dark hair from what I can see through the net, but is it black, brown or going grey with all the implications that can suggest?

Sometimes I realise that an idea I'd jotted down months- or in the case of Marcus- years ago, ties into a particular character's story.

For short stories I find it more of a problem. Something will trigger an idea and I may have one or two characters who I know belong with that idea- sometimes they are very clear, but others times they're vague and it tends to be those vague ones that don't go anywhere.
Yes, I need to know them more but I do sometimes wonder if they aren't in the wrong parts. Stories like that need more thinking time.

So next week I'll be back with Jack- one of my very clear characters- in the cottage trying to sort him out- then  I can get him to the next scene where I know what is going to happen...

So, do you have any characters who demand your attention?

Vote for the Oddest Book Title of the Year...

The Diagram Prize shortlist was announced last week. This is an annual award for the oddest book title of the year. It is run through the Bookseller and you can read about this year's selection- and previous year's if you wish, here.

In the past it has brought us (in 2009) 'Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology', 'Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich' and 'An Intellectual History of Cannibalism'. But it was eventually won by 'Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes' by Dr Daina Taimina (A K Peters).

They say that any publicity is good publicity, so authors (and publishers) in the 2010 shortlist are probably hopeful of a few extra sales by their inclusion- as they don't get a prize.

The 2010 longlist comprised 66 books- here is the shortlist of 6 for this year's judging.

• What Color Is Your Dog?                                          Joel Silverman (Kennel Club)
• The Generosity of the Dead                                        Graciela Nowenstein (Ashgate)
• Myth of the Social Volcano                                        Martin King Whyte (Stanford University Press)
• 8th International Friction Stir Welding Symposium Proceedings                       Various authors (TWI)
• The Italian's One-night Love Child                              Cathy Williams (Mills & Boon)
• Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way    Michael R Young (Radcliffe)

You can vote on the home page of The Bookseller.com website. Voting began 18th February and the winner will be announced on Friday 25th March.

My vote went to the Genghis Khan Way- perhaps we all secretly think of dental practices in this way...:-)