Character Conservation and Other Novelistic Gimmicks

When Im writing, I like to have fun, be a little whimsical, tweak the reader a little bit, be playful. It also helps to keep the reader and myself awake. A little comic relief goes way back in the history of literature, eh, Shakespeare?

One of the ways I do this is my character conservation device. If I grow fond of a character in one of my books, Ill try to reuse or recycle that character in another work, to flesh out the character, and add new dimensions to the person. Readers may meet an old friend.

Naturally if you are writing a mystery series, you are going to reuse the hero or heroine, his family, lovers, cohorts, some of the eccentric witnesses, and even some of the bad guys. Often a writer will get sick of his own creation and will kill him off as Conan Doyle did with Sherlock Holmes. His fans got so teed off he had to resurrect him later.

In my terrorist thriller, Nine Lives Too Many, I grew fond of the Broadway character actor, Jake Sigman, so I am going to reuse him in the Denny Delaney sequel Clawed Back from the Dead. Hes funny, idiosyncratic, and readers have told me they like him.

When I talk about character conservation, I am also talking about stand-alone novels. In these I try to recycle characters that I know, that I like, or that have a certain depth.

These characters are recycled in two of my novels: Philip Croft, Robin, Hal, Paul, Fran and Lloyd Carr, and Dr. Ably. They are important characters who appear first in The Daemon in Our Dreams and later in The Rice Queen Spy. In an upcoming novel called Last Passage to Santiago I use Dr. Ablys niece, Stephie as the protagonist. In Daemon we only knew that the doctor was writing newsy letters to her.

I have plans for a future novel to be called The Pursuit of the Dream-Daemon. In it I will reuse Hal, Lloyd Carr, Robin, and Dr. Ablys niece, Stephie. I will also recycle some minor characters from The Daemon in Our Dreams such as the ships pianist Ron Hoover, and the peripatetic Alex with his totemic knapsack.

I also reuse the name of a fictitious cruise ship. In the revised edition of Nine Lives I am reusing the ship Global Quest which appears in several other novels.

Is all of this laziness on my part? No, its easier to use the familiar rather than to keep reinventing the wheel. Once you have found a good friend, do you want to abandon him or her?

In my writing I often use the names of real restaurants and hotels. Restaurant Row, Manhattans West Forty-Sixth Street becomes a real place to readers because I have used the names of the actual places. There are many ways to use the titles of your books within the texts of the books themselves.

A. Using the title in a tongue-in-cheek manner: In my terrorist thriller Nine Lives Too Many in a scene in a railroad coach my antagonist, the terrorist Felix the Cat, is riding into Grand Central Station. A woman across the aisle was reading the latest potboiler, Nine Lives Too Many. It gave me a chance to have a bit of fun and also to disparage my own work, a kind of disclaimer concerning its literary merit.

B. Attributing a title to a fictional character in the same or another book: In my latest book The Rice Queen Spy one of the characters, Hal, has written a book called The Daemon in Our Dreams which details the paranormal goings-on that took place on the trip Hal and his friend Paul made from Singapore to the Taj Mahal. And, of course, that is the title of my second novel.

C. Using a title of one book in another book: Ive done this often. It save me time and provides a ready reference for my readers.

D. Using a novel title as the title of a different genre: In The Rice Queen Spy a playwright writes a play with that exact titlea play that causes a great deal of anguish.

E. Having a character give the title of the book as a tag line: In all of my novels some character will give the title or tag line during the course of the narrative. In The Rice Queen Spy a character, Binky by name, gives to Croft, the protagonist of the book, his sobriquet: Philip Croft, The Rice Queen Spy!

What else is in the writers repertoire and bag of gimmicks? One of the sure-fire ingredients is melodrama. It can be gimmicky, but I like to write melodrama, and I do it shamelessly and unapologetically. Why? Because readers love it too. What else is Les Miserables if not melodrama? The battle and enmity between Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert are perfect set-ups for melodrama. Chases through the labyrinthine, scary, dank and dark sewers of Pariswhat could be more exciting, more heart-stopping? Duels to the death, pursuits, tying the heroine to the railroad tracksall are melodramatic gimmicks.

Melodrama has been the lifeblood of fiction and movies since their inception. It involves movement, action, derring-do. Think about the Harry Potter series. Certainly that is melodramatic as is Tolkien.

When you have the privilege of writing novels, you are creating your own world. Sometimes you are moving characters around like chess pieces and sometimes you are being led deeper into the story by the characters themselves. It is a treat to be able to create your own universe and watch parts of it intersect and interact. Writing empowers the author, makes him or her the master of the microcosm which that writer has created.

John (Jack) Rooney is the author of the terrorist thriller Nine Lives Too Many featuring his series detective Denny Delaney and the arch-terrorist Felix the Cat. His latest novel is the suspense novel The Daemon in Our Dreams which is a blend of the naturalistic and the supernatural. His work schedule includes The Rice Queen Spy which is due out in the fall of 2007, a new Denny Delaney effort and a novel about a sea journey from Buenos Aires to Santiago around Cape Horn. He was born and educated in Springfield, Massachusetts (Classical High School and American International College). He wrote book reviews and feature articles for the Springfield newspapers. After receiving his M.A. in Arts and Science from Columbia University, he worked for the Cunard Cruise Lines as a business correspondent at 25 Broadway, went on to serve in the U.S. Army as a military policeman in the Times Square detachment, in civvies in AWOL apprehension, and in Vienna, Austria. He still write travel articles including humorous travel guide stories. His website is http://www.senneffhouse.com

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