Good fiction needs a good plot and needs to be written
in an active voice that pulls the reader into the story. But, even more
importantly, it needs characters that readers can identify with—and, not always
in a positive way. The good guys need to be someone the reader can sympathize
with and cheer for, and the villains need to be . . . villainous.
But, just creating the stereotypical hero or villain
is not enough. Your good guy has to have faults if he or she is to be
believable—not many of us are Mother Theresa—and, even the evilest villain was
once a bouncing baby, probably loved by his or her mother.
So, how do you go about creating fully-formed, three
dimensional characters that your reader can believe in? You might try what I do – go against type.
How do you do this? Allow me to explain.
When I started my Al Pennyback mystery series, I made the character a military veteran who left the army after the death of his wife and son in an auto accident, and became a private investigator in the Washington, DC area. I wanted, however, to create a character who defied commonly accepted stereotypes. In order to do that, I made him a former special operations soldier, skilled in the use of all kinds of weapons, but who, because of an incident during his career, had decided that he would never use a firearm again if he could avoid it. So, now, you have a PI who is former military, an expert in martial arts, who refuses to carry a weapon. He uses his martial arts skills and wits to deal with bad guys. I did this with some trepidation, because in most of the fiction I’ve read, former Green Berets almost always use a weapon at some point in the story. I stuck to my guns, though (pun intended) and made a point of mentioning his dislike for firearms in every story (I saved the back story on why this was the case until the fifth or sixth book in the series).
I knew I’d found a winning formula when a colleague
from my military days contacted me by email and informed me that he’d become a
fan of my character, despite his opposition to guns because he had so many
other good traits, e.g., loyalty to friends, diligence in his work, and his
persistence in getting justice for the underdog. When he read the book in which
I’d included the back story, he contacted me again to let me know that he now
understood my characters aversion to firearms, and it made perfect sense. This
particular reader is, I happen to know, an NRA member with strong views on the
right to own firearms, and for him to agree with the way I’d created an
anti-gun character, was all the validation I needed to know that I’d created a
character that readers could get behind.
I do it in other stories as well. I’ve had the angelic
looking, good as gold on the outside character who is actually a selfish
psychopath, the rough looking, rough talking character who is a closet
intellectual with a heart of gold, and so on.
The benefit of going against type is that it gives you
characters who are like real people. You have heroes who sometimes do bad
things for selfish reasons, and villains who are kind to their parents and like
puppies.
So, get started on creating that memorable character
for your fiction. You’ll find that your readers will thank you for it.
“Polo likes to tell stories about the Sea of Cortez. His favorite is about El Lavadero, Las Animas. Las Animas is named after the church bells which ring to summon the lost souls, and El Lavadero means the washing machine. The dive site is often referred to as the washing machine of lost souls.Before we dove at El Lavadero one morning, I overheard Polo telling Bertie that the thousands of silver jacks schooling in the water are the lost souls. She twisted her ring and looked spooked while our group waited its turn to descend at the site. I thought maybe she wouldn’t come, but she did. Afterwards, she told me that when she saw the mass of circling jacks and thought of them as lost souls, she felt more sad than scared. I knew what she meant. I always say a prayer when I see the swirling fish, the sun glinting on their silver scales.”
Water’s Fine: Suspense Novel by Janice Coy
Publisher: Independently Published (April 22, 2019)
Category: Suspense, Family Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Tour dates: January/February, 2020
ISBN: 9781795669047
Available in Print and ebook, 312 pages
Description Water’s Fine: Suspense Novel by Janice Coy
Bertie Clark is excited for a week-long scuba trip with her husband exploring the underwater wonders of an ocean teeming with life – the Sea of Cortez.
But a tragedy on their dive boat sends both women into uncharted territory, questioning what they’ve always thought to be true, and fostering an unlikely friendship. Will either trust the invitation to “come on in, the water’s fine” again?
Praise Water’s Fine: Suspense Novel by Janice Coy
“I just finished The Water’s Fine by Janice Coy which means I am must bid farewell to the characters I have become attached to and I must close the cover on a plot that kept a firm grasp on my attention and continued to surprise. The act of reading this book can cause laundry to pile up, dust to gather and dirty dishes to dry crusty because one cannot stop reading from chapter to chapter – – from scuba action, to mystery, heartache, friendship, suspense and self discovery.
The author is artfully descriptive in all areas of scene and character development which draws you in and holds you! In fact, I would like to invite you to do a little scuba diving and not get wet? Slip on those fins, adjust your mask, get your regulator set and start reading The Water’s Fine.”- Kjans, Amazon
“Oh wow, what a well written book! Being someone who thinks that scuba diving is too scary to try I was drawn in by the author’s imagery. It captured all the anxiety of “breathing underwater”, the suspense of what dangerous creatures you could encounter as well as the absolute beauty and serenity you could feel while exploring the deep blue sea. I fell in love with her characters and was sucked into the mystery and suspense and enjoyed joining them on their journeys of self discovery, life and loss. I really enjoyed this book.”-Amazon Customer
Praise Smallest of Waves by Janice Coy
“Thanks to Coy’s descriptive, immersive world, the waves of Agave Beach leave a distinct impact in The Smallest of Waves. – Indie Reader
“A seaside mystery with an appealing heroine…Coy uses her beachside setting well, contrasting Agave Beach’s innocent sand castles and clueless tourists with the mysterious ocean – so foreign with its dark depths, sharks, kelp forests, and sea caves.” Kirkus Reviews
2017 Finalist San Diego Book Awards Association
About Janice Coy
Award winning Janice Coy is the author of five suspense novels. Her work is also published in four anthologies. She was a finalist at the San Diego Book Awards Association annual contest. She’s received the IndieReader Seal of Approval. A former journalist, Ms. Coy has received several awards for her reporting including a national award for best feature story in a community newspaper.
Ms. Coy is an advanced certified scuba diver; she’s run five half-marathons and summited Mt. Kilimanjaro. She lives in Southern California with her husband.
Catalina
Rodriguez and Bertie Clark have nothing in common but a love of scuba diving
when they meet on the Calypso for a diving trip in the Sea of Cortez,
but a tragedy during the trip, when another member of the party, Gordon Baker,
on the trip with his wife and two daughters, dies during their last dive. As
the dive master, Catalina feels responsible for his death, even though she
learns later that he was suffering from a terminal disease, and chose to die. A
certified rescue diver, Bertie also feels a sense of guilt for not doing
something to prevent the tragedy. The two women have bonded during the trip,
and even after Catalina gives up diving and returns to her home in San Diego,
they stay in touch by phone.
Shortly after returning home, Catalina
begins to suffer a string of seemingly unrelated catastrophes, but attributes
them at first to stress as she tries to cope with the Calypso incident.
But Bertie thinks otherwise, and is determined to help her get to the bottom of
what’s going on.
The Water’s Fine by Janice
Coy is a subtle, but intriguing story that defies neat categorization. The
author moves readers slowly through a chain of events that become more deadly
with each occurrence, weaving a deft mystery that will keep the reader guessing
until the startling climax. I was put off at first by the switch from first
person point of view (Catalina) to second person (Bertie), but as I continued
to read, I discovered that this only heightened the tension, as I tried to
solve the mystery ahead of the author’s disclosure. I failed, and the author
succeeded. The answer to Catalina’s problems came as a surprise—a delightful,
and skillfully-done surprise.
I received an advance review copy of
this book, and I recommend it highly, even if you’re not a mystery fan. A true
page-turner, it will grab your attention and hold it until the end.
Fans of the half-breed vigilante Jacob Blade are in for a treat in 2020. Thanks to the creative ingenuity of renown publicist Nick Wale and the fantastic art of Kevin Diamond, the entire series is being reissued this year with a new and exciting cover that’s sure to appeal to fans of the ‘shoot ‘em up’ western genre.
Jacob
Blade was a simple farm boy living with his mother and father in Indian
Territory until he came home from a trip to local markets one day and found his
parents slaughtered by a group of itinerant outlaws. With his dying breath,
Jacob’s father asked him to avenge their deaths, a task that he took on with
relish. In the course of his quest, he discovered that there was a lot of evil
infecting the western frontier, evil that he determined to help eliminate, one
dead outlaw at a time.
This
is just one of several series that I currently write, and is second only to the
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves in the joy it gives me to write.
The
new covers give a sense of continuity to the series, and, in my humble opinion,
illustrates the protagonist most effectively. I sincerely hope that readers
will find them as attractive—and seductive—as I do, and welcome any comments.
In the meantime, I’m currently working on another Jacob Blade adventure, with
Jacob coming to the rescue of a small community of settlers in Nebraska who are
being tormented by a greed rancher who wants to take their land. Keep an eye out
for Sins of the Father, coming soon to Amazon.
