THAT GUY IN THE NEW BOOK IS ME
Kathleen Eagle

My standard answer—it’s usually to one of my brothers-in-law—is if you say so.  And very often they do say so, which means I’ve succeeded.  I’ve created a character readers not only can but willingly do identify with, a character that is both universal in his humanity and as individual as any of my brothers-in-law.  And, believe me, my dear brothers are individuals.  I’m so glad we have a huge Eagle family because they are some of my most loyal readers.  And, yes, I do put them in my books.  Not the whole person, of course, but bits and pieces.  A quip here, a trait there.  The more books I write, the more likely it becomes that anyone I’ve ever known can find a bit of himself somewhere on those pages.

That’s where good characters come from.  They don’t come third-hand from Hollywood.  They don’t come floating through the office ready to be plucked out of thin air and plugged into a plot.  They come from a writer’s life, from people we’ve known.  We chop them up and make fiction salad.  Maybe not by design—probably more by instinct—but that’s how it works.  When a character is fully fleshed out, when the book is finished and I’m working on some stage of edits, that’s when I’ll fully realize where details of character might have come from.

YOU NEVER CAN TELL is about an American Indian activist and a journalist who wants to tell his story.  Having lived on the reservation and worked as a teacher during the heyday of the American Indian Movement, I’ve known lots of AIM members.  Hero Kole Kills Crow’s back story was inspired by a couple of people—one idealistic, another reckless—while his personality grew from the seeds planted by his fictitious but reality-based back story and fertilized by those bits and pieces I was talking about, bits that come from time well spent with interesting people.  The idea for the situation Kole finds himself in—he’s hiding out while his former rebel sidekick has made himself a career in Hollywood—has roots in reality, “ripped from the headlines,” as they say.  That’s a lot of juicy stuff to be mixed into the story pot, and that’s only one character.

Now I add the heroine, the successful journalist who’s a fish out of water when she barges into Kole’s territory.  She’s the idealist who’s just as reckless as Kole used to be.  She’s an outsider and a true believer and she serves as a catalyst.  I know her pretty well.  I like her, and I can identify with her.  Details of her character come from a variety of women I’ve known along with one I’ve seen in the mirror.  Not that any of them ever found herself in Heather’s situation, but a part of each of them could have and might still.  And really, it wouldn’t matter whether was a lady’s maid or a mermaid, Heather Reardon is a woman with whom readers willingly travel.  She’s a lot like us and then some.  We’re apt to say, “That woman could be me.”  And she’ll take us on an exhilarating journey.

Could our characters be related to real people?  You never can tell.

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