Where Do Our (Fictional) Characters Come From?

My wife has said, more than once, that the main character in my Dancing Priest novels is an idealized version of me. The first time she said it, I disagreed. There were some things I shared with that character, but I never planned to write about making an idealized version of me.

After considering it, I thought, well, maybe. I thought about it some more, and I reverted to my original thought. Nope, he’s not me. 

Not one of the characters across my four novels are disguised versions of real people. Instead, they are composites of people and experiences. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Christian Poets and Writers.

Photograph by Hudson Hintze via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Writing Who You Are

The spoken word has much to do with how I write fiction.

My professional career in corporate communications spanned some 40 years. For most of that time, I was either a corporate speechwriter or not very far away from speechwriting. Even when I was serving as a spokesman for a crisis (a plant explosion, a train derailment, government actions upending a product and its market, to mention a few), I would usually have an executive speech assignment waiting on my desk.

It’s perhaps the toughest job in corporate communications (or any other kind of communications). You’re writing for another person. To do your job well, you have to write like that person speaks. That means you have to listen more than you talk. You must understand what’s on the audience’s mind. And you’re constantly moving across communication media – from the words you’re writing to the words an executive is speaking to the words the audience is hearing.

To continue reading, please see my post at Christian Poets and Writers. 

Interview with Christian Poets and Writers

I was recently interviewed by Mary Harwell Sayler of Christian Poets and Writers. Mary is a poet and poetry editor, and also is the administrator for the Christian Poets & Writers page on Facebook. She’s the author of Living in the Nature Poem, Christian Poet’s Guide to Writing Poetry, Poetry Dictionary for Children and For Fun, and the Christian Writer’s Guide.

Our interview covered a broad range of topics: my new book, Poetry at Work; who or what encouraged me to write; whether writing is a gift or a calling; what I’m currently reading; and a lot more.

You can read the interview at Christian Poets and Writers (it was posted yesterday). And thanks to Mary for the opportunity to talk about writing and my book.