When I first embarked on the task of developing my new novel, ZION'S WEB, I really had no concept what kind of book I planned to writeâ€"other than I wanted my novel to be a thriller. Despite involving Mormons in the novel, I really wasn't trying to write LDS fiction, nor do I feel I succeeded in doing thatâ€"at least not in the normal view of things. But what I did write, in my view, is absolutely uniqueâ€"and, more importantly, it's mine.
This naturally goes for the hero in my novel, Zachariah (Zack) Burton, an ex-FBI-Agent-turned-private-investigator who lives on a 50-foot sport fisher in San Pedro, California. In deciding precisely how I wanted to engineer Zack, it is perhaps useful to examine the roots of detective fiction which is where I got my ideas. In researching private detectives, I discovered that many of these personalitiesâ€"at least those of the male variety set in the 20th century and laterâ€"seemed to contain at least some similarity to the hard-boiled investigators made by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. These men were all hardened, no frills types of individuals, with a somewhat cynical view of life.
My lead character Zack fits this profile in more than a few ways due to some the events that have happened in his life. Zack recently lost his wife to cancer, for instance, an event that led him to begin drinking excessively. This behavior finally made him lose almost everything he had in life, including his job with the FBI. The one thing he was able to hang onto was the Kajiki, his sport fisher berthed in a marina in San Pedro. True to his hard-boiled image, Zack begins the story as a loner and a near-total recluse but through the progression of the novel develops as a person until by the end he is much more approachable and sympathetic.
What makes Zack stand out , however, is the Mormon tie-in. Thanks to the nature of the case he is entangled withâ€"the rescue of a female escapee from a polygamist compound run by self-proclaimed fundamentalist Mormonsâ€"I believed it was crucial to distinguish these people from the mainstream Mormons headquartered out of Salt Lake who gave up the practice of polygamy over a hundred years ago and excommunicate any of their members who continue practicing it. For similar reasons, I also believed it was crucial to include background information about mainstream Mormonism in my story.
The woman Zack was married to as an example was a Mormon, although he is not. His ex-brother-in-law is also a Mormon and supplies the primary vehicle by which various historical tid-bits about Mormonism are presented, though these are never allowed to interrupt the key story line.
The bottom line on all this is to assert that your lead personality in detective fiction should be based on something you identify with personally, which is how you'll make him or her your own. If I had copied Dashiell Hammett's character, or Chandlers, or any one of a half dozen others, my personality wouldn't have been unique, which in turn would have influenced my story and made it somewhat ordinary. And if your story is not unique, it has little chance of developing a robust audience or distinguishing you as an author.
.
This naturally goes for the hero in my novel, Zachariah (Zack) Burton, an ex-FBI-Agent-turned-private-investigator who lives on a 50-foot sport fisher in San Pedro, California. In deciding precisely how I wanted to engineer Zack, it is perhaps useful to examine the roots of detective fiction which is where I got my ideas. In researching private detectives, I discovered that many of these personalitiesâ€"at least those of the male variety set in the 20th century and laterâ€"seemed to contain at least some similarity to the hard-boiled investigators made by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. These men were all hardened, no frills types of individuals, with a somewhat cynical view of life.
My lead character Zack fits this profile in more than a few ways due to some the events that have happened in his life. Zack recently lost his wife to cancer, for instance, an event that led him to begin drinking excessively. This behavior finally made him lose almost everything he had in life, including his job with the FBI. The one thing he was able to hang onto was the Kajiki, his sport fisher berthed in a marina in San Pedro. True to his hard-boiled image, Zack begins the story as a loner and a near-total recluse but through the progression of the novel develops as a person until by the end he is much more approachable and sympathetic.
What makes Zack stand out , however, is the Mormon tie-in. Thanks to the nature of the case he is entangled withâ€"the rescue of a female escapee from a polygamist compound run by self-proclaimed fundamentalist Mormonsâ€"I believed it was crucial to distinguish these people from the mainstream Mormons headquartered out of Salt Lake who gave up the practice of polygamy over a hundred years ago and excommunicate any of their members who continue practicing it. For similar reasons, I also believed it was crucial to include background information about mainstream Mormonism in my story.
The woman Zack was married to as an example was a Mormon, although he is not. His ex-brother-in-law is also a Mormon and supplies the primary vehicle by which various historical tid-bits about Mormonism are presented, though these are never allowed to interrupt the key story line.
The bottom line on all this is to assert that your lead personality in detective fiction should be based on something you identify with personally, which is how you'll make him or her your own. If I had copied Dashiell Hammett's character, or Chandlers, or any one of a half dozen others, my personality wouldn't have been unique, which in turn would have influenced my story and made it somewhat ordinary. And if your story is not unique, it has little chance of developing a robust audience or distinguishing you as an author.
.
About the Author:
Michael Snow is the author of ZION'S WEB, the first in the Zachariah Burton detective series. As well as writing novels, Michael maintains a blogsite which incorporates some helpful and highly engaging blogs including information regarding creating a fictional detective.
No comments:
Post a Comment