About Mac

I want to talk about Mac. Colleen “Mac” MacDowell is a character I’ve been working with sporadically for the past 20 or 30 years. But the last couple of years, I’ve been working pretty intensely on getting her story written. I’ve still got a long way to go. (I’ve got about 9 volumes written in the series, but I’m thinking it will be at least 15 volumes long, maybe more.)

Colleen—

Nobody calls me that. It’s Mac.

(Sigh.) Mac is a girl. Or rather, by the time we meet her, she’s a woman. She was born and raised on a heavy-world planet, namely Gaelund, so she has more strength than it seems she would have. She’s also fairly short, about 5’2”. She has fire-engine red hair, typically only found on Gaelund, and emerald-green eyes.

She was raised the only daughter, with 7 older brothers. Their father instilled in those brothers that they would protect their sister’s ‘innocence’ no matter what the cost. She carries a lot of baggage with her.

I came here with 1 regulation duffel bag!

I meant psychological baggage.

Oh, that.

Anyway, after 4 years at the Fleet Academy, and roughly 5 years bouncing from one tug to another, she somehow finagled a promotion and a transfer to the FSS Fireball from her former captain. She’s the 4^th communications officer on the Fireball, and she’s assigned to the midnight shift.

Tell them about Bugsy.

Stop interrupting. She was happy to get to the Fireball because she knew the senior helmsman, Bugalu, who she considers an adopted brother. Bugalu was two years ahead of her at the Academy and was roommate for her youngest brother, Matthew. It took the 2 of them to keep Mac out of trouble, and to get her trained to get along in Fleet society.

Trained? You mean, like a pet?

You’re interrupting again.

You talk too slow.

I type even slower. Now, let me get along with this. When Mac arrived on the Fireball, along with 2 other beautiful women, the captain wondered which of the 3 would turn out to be trouble. Capt Jane Burke couldn’t tell from her first introduction to them, but they all seemed to have personality quirks that could mean trouble down the road. Still, she sent the ladies off to their assignments and hoped their supervisors could nip any potential problem before it got too big.

Mac had a tumultuous probation period on the Fireball. Between not being able to pass her probational test and arguing with men who want to date her, it seemed Mac was going to be the problem. Meanwhile, the Fireball had some adventures, and somehow, Mac always seemed to be in the middle of those adventures. And then Mac came up with a problem that she couldn’t solve.

You’re going to end it there?

I have to leave some mystery to it. I can’t give away all your secrets.

Now, all of that, I’m thinking, will be in the first 5 volumes. And I’m thinking that Volume 1 will get published on 9/16/2025. That should give me time to get it edited, formatted, a nice cover for it… all those things that go into publishing a book.

That’s over a year away, even on Gaelund.

We’ve been working on your story for decades, what’s another year?

I think that’s what my fiancée thought when he…

Dealing With Characters

If you read my other blog (MacOnFireball.blogspot.com), you may have seen my facebook post a couple weeks ago that I couldn’t post that week’s episode because Bugalu was being a jerk, and I had to do a major rewrite. As I did the rewrite, Mac was hostile and everybody started explaining everything! (As you know, Bob, Earth’s moon orbits around Earth, and it takes about 28 days to do it.) The only thing worse than an info dump is a completely unnecessary info dump!

I used to say that I start with a character, and they tell me their story. Well, kinda sorta. Sometimes, I start with a scene (a battleground after the battle) or an experience (being tossed off a cliff like a piece of garbage). Then I start wondering, “Who would be in this situation? How did they get here? Or, if it’s more interesting, what will they do now?”

No matter how tight-lipped a character starts out, by the time I’ve written 3-4 thousand words about him/her, they have layers of likes, dislikes, memories, experiences, hang-ups and maybe even dreams. They are no longer 2-dimensional (an apprentice wizard), they are developing some depth (Her teacher has gotten frail during her apprenticeship, so she feels she should stay and take care of him).

I get to know my characters pretty well. You’d think that would be a good thing, but... it has its drawbacks.

When they start telling me their story, they might not give all the details. We don’t know each other very well, and they don’t think their life is that interesting, usually, so I can’t blame them for editing what they give me. And I don’t usually question much while I’m getting the rough draft down. But when I start going through the next draft, I start asking for details.

“Smitty, I’m not sure I understand. Mac just came on board, and you’re already out of sorts with her. Did she do something to irritate you?”

“She stared at me from the moment her transpod opened!”

That hadn’t been mentioned before. Obviously, that scene needed expanding so the reader would know he was not - normally - an old sour-puss.

“He’s passed over plenty of hopeful subordinates who would say he is.”

“He decided they wouldn’t fit his team. Part of being an officer. Hold your peace, Drake. She’s talking to Smitty.”

Okay. Maybe I should say here that I’ve been working on Mac’s adventures on the Fireball for about 40 years. That’s a long time to have the same people living in your head. Yes, we’ve taken breaks - some of them pretty long - and they’ve had to share my head with plenty of other characters during those decades. But I think it’s safe to say that I REALLY know Mac, and the rest of the crew.

How well do you know your siblings or spouse? If you’re having a bad day, do they know it? Or do you still hide that away?

When I confronted Bugalu about being a jerk in the soon-to-be-posted episode, he responded with, “I was trying to make Mac get her temper under control. It’s not like I haven’t talked to her about that before.”

Sure enough, Mac was verging on a rampage, until Bugalu had shocked her by being a jerk. I put on my ‘director’/counselor hats, and we worked to get their moods more... settled in the story.

Oh, and the un-necessary explaining? It happens from time to time, mostly in a rough draft. I just pull my editor hat on tight and remove the unnecessary bits. In this case, 2 pages of ‘splainin’ became 6 lines. 5.5 lines. Somewhere in there.

I don’t want my characters to edit their story. That’s part of my job.

Fighting between characters? Maybe, because siblings fight. Spouses fight. After 40 years, you have to expect an occasional disagreement. But if it becomes part of the story, it needs a reason. Something other than, “I was having a bad day.”

Love is in the Air

Do you read romances? I have. At times, I would read dozens of romances, one after another. Eventually, I would set them aside and move to another genre.

Mostly, I didn’t find romances very... satisfying. I couldn’t ‘identify’ with the characters.

For one thing, money never seems to be a problem in a romance. Whatever one of the protagonists wants, they buy. With hardly any thought about it. I can’t remember a single instance of the heroine realizing she needs a new coat, but doesn’t have the money for it. Or the hero’s frig is bare, so is his wallet and checkbook, and payday is still several days away. Or one of them has a sofa that’s missing a leg and a hole has duct tape covering it. Apparently, these types of things don’t happen in a modern romance.

That makes it hard for me to ‘suspend my disbelief.’ I grew up on the poor side of ‘middle class’, and I’m still there. I suspect the authors don’t want to anger their readers by making the woman struggling to make ends meet, because that would be ‘sexist’. And they can’t make the man financially struggling, because that might seem to be ‘man hating’. No, they figure both members of their couple need to be strong, independent, self-sufficient... equal.

But people can be strong and capable without having a fat bank account. The world is full of strong and capable people who have to pinch their pennies.

Another thing I find hard to identify with is the chosen location. As I remember, the vast majority of them happen in a huge city - New York, Los Angeles, London, Rome... Okay, I’ve attended conventions in Los Angeles and London, but I can’t say I really know anything about them. I can’t even imagine other huge cities like that, because the biggest city I’ve ever lived in is Kansas City. I remember just about enough about that city to not get lost... as long as I stay on the interstate! So, how am I supposed to identify with people who live in a place so alien to what I know?

You’d think, since I have such strong feelings about the romances I have read, that I would simply avoid the genre. Yet, from time to time, I find myself writing romances, using the pen name ‘Linda Joy’.

When I do write a romance, the location is usually a small town, often one I’ve actually lived in. My main characters may not obsess about money, but they are careful with it. They have jobs/careers that might afford them some degree of comfort, but if they suddenly find they need a new coat, or a new car, they’ll look for a bargain. And hope they don’t hate the color.

My theory is, Love can be in the air anywhere, not just in big cities. It can develop between the struggling and the have-to-be-careful just as well as the well-to-do. But if I can’t identify with the characters - at least a little bit - I won’t be happy with it. And if readers can’t identify with the characters, I will have wasted their time. My readers (AND my characters) deserve better.

Cold Winter Days

It is almost noon, and it is all of 3° outside. Tomorrow will be more of the same for us; the high is predicted to be 5 above. Other locations within the 'lower 48' states are even worse off, but this is cold enough for me. This is the kind of weather where I would like to curl up in a blanket in front of a little heater with a good book.

What do you suppose a character in a book would do on a day like today? It would depend on who they are as a character and the plot of the book, of course. Are they warriors, out to battle an evil overlord's minions or a rampaging dragon? They may have no choice but to bundle up as best they can and keep moving forward. Farmers would have to tend their animals, repair any tools they'll need for the new growing season, possibly even chop more firewood for the fireplace.

Authors frequently think nothing of hampering their characters by throwing inclement weather at them. Some of them do a good job of describing cold rain seeping under a collar and running down the spine, or a runny nose and numb fingers and toes that will make it almost impossible to defend themselves if our intrepid travelers are set upon by wolves.

Occasionally, a kind author will allow a character to wait out bad weather by wrapping themselves in a blanket, sitting near the fireplace and reading a good book. Even warriors deserve a calm break from time to time, don't you think?

Story That Isn't a Story #2

Last week I told you about a story that hadn't satisfied me because the writing style was too old and it left far too many questions unanswered. The second story did not disappoint as far as writing style, but it still left too many questions unanswered.

Story 2 takes place in a world populated by various mythical creatures, some familiar to this reader, others not so much. On that world is a land populated by centaurs. The centaurs are of two types. The High Ones I see as the nobility of the country. Their strain is older and they have a touch of magic in their blood. But they mix freely with the commoners; the current king has married a commoner, and they have three children. Apparently, the High Ones' magic flows through the generations undiluted, which is just a little boggling to the science side of my mind, but I beat my disbelief into submission. I did the same for the question of if the High Ones are an older strain and magic flows through them undiluted through the generations, where did the commoners come from?

The country is about to be plunged into war. The king must lead his troops, which leaves his wife to take on the responsibility of supervising the protection of the palace. The queen is uncertain, having no background in strategy or warfare. This was something I could get into; a character who had to learn to use skills she didn't necessarily have. I settled in to see how she did at it.

The army marched off to the east. There were some troubling raids on the north edge, which kept the remaining troops busy. Then everything goes wrong, magic kills all the High Ones, the palace is overrun, and the queen barely gets away with a handful of followers to hide from their enemies until they can exact justice.

End of story.

I just about fell off my seat.

I felt somebody had just read me chapter one and then thrown the book away. I had prepared to watch the queen learn and work and become the new leader of her people, but instead, all I got was the circumstances that would put her on that path. She never actually followed the path.

To me, this is like telling the story of Sleeping Beauty, and ending it when SB succumbs to the spell that puts her to sleep. Incomplete!

What a Character

There was a point in my life when I read a lot of westerns. I read so many, I began to recognize authors I liked. And then I realized I had read a number of books by one particular author who had only one main character.

Each protagonist had his own name, and the details of his existence differed (slightly) from all the other protagonists, but as far as the character of all these characters, they were the same person; taciturn, gentle, logical, intelligent, even-handed, knowledgeable, frugal, probably secretly rich, and when push came to shove, the best tracker, the best horseman, the best and fastest shot in the west. Reading about such a ‘superman’ once or twice is kind of fun. But I can’t relate to a superman protagonist, can you? I don’t want them as a solid diet; I’d rather read about people who are more like me – complex and not perfect.

I try to keep this in mind when I’m working with my characters. Luckily, all my characters have different life histories, different things they want to accomplish, different problems to overcome. I even go so far as to figure out what their birth order was. I am well aware that a youngest child and only daughter will act differently than the eldest adopted daughter or the middle, unusual daughter who didn’t fit in.

I have a lot of characters living in my mind. They move in before I start writing about them, tell me their story as I write it down, and then stick around, occasionally whispering a tidbit they ’forgot’ to tell me before. You’d think my mind would be housing a huge fight, it’s so crowded, or else a big party. Well, okay, each has happened, upon occasion. But one thing I haven’t been able to avoid is that all these characters have a little bit of me in them, so most of the time, they quietly get along.