I often get asked if my characters are based on real people. Sometimes they are, at least in part;
I’ve only rarely written a character with a single real person in mind.
Sometimes, though, the genesis of my characters is odder, and the result of something I have yet
to explain. They simply appear, full-blown, and the process of writing their stories is not so
much invention as it is discovery.
The oddest example of this I’ve ever experienced occurred while I was writing my recently-
released fall-of-civilization novel In the Midst of Lions, that I swear was not inspired in any way
by the events of the last couple of years. (In fact — true story — I first came up with the idea for
this book when I was in college. Which was a lot of years ago.)
The main characters, a bunch of academics who are very used to the easy life, are caught up in a
sudden societal collapse. I’m always interested to think about how perfectly ordinary people
would act in extraordinary circumstances; this is kind of the crypto-theme of all my stories,
actually. In any case, these four professors from the University of Washington end up having to
flee the rioting and violence on foot, crossing the Washington Park Arboretum, a two-hundred-
acre garden south of the campus, on their way to a safe haven.
[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Joe Mabel, Seattle – Arboretum Bridge 01, CC BY-SA 3.0]
Completely unexpectedly — not only to them, but to me — they meet someone in the Arboretum.
Here’s the scene where they come across her:
Cassandra was the first one to spot her—a woman sitting cross-legged with her back to
the trunk of a fir tree, watching them approach with a broad smile on her face. She was
perhaps forty years old, and the most remarkable thing about her appearance was how
completely unremarkable she looked. An oval face, even features, light brown hair in a
loose ponytail, neither particularly attractive nor at all unattractive, she was the kind of
person you might pass a dozen times a day and never notice.But here she sat in the Arboretum as the world collapsed around her, apparently
unconcerned.“Oh, hello,” she called out in a pleasant, melodious voice, and waved.
Soren exchanged a puzzled glance with Cassandra, who shrugged.
As they neared, the woman stood, moving a little awkwardly, but with no evident self-
consciousness. Soren jerked to a halt until she raised both hands to show that she was
unarmed. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I mean no harm. In fact, I’ve been waiting for
you all.”
When I finished writing this, I said — and I quote — “what the hell just happened?” She
was not part of the original plot. The idea was that they’d cross the Arboretum, dodging snipers
and rioters, and reach their goal safely. But suddenly there’s this… this person, sitting there
waiting for them.
Oh, and her name is Mary Hansard. Don’t ask me where that came from. Her name came along
with her character, waltzing into the story from heaven-knows-where.
The whole experience was like being struck by creative lightning.
I know I tend to be a pantser (for non-writers, authors tend to fall into two loose classes: pantsers
— who write by the seat of the pants — and plotters — who plan everything out). But this
is ridiculous. I honestly had no idea this character even existed. Afterward, I had to figure out
(1) who the hell Mary Hansard was, (2) what role she was going to play in the story, and (3) how
she knew the four fleeing professors were going to be coming through the Arboretum.
I would love to know where this kind of stuff comes from. I mean, “my brain” is the prosaic
answer, and is technically right, but when this sort of thing happens — and it’s far from the first
time — it feels like it came from outside me, as if the story already existed out there in the aether
and I just tapped into it somehow.
I also know enough that when this occurs, it means something is going really right with the
story. When I’ve had these sudden shifts in course, following them usually leads to somewhere interesting that I wouldn’t have otherwise discovered. But to say that it’s a little disorienting is a
vast understatement.
Especially since I knew–knew for a complete certainty–that the mysterious, ordinary-looking
Mary Hansard would become one of the most central characters in the story.
Here’s a bit that comes later, that gives us more information about her — and how she knew the
four would be there in the Arboretum:
Was part of her empathy due to her foreknowledge of what she herself would soon be
feeling?Probably, but just as she’d told Dr. Quaice, that knowledge wouldn’t change anything.
On the other hand, it did bring an odd sort of comfort. Soren had told her something like
that, the day all this started, when he described how he had the courage to cross the
Montlake Cut while a sniper was taking potshots at them. He knew he had to do it, so at
that point it became like a thing already accomplished. His fear was no longer relevant.That was one advantage of her foresight. The confusion between future and past meant it
was all one thing. It was the not-present. And being not-present, it couldn’t hurt her. If
pain lay in the future, it was as removed from her as her memories of a broken arm when
she was twelve. Neither one had any impact on the present as it slowly glided along, a
moving flashlight beam following her footsteps through the wrecked cityscape. The
events of the past and the future were frozen, fixed and unmoving, like butterflies trapped
in amber.
So much for the idea that authors have the entire story in their heads from the get-go. Personally,
I love it when stuff like this happens — wherever it comes from. Writing, then, becomes as much
of an act of discovery as it is an act of creation, and all the writer can do at that point is let the
horse have his head and hang onto the reins for dear life.
If you want to find out more about the enigmatic Mary Hansard—the character I hadn’t even
known existed prior to her simply showing up unannounced—you can get In the Midst of Lions here:
https://www.amazon.com/Midst-Lions-Arc-Oracles-
Book/dp/1960370111/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
