As we continue with our journey through the making
of The Zealot, last time I covered
the very beginning, the idea itself for the novel. Today I’ll cover the research for the story
and something simple, like the character’s names.
As
a cab driver, you meet a lot of people.
You tend to see the same people over and over. When I had settled on the idea of actually
doing this novel, and I had the basic story in my head, I knew I had to learn
as much as I could about certain things.
I needed serious help. My story
involved murder and drugs and corruption.
This meant I needed to talk to people in homicide, narcotics, the crime
lab, the newspaper, forensics, or otherwise known around here as autopsy, the
coroner’s office, and the regular police for procedures around homicide scenes,
etc.
Everything
began with one person who worked within the prosecutor’s office. I had been taking her to work every once in a
while for quite some time. One day I
told her what I was doing and she jumped all over it. She asked how she could help. She arranged a meeting with one of the
assistant prosecutors, set up a ride-along with an officer for me, and set up a
meeting with the crime lab. From there,
everything fed on itself. The assistant
prosecutor set me up with homicide. The
crime lab got me in to see the folks in the coroner’s office, and therefore
autopsy. I have a personal friend of
mine who is an undercover narcotics officer.
The last piece of the puzzle became the newspaper. I wanted to find out how a reporter’s job
worked. I didn’t know anyone, so it
finally came down to calling the reporter who covered the type of news I was
interested in for my character.
Once
I started talking to everyone, I couldn’t believe how open everyone
became. Even homicide, headed at that
time by Captain Robert Snow, was eager to help me with my project. Captain Snow had authored at least five books
of his own, all non-fiction, so he understood how important this was to me. He, along with all the others, was very
patient with all my questions.
Generally
my process with them became the same. I
would hit them with general procedural questions based on my idea of how the
story would possibly go. Then I would
begin my writing process. I stayed in
touch with my contacts as I wrote. I
would contact them from time to time, with various “what if” scenarios to make
the science or police procedures as realistic as possible.
I
doubt, up to this point, I did anything out of the ordinary. I will not go into detail, but at that time
of my life I was far from normal. I have
mentioned a chronic pain problem. It
affected my personality greatly. It made
me take chances. During the research
phase of the novel, like a moron, I traveled into the neighborhood of
Haughville at night and talked to drug dealers, confronted them,
one-on-one. I told them what I was doing
and what I wanted. In a couple cases,
they really didn’t want to help. I wanted to find out how they operated. I
confronted them because I didn’t care for my own safety. It was a different time for me. What a dumbass. I put myself in a great deal of danger. I came out unscathed, and I got most of what I was after, but it could have gone
so much worse.
So,
let’s talk characters. I need
names. You need names. What name do we come up with for who? I’m sitting in my little home office one day,
in front of the computer, with a legal pad.
I have a list down one side, saying something like, Detective 1,
Detective 2, Female reporter, etc. I
need names for all these people, and since I don’t outline and I only have the
beginning of the story in my head and sort of the rest of the story in my head,
there may be several more characters I will add. First names are easy, right? I used relatives and friends right away. One of the detective’s first names is the
name of our only grandson. On I go. Last names are tougher. I look at the spines of books and things lying
on the desk, writing down what I see as last names. There is a company I used to deal with that
has a name of Lange. Great last name for
a person. Hey, this is fun! Soon I have it done and wishing I have more
characters. How did you do it?
Next
time’s subject will be the writing process.
When did I write and how much?
Ah, the naming of characters, so much to it. Nationality vibes, vowel and consonant considerations, tone, nicknames, childhood issues from old nicknames, so much to put into that iceberg below the surface. Of course, you no doubt recall one of those issues of naming and vowel sounds in your Zealot, right? Fun story . . .
ReplyDeleteThe naming of characters is a difficult matter, it isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter, when I tell you, a character must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry, that's cats, not characters. Wrong genus. Sorry Eliot.