Advice and help in how to make a story come alive.

<h1>WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?</h1><strong>Author: <a title="JOHN" href="http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/john/278899.htm">JOHN</a></strong><br /><p>Finding the characters for your books is an interesting pursuit. Peter Sellers found his charactes in the many people he met. Bluebottle was a scoutmaster who called at his home collecting.<br />I find it amusing to observe people, their mannerisms and expressions, the way they talk. So many times I have drawn on such for a particular character. It all falls into the files of my brain, The same is true of events, experiences, places you have been to. Everything becomes potential for what you write.</p> <p>A book I am currently working on started its life as a photograph. It was sent to me from a friend in Australia, well I am sure he expected me to do something with it, after all we were both raised on The Goon Shows. Well I digitally altered that photo and what happened next is odd. As I looked at it I realised that this was not just a photo, it was now a character, and indeed it has become the character of two books, the first which will be out in the spring of 2010.</p> <p>It is so important that writers recall all that they see, nothing is lost, our brain is like a computer that can take a very very large amout of information. I also carry with me a camera, very useful to just take a shot of that view that caught your imagination, that place that you felt at home with, those people that were passing by, it all helps in writing, at least I find it does.</p> <p>Interestingly as well, the recall of places can be very useful as the times we live in now, nothing seems to stand that long. Buildings come and go, show me a Gaumont Cinema. It has been images in my mind that have recalled some interesting places that I have used in books. Long gone places, but I had been there, I knew about it, it does not exist anymore. Now its in a fictional story, even the road that road that was named after it, Aerodrome Road, thats all changed.</p> <p>It can be surprising how clever that brain is at giving you the face to fit a voice in your head, a voice that is one of your characters. It is a bit like imagining what the presenter of some radio program actually looks like, you hear his voice and you have this mental picture of what you think he looks like. Then one day you are shocked to see he bears no resemblance to what you imagined. You see your brain is getting it right really, the reality is disappointing, but the imagined could be a character.</p> <p>I most of my books you will not find it, but there is a fabric of my experiences that have all played a part in the characters and the backdrop of the story.</p> <p>My latest book, My Name Was Jiack, most likely had a bit of everything used to create the fabric. It is a science fiction story. Of course I have never been to Mars, where it is mostly set. However I have become very interested in the planet, and the story arrives from the collection of all my thoughts about the myth and the facts that surround Mars. No doubt that interest caused the vivid dreams I had some Nine years ago, which came and went over a few years, and were so vivid that I was able to recall and write them down. They completly ceased in 2003, then resumed in 2007. The central characters name was changed once from Jack Pendalton to Jack Thatcher, and after gathering all the notes, the story was created. MY NAME WAS JIACK has been fun writing, then re-writing in 2007. I doubt it would have come about without a lot of 'hidden data' in my head being pulled to the keyboard.</p> <p>Never miss the incident you see, never overlook the person passing by, always file the words that someone said. The writer has the privilage of using it all, rearranging the way things happened, placing Mr. A, where Mr. B was.</p> <p>So the Who are you? Where did you come from? is simple, from between the ears.</p> <p> </p><strong>About the Author:</strong><br /><p>I write a mix of material, in books, poems and in songs.</p><p>Article Source: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.articlesbase.com/">ArticlesBase.com</a> - <a target="_blank" href="http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/who-are-you-where-did-you-come-from-1645337.html" title="WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?">WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?</a></p>