I had five main characters in "The Innkeeper and the Strange Travelers": a young woman and her brother, owners of the inn, and the trio of travelers, two men and a woman. I turned my imagination on full blast and began by writing five quite detailed character sketches. This was a departure for me, for I usually just envision a couple main characters and start to write. This time I would have plenty of physical description and personality detail worked out before I ever started Chapter 1.

I wanted to involve the Partners in the process of creating these characters, for they would all be spending some substantial time together. So, I thought, what more fun way for these readers to be a part of their invention than by getting to name them? I posted my five character sketches on my website and invited the Partners to scrutinize them and make nominations for their names. The response was wonderful, and I ended up with many choices for each character.

Time for a new survey: I put up the name nominations to a vote by all the Partners. The winning names are the names these folks bear, and will for as long as they live (fictionally speaking of course). They are the innkeeper, Grace, and her brother, Sebastian...and the three travelers, Liam, Nessa and Finn.

It's funny now to think about those days when the Partners got to pick my characters' names, for now that I am in the final editing stages of Bloodchained, I can't imagine the five of them being called anything else!

I think the fact that a whole five dozen people were involved in the conception of these lead characters has made it very important to me that they be among the best characters I've ever created. At any rate, they are certainly the most three-dimensional, complex protagonists I've written to date. Developing their motivations, exploring their flaws and foibles, and delighting in their humanness (or Roicanness, LOL) has been a true joy. The leads in particular, Grace and Finn, are fascinating, compelling people. I'm not meaning to brag here--these folks act out the story for me, I just do my best to write it all down!

And part of the fun from the very beginning has been sharing my writing with the Partners, getting their feedback, and feeling them respond immediately to Grace's warmth, Sebastian's good humor, Finn's dark complexity, Liam's intense attractiveness, and Nessa's melancholy sweetness. It was also fun to see the readers struggle to puzzle out who was genuinely trustworthy and who was up to something sinister. After all, all these people can't be what they seem!

Yes indeed, I was highly motivated from the get-go to make this book special. Fire up the word processor, it's time to get seriously cracking. And how exactly does an author involve a team of readers at this stage of the writing game?

Tune in tomorrow for Part 5 of "About Bloodchained" and I'll tell you how!

Link to part 5
Link to part 3