Last week RC Hancocktagged me for the “Meet My Character” blog tour. RC is one of my fellow Cedar Fort authors and a really nice guy. I think RC is an abbreviation for the pirate term “Arrrrgh, you see” that he often spouts during our monthly get together. Don’t ask me why he says that. His book An Uncommon Blue comes out in December and I think he is an author you should keep an eye on because I expect him to do well with his writing career. 

 
MEET BECKY WILLIAMS
 
Enough about RC, let’s talk about
Becky Williams. She is one of four
viewpoint characters in
The Gathering: End’s Beginning.  
Becky is the mother in the Williams
family and the strongest character
in the story. 

 
What is the name of your character?
Is she fictional or a historic person?
 
I am the family historian for both sides of
my family. Since the names of my
ancestors are already stuck inside my head
I decided to use them for character names
in the book. Although Becky Williams is
the name of a real person the character is wholly made up. 
  
 
When and where is the story set?
 
The first book takes place in the United  States. It all takes place in the near future. And by that I mean I worked so that anyone reading the story within the next 15 years will think it could happen soon. 


What should we know about her?
 
Although she comes across as fearless and undaunted, Becky is really acting the way she believes everyone expects her to act. Inside, she is not all that sure that she can manage the family by herself. Don’t worry, I have faith that she will prevail. 

 
What is the main conflict? What messes up her life?

While her husband is away, Becky has to run the household by herself. That is a tough proposition under normal circumstances, but she has to do it while dealing with food riots, increased crime and violence in her neighborhood, and a mega-storm that hits the city making all of the other problems even worse. 

 
What is the personal goal of the character?
 
Becky wants to keep her family safe. And she wants her husband to return home. For the most part, The Gathering: End’s Beginning is about normal people facing the harrowing
events leading to the end of the world. 

 
When can we expect the book to be published?

Actually, The Gathering: End’s Beginning was published in January of this year. It is
available on Amazon, Barnes& Noble, and from Cedar Fort. 
  
 
I am nominating Brock Booher and Laura Walker to join the tour and tell us all about their characters. 

It’s been five months since the release of The Gathering. Since then I’ve done a fair amount of marketing. Dozens of people have asked me to classify the story. During my last book signing a little ditty started running through my head whenever someone asked me what kind of book it was and it goes something like this. 
         
(Sung to the tune – House of the Rising Sun, but The Animals.)
 
Oh, authors, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Set your book in an off genre
And marketing won’t be fun

            
I have struggled to define the correct category for The Gathering. Here are the genres in which it might fit with a few comments about each. I’d love some suggestions from my readers. 
  
General Fiction – This seems to be the category that books are placed in when no one is sure how it should be labeled. It’s a generic pool of titles without much in common other than the fact that they didn’t fit anywhere else. I’m just not convinced that The Gathering is the sort of book people are expecting when they peruse this category. 
 
Speculative Fiction – For the most part this the how I’ve classified The Gathering. It
 definitely fits into the Speculative field. One reviewer listed the book as “Reality Speculative Fiction” and that is probably the most accurate classification that I have found so far. The problem with that it is not really an accepted category and then I have to explain the genre as well as the storyline.  In a way this feels like the General Fiction version of the Sci-Fi world. 
 
Sci-Fi – I love this category. This is what I normally write and The Gathering contains
some slight element of the genre. The story is set in the future—albeit the near future—and is in fact an apocalyptic tale in the making, which falls into the category of Sci-Fi. Unfortunately, without any aliens from another dimension, space ships, or high-tech gadgetry that hasn’t been invented yet my book doesn’t read like Sci-Fi. 
 
Action / Adventure – My normal writing style includes a lot of action and a fair amount of adventure. The main story of a typical family in a tough situation doesn’t really cry out for this classification, but the Calvin McCord storyline does. My concern for using this genre is that readers may expect a fast-paced trek through exotic locales and that is not what they will get. 
 
Christian Fiction – Since the story involves an LDS family as they respond to the prophesied events leading up to the Second Coming this is a fair category to place The
Gathering. But does this label set an expectation of a story that has a lot of warm-fuzzies intermixed with a 300 page sermon? While there is nothing wrong with that my intention was to get my readers to think about how they would react to an apocalyptic event.  
 
Thriller – The definition of this genre is a story that uses suspense, tension, and excitement as its main elements. Guilty as charged. At least, that was my intent when writing The Gathering. Here again, I feel that readers will have a different expectation when they see mention of this genre. Perhaps I’m doing myself a disservice by comparing it to North By Northwest, Cape Fear, and Play Misty For Me, but I don’t feel  comfortable placing it in this category.  
  
Pre-Apocalyptic – Since The Gathering doesn’t fit nicely into any of the categories that are available I decided to make a new one. Imagine that—me making something up. This brand new category deals with stories that take place in the days and years prior to an apocalypse. In this case it involves an event that hasn’t happened yet, but I think it would work just as well with great tragedies from our past. A tale of a Jewish family in
Germany just prior to WWII would be an example. Even though I created this category
specifically for The Gathering I feel that it could work as a legitimate genre. Post-Apocalyptic tales already exist so why not this?


Have an opinion on what I said? Leave a comment

            
Last week I announced a new feature – Bonus Gatherings – and today I want
to present another one: Behind The Gathering. The idea for this feature is to
share what went on behind the scenes as I wrote the story. Since a lot of this
may necessitate trips into my mind it may be a scary segment to read. 
              
The question I’m asked most often at author events is whether the characters in my stories are based on real people. That is followed by looks of disappointment when I tell them that they are not. My characters are fully figments of my imagination. 
             
I suppose it doesn’t help that I continue on and explain that my characters start off as nothing more than a plot need. If I’m writing about an LDS sponsored space program intended to kick off the last great pioneer trek then I might decide I need a character that promotes the thrill and excitement of exploration. I’d make it an energetic tween, probably a girl because both of those choices open several interesting story possibilities. 
              
Apparently, that is not what my fans want to hear. Perhaps they are hoping they can meet the real-life inspiration for the characters in my stories. And in the future I might start doing that. Maybe I should just avoid sharing my very clinical approach at character creation or at least focus on the thrill that I get as I watch how the characters develop during the writing process to become what passes for actual people. 
             
Calvin McCord is a good example of this. He started out as a need. I needed a character with a top-down look at the situation. I needed a character who would know what was going on not only in the United  States government, but the political and military institutions around the world. So I made him the Secretary of State. 
             
Once I had a character in place to observe the destruction of the Constitution and the quick unraveling of civilization I needed to mold him into a heroic figure that my readers would root for. Not only did I make him an old soldier still wanting to serve his country, but I did my best to craft him as the last honest politician. 
             
Then I gave him friends, interests, personality, and some history. Most of that flowed out of me a piece at a time as I need the information to complete a scene. In the end it all adds up to a reasonably life-like representation of a person.  
              
Of course, the follow-on question about characters is normally: If I had authorization to cast all of the characters for a movie version of The Gathering, who would I pick to play Calvin McCord?

 
The first image that came to mind was Lee Marvin. His voice and his demeanor are all I could hope to expect from my favorite character in the story.  But that was really a predictable choice. 

As I thought about it more, I liked the idea of using Brian Cox.  Especially as he appeared in The Bourne Supremacy. 
 


 

And there is this month’s behind the scenes look at The Gathering. I encourage you to leave a comment and let me know what you thought about this segment. Do you want more? Should I stop? Does this shatter your impressions of my characters? Or do you have someone specific that you would like me to discuss next time?