Getting to know you

When I decided to try to write a book, I had an idea for a storyline, and I knew where it was going to be set. I even had the names for the two main detectives. The next problems to solve were: how do you write about people you don’t know? How do you know how they would react in any situation?

Before I get to answering those questions, where did the detectives’ names come from? It started one day during the COVID lockdown when I was driving my daughter to deliver some scrubs she had made to the local Whipton Barton hospital in Exeter. It suddenly occurred to me that Detective Inspector Whipton Barton was a great name for my detective, then on the way home, we passed a development of new houses called Saxon Brooks, and there was Whipton’s second in command, Detective Sergeant Saxon Brooks. So now I had the names, who were they, what were their back stories? Most important was deciding what their differences are, as well as their similarities. Two long essays were written, one for each. I won’t go into details now because some of them will be coming out more in future books.

The next characters needed in the cast: if you are going to have a murder, then you need a victim and a murderer, with these characters, there had to be a connection, a tension and one or more motives. Yet more questions: what causes tensions enough to push someone to murder? Is it one thing or is it a buildup of multiple reasons? Then how do they plan? What makes them believe they will get away with the crime? Without understanding these character traits, it is impossible to tell.

The thing I hadn’t expected was that as I got to know the characters, the way they acted started to become easy to write. In fact, in The Antiquarian, one of the characters suggested what the twist may be in a conversation I was writing. At this point, I knew I understood their personalities enough to start on the story itself.

I had my characters, and my next decision was to decide the world they would inhabit. The old maxim of write what you know came to mind. If I set the story around the Exeter area where I live, the research would be that much easier and economical. One day, Barton and Brooks may go to Iceland on a case, but for now, the budget wouldn’t stretch that far. The readers who live in the area will recognise the places, and I can reassure them that none of the characters are based on actual people!

Being a designer in my day job, I am visually curious; at this point, I knew the personality traits and motivation of my characters, but what do they look like?  I knew answering this question would help me with writing their descriptions. So here they are, each one created with the help of stock photos, ethical creative suite AI and Photoshop and many hours of tweaking and fiddling.

One thing led to another, and I had the idea that if they were promoting the book or a video, they would all have been at the same photoshoot and on the same background. These images have become the cornerstone of the promotion for The Antiquarian, as well as helping me understand each of them more.

Now I had my cast and location, now to plan the story…