Creating Characters

by Linda O. Johnston

I love creating characters for my novels. 

Or do I create them?  Maybe they create me.

There is, after all, an element of me in all of them, or at least in my protagonists.  For example, Carrie Kennersly, from my Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries, is a veterinary technician who buys a bakery from a friend and turns half into a barkery where she sells healthy dog treats that she created.

There appears to be very little of Carrie in me.  I'm not much of a cook, for one thing.  I've been fortunate enough to get most of the recipes in my books from friends.

But once upon a time I wanted to be a veterinarian, and Carrie as a vet tech has to do a lot of the things that her vet bosses do.  I realized that I wouldn't be able to deal with being around sick animals, even to help them.  And I especially couldn't handle cutting them open, even to save their lives.  So, I became a lawyer--and a writer. But I'm delighted that Carrie can deal with the bad as well as the good to take the best care of ill animals.

And believe it or not, there actually is a lot of Carrie in me--or me in Carrie.  We both love animals, especially dogs.  We both solve murders.  Of course I happen to create those murders in my stories for her to solve, but in a way we join forces to put together a mystery and incorporate it into a book that will hopefully be fun to read.

Plus, Carrie owns a dog, Biscuit.  Biscuit is always in her life.  And I am owned by a couple of dogs, Mystie and Cari.  They probably control my life more than Biscuit controls Carrie's, but that's fine with me.

Yes, there are other characters in the books who are important to the story.  There is possibly a touch of me in all of them--maybe even the murderers.  I'll have to consider that more and possibly write about that here sometime in the future.

www.LindaOJohnston.com