New on OUTLIERS ONE MORE THING: SHE WOULDN’T DO THAT! by Terry Shepherd

OUTLIERS ONE MORE THING: SHE WOULDN’T DO THAT! by Terry Shepherd

When I first conceived my protagonist, Jessica Ramirez, I based her on a good friend, also a Latina cop who had to deal with what was then primarily a male fraternity. Traci was still working when I started Chasing Vega. She reprimanded me for giving Jess any kind of emotion. “She wouldn’t do that,” Traci would exclaim. And she was probably right. I watched my friend switch into cop mode during numerous ride-alongs and warned her about letting her police mindset shield her from the authenticity of human interaction.

When I sent her the galley’s for Vega, she wrote me, “Jess is a badass, but you made her too soft!” Why? Because all my other beta readers said my heroine was too callous, too compartmentalized for any meaningful character arc. They were right, too.

Story construction goes beyond plot and pacing. My favorite Outliers write with depth and nuance that challenges me to enter the minds and hearts of both the good guys and the bad guys. Every character in your story is on their own hero’s journey. How you paint that portrait must ultimately resonate with readers. That’s where our license to create cast members from real-life composites makes the magic. 

In the process, our characters can sometimes take over our consciousness.

I know a number of police officers here in Jacksonville and found myself next to one at a stoplight while I was working through the plot that would become Chasing Karma. In my brain, Jess and her partner, Alexandra were arguing about how to best dispatch our antagonist. I heard a soft beep next to me. My cop buddy was shaking his head as I rolled down my window.

“Character arguments are distracted driving,” he yelled at me, totally knowing what was going on in my head.

“Be nice or I’ll put you in the next book,” I shot back.

The light changed. As he pulled away he grinned and said, “Make me a -really- bad guy.”

When you begin to build the key players in your masterpiece, don’t feel constrained by anything. As Toni Morrison famously noted, “The only rule in writing is that there are no rules.” Let it flow in that first barf draft to get to know the landscape and its inhabitants. Fix what doesn’t fit during the re-writes. Listen to feedback without attachment. It’s the breakfast of champions. And unless it’s a training or technical point (Glocks don’t have safeties), don’t be afraid to take chances when someone tells you, “She wouldn’t do that.”

Terry Shepherd

https://terryshepherd.com/