Memories: Ours and Our Characters

Memories. Good ones. Bad ones. We tend to push aside the ones we don't want to remember, but they have a nasty habit of surfacing at times.

Good ones, sometimes embellished with our creative perception, pop up more often and make us happy. Savor the good ones; know the bad ones but don't let them taint your life.

Our characters have memories...it's called backstory. Every hero and heroine has things in their past, good and bad, that they deal with. Maybe it's a failed romance, bad business deal, death of a loved one...all things mimicking "real life" events that happen to everyone. The bad memories are a catalyst for better motivation for character change and growth.

In Gone to the Dogs, Katie has to deal with the memory of her boyfriend's betrayal. Determined to move on with her life, she remembers his actions, and uses her self-control to push herself forward and change her life.

In Street of Dreams, Eileen recalls how her police department still treats women as "unequal" partners in her detective division. She uses her instincts to prove her worth, and strives through the book to show her skill qualities.

I could go on with all of my other books, but you get the idea. And, the heroes have their share of bad memories to overcome. These are fiction; I've created memories for my heroes and heroines.

In my nonfiction book, Guilty Survivor - Memoirs of Tamerla Kendall, I had no part in creating memories. What I ghostwrote are Tamera's memories of her life living in a war zone. There are good memories for her; but the book focuses on her hardships, and how she managed to survive. Her courage and determination to life through a was she didn't want enabled her to become the motivated-to-succeed woman she is today.



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Photos: Flickr: ibookperson, BuhSnarf, and 'Playingwithbrushes' photostreams