On Character Development

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
~Ray Bradbury

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
~Anton Chekhov

The characters are evolving as I think of the history of the house and the stories behind it. I'm also drawing on personalities (in a general way) I've known and witnessed in real life. Of course, this is all a work of fiction, and these characters are not meant to represent any real person, living or dead.

Silvie 'Sil' Houlihan:

A prostitute that has made her way from Ireland to the mining towns of Arizona. She is the victim of a disease acquired aboard an immigrant ship that left her face scarred. However, this doesn't seem to stop her at all from her profession, which she plies with great manipulation and skill.I keep thinking of this character in a way as Shakespeare's Caliban in the Tempest. I want to portray her in a sympathetic yet clear-eyed way. one of the things i wonder about is how ordinary evil occurs...and it does occur in all of our lives, no pretending.

I'm also, I know, strongly influenced by Annie Pollux's story and characters in 'the Shipping News,' which I feel is as strong a work of fiction as I have ever come across.


There has to be a fundamentalist preacher in this book, too:

Sil's father, probably. I spent a lot of time on Hubpages' (a writing site) forums, watching a ludicrous religious spectacle. I'm interested in fundamentalism as a source, frankly, of every day evil and why not seeing the forest for the trees begets evil. Or is it greed and avarice that underscores what the 'evangelical' really do? Do they believe there own crap...or just expect others too? When they achieve the $$ they are after, and squander them, is it like an addiction? What feeds it?

White-haired, silver-tongued in a crude sort of way, absolutely at the core of things knowing what he is worth, alcoholic.


William S. 'Boss' Head:

A young man of about 30 from a upper middle class New York family, a lawyer by profession, who comes west to Arizona with his brother to try his fortune in mining or other prospects. Bent on adventure and very capable, the two brothers settle around the mining towns prevalent in Arizona during the mid 1800's.

This character...as it is shaping up...is based on Steinbeck's conception of the one brother in East of Eden, only I see William as a much stronger person. I've also been influenced by a couple people I've known in life.

I think I'm going to make the two brothers that of a single character study. sort of a split duo character. So that William, the younger of the two, has the strength and the innocence. The older brother will be image oriented, greedy, too full of propriety, conservative and politically motivated in a bad way...he also is one of Sil's biggest customers, ;).