One Character Is Not Like the Other Character Because...

Since I like to write the same general type of adventure stories whether I’m doing science fiction romance or ancient Egyptian paranormal romance, I do have to pay attention to making the hero and heroine in each book different from the others I've written. Not all real life Special Forces soldiers are carbon copies of each other, any more than every businesswoman has the same outlook and knowledge…which holds true for ancient temple priestesses as well!

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the character, in terms of their life experiences previous to the moments in time captured in my book. Why are they the person they’ve come to be, and how does that life experience shape the way they’re going to handle what gets thrown at them in the course of the book? I don’t make notes or keep spreadsheets (because that’s not me, folks) but I know enough in my head to write the person’s journey.

For example, in Priestess of the Nile, Merys the heroine is a bit naïve, does her best to keep some semblance of worship going at an abandoned temple.  It’s her connection to her late mother, and the one thing her unpleasant stepmother can’t take away. So her choices and the risks she takes stem from that situation. The love of Sobek the Crocodile God (in his human form) is everything to her.

 In the sequel, Magic of the Nile, her younger halfsister Tyema is now the high priestess of a full-blown temple, running all the associated businesses as well as the ceremonies.  Tyema was a victim of an

enemy attack on her village when she was young. When I first started working on the book I felt it would be unrealistic for her to have reached adulthood with no aftereffects from the terrible ordeal,  even though she grew up to take over the temple and runs its complex business affairs at the god’s direct command.  She’s structured her life to be in control at all times, as much as possible, to avoid triggering or even revealing the symptoms of her malady. The coping plan works for her until Sahure, a handsome, noble warrior, is sent by Pharaoh on assignment to her remote province. Complications for Tyema – good and bad – spiral from there.

Although Tyema’s anxiety is only one aspect of the book’s plot, the condition and the lengths she goes to cope drive some of the decisions.  The ancient Egyptians wouldn’t have understood an anxiety attack the way we do today, and they certainly had no idea how to effectively deal with it. “Cures” tended to be heavily based in magic and some fundamentally misguided theories of female anatomy.  Even Sobek, who takes care of the Nile and is a force of nature, doesn’t understand the struggles of his priestess. “She knows I watch over her - why isn’t that enough?”  the god asks in the novel.

Tyema isn’t magically cured by the end of the novel because that’s not realistic in any world, but she and Sahure have a better understanding of what she’s dealing with, and what she’s capable of.

I wish I had time today to talk about the research and thinking I did to arrive at the human version of the Crocodile God (what motivates him, what would attract him to a human woman, what’s he afraid of…) but alas, this week’s topic is done….so there you have my somewhat organix "think it out"  approach to developing and differentiating my characters.

April is National Anxiety Month, which is partly why I’ve focused on the issue today. I'm one of the 40 million people who have anxiety issues, mine triggered by a bad car crash years ago. My priestess heroine had few choices 3500 years ago, but nowadays there are things to be done if anxiety becomes a problem in conducting daily life.  For more information on anxiety, I encourage you to check out the National Institutes of Health “AnxietyDisorders” page. Don’t hesitate to seek help if you’re having issues that could be anxiety-related. Talking to your family physician is a great place to start!

In Ancient Egypt They Thought They Could Take It With Them

If a person writes novels set in ancient Egypt as I do, when the word for the week is "bury", where do you suppose my mind travels? Right - beautifully painted tombs, amazing sarcophagi, King Tut's mask....but the Egyptians went to all that trouble because they were trying to ensure themselves a happy afterlife, and to have everything they needed with them in that future. (Sort of you can take it with you...)

Here's a scene from Priestess of the Nile that shows a small part of what the ancient Egyptian citizen thought would happen to them, after they were buried in that well appointed tomb. (Warning: possible SPOILERS if you haven't read the book yet). I've edited and abridged this a bit from the published version, to focus on the Afterlife events:

Merys was tired of walking. Where am I going? How did I come to be in this tunnel? She contemplated the passageway filled with mist and bathed in blue light. She stumbled and stopped, one hand on the cold stone wall to steady herself. She was dressed in fine robes, bedecked with jewels. A thin gold circlet held her hair. Rings and bracelets she had never seen before adorned her hands and arms. Her shoes were soft leather, lined with fur, trimmed in gold. Merys turned to see what lay behind her. The tunnel ended at a closed door. The door fit snugly into the tunnel wall, with no handle, no hinges.

“My tomb,” she said out loud and the words echoed. She felt strangely detached from the reality. “But my family wouldn’t honor me so, even if they had the funds.”

*****

She slid down the wall and sat huddled for a few moments, mourning all she had left behind in the upper world of the living. Eventually, Merys took a deep breath and stood, using the wall for support. She smoothed her skirts and straightened her jewelry. Every Egyptian, even the children, knew at the end of this tunnel lay the Hall of Judging, where her heart would be weighed and her spirit’s ultimate fate decided. It is no less and no more terrifying than what I have already endured. ....

She walked on. A lighted chamber lay ahead and as she entered the enclosure, she found Anubis, Thoth and Lady Ma’at waiting as she expected. Anubis had the semblance of a man from the neck down, well muscled. From the shoulders up, he was a sharpfeatured, ebony-furred jackal. Long, pointed ears framed a feral face. Cold emerald eyes glowing with uncanny brilliance scrutinized her as if assessing whether she was to be his prey in some otherworldly hunt.

Breathtakingly beautiful, Lady Ma’at had a kind face and welcoming smile. She was clad in fine white robes, and many intricate necklaces formed a multicolored collar swathing her elegant neck. A scarlet ribbon headband threaded its way among the glossy curls on her head, holding a large feather, which curled gracefully back over her hair.

Thoth sat behind her, cross-legged on the floor, in the manner of all scribes. Merys rejected a mental picture of her father, working on his scrolls in the village. I won’t think of him anymore. Thoth held a sharp reed pen upraised in one well-formed hand and clasped a small oblong tablet in the other. His head was in the form of an ibis, with an elegant, long curving beak and fine green iridescent feathers. Merys had often seen such birds in the shallows of the Nile.  

*******

A scrabbling sound in the corner of the room beyond the table drew her attention to the beast Ammit, busily chewing on a pile of bones. The sheer wrongness of Ammit—heavy crocodile head blending into the neck and chest of a powerful lioness, with the sturdy hindquarters of a hippopotamus—made Merys want to vomit. All the most dangerous and fearsome predators of Egypt embodied in one obscene creature, waiting to devour the unworthy. Ammit paced in the shadows, scuttled a bit closer as if sensing Merys’s fear, the claws on her feline front legs scrabbling on the floor, while the muscles in her stumpy hippopotamus hind legs bunched as she readied herself to spring.

Merys swayed and closed her eyes.

And of course after the heart was judged, and the person managed to get past this stage of the Afterlife, they had many more perils and dangers to traverse, as documented in the well known Egyptian Book of the Dead. But hopefully they'd prepared well ahead of time and their loved ones had stocked their tomb with all the amulets and unguents and spells and paintings and tiny statues of servants that would be needed.

Did Someone Say Inner Voices?

My heroes and heroines tend to be people of action, pretty much always in motion. They have thoughts, they do grow and change over the course of the novels, but there isn't much inner dialogue. Or at least not too much that gets shared with the audience or even with me, the Author LOL!

The Egyptian god Sobek in PRIESTESS OF THE NILE, for example, is grappling with the idea of being in love with a human woman and by extension having to care about the things that concern her, like Merys's younger sister. Sobek is a force of nature, keeping the Nile flowing smoothly, so it was fun to write about him trying to understand the emotions of another person. He was especially challenged to bring his attention down to the mundane daily issues of human life but because he loves Merys so much, he makes the effort. At one point he even takes on human guise to walk through her village and see the people and the place from her viewpoint. So there were bits and pieces of his thoughts in the book, but no long, extended self debate. In fact, he's trying to hide his thoughts from the goddess Isis.

In WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, my main character Nick is supposed to be using the time he's on board the luxury space liner to think about the military tribunal he's going to be facing, and to figure out what he's going to do next. I'm afraid he does a lot of drinking before the disaster happens, some gambling occurs, a tour of the ship...he's really reluctant to sit for too long, revisiting the nightmares of his last mission. He consciously avoids that pain. Once the ship comes to grief, Nick is thrown into survival mode, and trying to save other people so his thoughts tend to be along the lines of How many people can I put on this lifeboat and Is that bulkhead going to give way before I get these two trapped children to safety? There are a few moments where he's wistfully contemplating what might have been if he and the heroine had met in a better place and time but....then another crisis hits. I guess that's just how I roll as an author.

Now Khenet, WARRIOR OF THE NILE (out in September), has a recurring dream in the novel. I always feel that my dreams are my own subconscious trying to tell me something important, especially when the dream is long and detailed, or especially vivid. All of which are aspects of Khenet's dream.  Here's the way it usually begins for him:

He was walking up a small ridge, taking deep breaths of the fresh mountain air, inhaling the perfume of delicate white flowers that grew nowhere else but here. Soon he would be at the top of the rise and the village would be visible, safe in its snug valley. Only it had not been safe, had offered no shield for his people from the violent, bone breaking sickness brought one spring by a flock of migrating birds that had fallen from the sky, ill, dying. No matter how many times he had this damn dream, no matter how hard he tried, he could never control the sequence of events as they unfolded, the direst of nightmares, based on the most painful memories in his soul.

 All he could do was walk through it until the last, bitter moment when he could force himself awake. Again.

Tugged along by the dream, he walked into the village, heading down the dusty central street. The road was empty, no merchants calling out their wares, no women gossiping, no children playing…only the buildings watched him, the windows like blank eyes, doors hanging open like silent screaming mouths. Even the pets and livestock had vanished in his dream. He knew the dead lay fallen behind the walls of their dwellings.

            As he walked, unable to help himself, Khenet stared around longingly. The village itself was always unchanged, just as it had looked the day he’d hiked out, untouched by the disease, sent by his father, the village headman, on a useless journey to the provincial capital to plead for help.  Oh, Nat-re-Akhte’s grandfather the nomarch had sent help – he was a good provincial ruler – but the assistance had arrived much too late to do anything but bury the dead.

His family’s modest house stood at this end of the road.

The only good part about this dream was that he never got that far, never had to open the door and see what had happened to his parents, his brothers and sisters.

Because now the worst portion of the dream was going to begin, as it always did....

So that's about as inner monologue-y as I ever get...

(You can find out more about WARRIOR on my web page and it is up for pre-order...but I'm afraid you won't be able to see how the dream turns out until September 16th!)

(Photo at the top of the blog post from SXC by ba1969, photo directly above is from the Author)