Bad decisions. They’re needed to get our protagonists from the beginning to the end of each story, and the more terrible choices they make, the juicier the story becomes. But what about authors’ personal stories? I was curious about some of my favorite writers and wanted to see if their road to success was as tortuous as their characters’ journeys.
Lone Theils (author of the critically acclaimed Nora Sand series and the Signe Brask series), Mark Edwards (this best-selling author’s newest release, The Wasp Trap, hits shelves at the end of July), and Jerri Williams (FBI true crime podcaster, author, and FBIAA G-Man Honors-Distinguished Service Honoree) have had their share of bad decisions. While not quite as personally threatening as what their characters face, they could have had their careers stymied, at the very least. There’s something to be learned from each.
©Thomas A.
Lone admits she has a tendency to repeat her mistakes. Despite her friends reminding her, she overcommits and finds it difficult to carve out time to write. We love to hear her podcasts and read her non-fiction, but serving so many masters diminishes her creative time.
Lone’s characters Nora and Signe make bad decisions that evoke the duality of Lone’s confessed fault. Nora has a knack of putting herself in dangerous places and is quick to get out of any situation with emotional ambiguity, making it difficult to build strong relationships. Lone’s other series protagonist, Signe, also pushes people away, but for her it’s with her secret keeping.
A few years ago, Mark changed from his normal UK settings to US-based locations, thinking books written with a US backdrop would appeal to a broader readership. He knew America from his many visits, so authenticity wasn’t an issue. The risk was experimenting with his readers’ trust, and it didn’t work out so well despite the support of his agent and publisher. Thank goodness Mark’s a quick learner and “moved” back to the UK.
In The Wasp Trap, Mark’s character Lily also tries to make a good impression. She does this by helping her professor create a test to identify psychopaths. Unfortunately for the other characters in the book, Lily isn’t able to rectify her actions quite as effectively as Mark has done in real life.
When Jerri made her foray into fiction, she followed the standard advice of getting another set of eyes on her work. Unfortunately, she missed the memo about asking for feedback from people experienced in providing a constructive assessment. Her reviewer told her she wasn’t good enough to write alone and should get a co-writer or ghost writer. It wasn’t until she found out her evaluator wasn’t even a regular reader that she realized her mistake of asking for validation too early and of someone not qualified to provide it.
While Jerri faced the temptation to share her work too early, her character Special Agent Kari Wheeler, faces a different level of irresistible temptations that could sidetrack her investigation. Jerri wouldn’t make the same choices as Kari, but the commitment to protect their families is a constant for both the author and the protagonist.
An author’s bad decisions are like a rearview mirror’s warning. Sometimes they’re closer to their characters than they appear.
