Monthly Archives: February 2009

1. Who are the NPCs / supporting cast members in your character’s life? (if you don’t have any, feel free to invent some now!)

There is Lizette, Dr. Srinder Chaudry, Angus McLeod, who started out as an NPC and was taken over by a friend. the Khatib brothers, who are just horrible jerks. The most notable one as of late was Fanny’s daughter, Jocelyn. We had not really intended for her to be a full-blown character on her own, but she sort of piped up and made everyone take note of her.

2. How much detail do you put into them?
Usually there is quite a bit of detail. However, sometimes it’s just the rudimentary information where I need someone else in the room or in the scene. I find it amazing that people don’t use NPCs more. No character is an island, and not having NPC’s, or other characters to flesh out your fiction just seems rather counterproductive.

3. Do you choose PBs for your NPCs?

Yes, sometimes. For Angus and for Jocelyn they sort of chose their own PB’S. I knew what I had for the description, and then all of a sudden, Pb’s of that description just sort of popped up. Rachel Castro as a young Jocelyn and then later in her life, she is supposedly the spit and image of her mother, so we got some very, VERY early Monica Bellucci pictures. Ibrahim I used a Bollywood actor whom I had not seen before. Aisha’s father, Moustafa, I chose Egyptian actor, Omar Sharif.

4. Do they ever have their own stories / speaking roles?

Oh, most definitely! Jocelyn started out as a baby in a crib. She became the absolute rose in her Papa’s eyes. Then there was this Demon…and he picked up the baby and she just started cooing and gurgling at him and her father and then it all just sort of started exploding on the page! *g*

5. What roles do the NPCs play in storylines involving your character?

They are usually servants or just again, people I need in a scene. I tend to be picky about my characters, and the NPC’s just sort of serve as my “expendable crewmembers” which I can do terrible things to and drop kick them in and out of scenes on an as needed basis.

6. Has an NPC or supporting cast member ever stolen the show and become one of your main characters?

Angus, as I mentioned, was picked up by a friend of mine that I worked with. He later put him back down again and I took him over.

7. Have you ever killed off an NPC to support a plot or storyline? How did it work out?

Yes. I killed off Ibrahim Khatib, who was the brother of Aisha, one of my characters. I knew I was going to kill him off from the beginning. He was just far too nasty an individual to let run around for too long. It was even Aisha who blew Ibrahim’s brains out in a firefight in the streets of Amsterdam. Never mind that she did it in order to save the man who kidnapped her in the first place, it really ended up being a rather good plot device because it left at least a couple of people in the storyline, including Aisha herself, wondering why the hell she had done it. That bit on its own was what got the screenplay that is based on that story some interest. We shall see what happens. In my opinion, you have to be willing to strew some bodies of minor or even major characters here and there in your fiction in order for it to be effective. Don’t be afraid to stab a few of them to death, shoot them, throw them under a train or poison them with your pen. It’s kind of fun really.

Bonus points:
Write a ficlet about one of your characters as told from the POV of one of their NPCs/supporting cast members.

From the aforementioned story / screenplay:

Ibrahim sipped his Turkish coffee and glanced half heartedly at the issue of the Times before him. He was far more interested in keeping a watchful glance at the fellow Lebanese, Algerians and even Egyptians that sat in the dimly lit Amsterdam khawi that was frequented by Arab men, and students that wanted to appear trendy if not sympathetic to Arab culture. By the time he was drinking his second cup of coffee, he caught sight of a man who matched the description that his father, Mustafa had given him. He was not an Arab, at least not fully, not with eyes like those. They were green, and lacked something in their depths. Still, the Stranger spoke flawless Arabic, and by his accent, he had spent time in the Alexandrian region of Egypt. The lilting drawl of the higher class dialect of the language was indicative of the region. Such markers, Ibrahim noted, were unmistakable. Continue reading →

The days and weeks just after my husband’s return were all but a blur to me. There was so much to be done. Caroline, who had never known her father, would now as an adult have to come to grips with the fact that he was no longer to be counted among the dead. I admit, in those days, I hardly slept, and I barely remembered to eat. Even Hsu, who had been with me the night before we had discovered Sebastien’s return, thought my neglecting of things such as food, drink and especially sleep was indeed somewhat worrisome. In my excitement, I had succeeded in exhausting myself. I had excitedly kept pushing for every experience until I had no more reserves of strength left at my disposal. When I could eat, I was unable to keep food down, and every limb in my body ached. Continue reading →