Patricia Davids here.
This month's blog is about characters. Where do mine come
from?
My characters come down the road in a horse drawn buggy.
Seriously, they do.
They come from Ohio and Pennsylvania by the way of a little
Kansas town called Hope. They don't actually have any Amish in Hope. What they
do have there are my childhood memories.
My Brides of Amish Country series is set in the fictional
town of Hope Springs, Ohio. I didn't vary too much on the name, did I? Hope
Kansas. Hope Springs, Ohio. My setting is as important a character as the people
I write about in that fictional town. I have created a place we'd all like to
live or we know someone who used to live in a place like that. A place where
people look after their neighbors in times of trouble. It's a place where you
know who likes to gossip, who bakes the best pies and who keeps a tidy yard and
who sells overpriced goods. It's a place where one stray dog belongs to everyone and never goes hungry. A place where you know the minister will preach about your
wrongdoing if you get caught but your grandmother will make it all better with
hot cinnamon rolls when you get home from church.
It isn't a real place, but it contains the best of
some real places that are dear to my heart. Just as our heroes aren't real men,
but rather the men we'd like to fall in love with. As writers, we take the best of what we'd like to see in ourselves and others and imbue our characters with those traits.
My new release, Amish
Redemption, is the final book in my Brides of Amish Country, but the hero has
four brothers who need wives, too. They live in Bowmans Crossing Ohio. It's
just up the road from Hope Springs but still close to Hope, Kansas. I'm really going to miss Hope Springs, but I think I'll venture back there from time to time.
I enjoy
creating characters that live, laugh, quarrel, make-up and fall in love. Even
if they do all come down the road in an Amish buggy
What town, real or imaginary, has had the most influence in your life? Does it find it's way into your writing?
Pat
1 comments:
Pat what you say about your heroes (which also goes for heroines is so true. They may be based in reality but they aren't" real. I love your character--they are true to their environment, to their story.
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