Character Question 3 - Who is Sauri?

Sauri Ann McLintock was born on the 6th of May, 26 years ago. She had married young and had the expected 2 children, one boy and one girl. She lived, with her husband Miguel, in the upstairs apartment of a pink stucco building with wide window sills, downtown at the end of Wood Street. The sidewalk ran in front, and there was an empty lot across the street, behind the graveyard.

Sauri would describe herself as a mother and wife, but in truth she wasn't sure who she was anymore. Had her chosen identities taken over her entire being; she felt smothered. This wasn't her, well, it was, it was part of who she was; she'd always wanted to be a mother, a wife, it was the expected womanly role, but what of her? She didn't know anymore. Where was she? Who was she? Did she really like that pair of black socks or did she just wear them because it was expected, because that was what she had... of were they truly her and what she liked?

She sighed... fear gripped her and threatened to bury her alive as she leashed her retriever, Keltie, and carefully locked the house door, running up the trail onto the bluff where she would be able to breath easier and have room to think. 

The Secret Life of Characters

Today, I spent time moving and pricing stuff in preparation for the garage sale I have having next week. It's something I have been trying to get organized for awhile as I am trying to purge and clean out things I no longer need. My biggest hang up is books. What to keep and what to get rid of? I'm uncertain if I will even put the books in the garage sale. However, this got me thinking about the secret lives of characters. One of the things I love about Jasper Fforde's books is that his characters can go in and out of books and that the characters in books are only living a part on the page, like actors in a movie, and have whole other lives outside their 'home' books.

As a writer, one of the things I love about my characters is learning about them through the story. But, now that my novel, "The Trade Off," has been written in first draft, which I am about to revise, I am wondering what else I can learn about the characters which isn't in the book. I suspect that if I become intimately acquainted with the characters, aside from the story line, that it will help them become more vibrant on the page.

So... I am going to begin a series of posts where I explore aspects of the characters in relation to real life and I hope you will join me on the voyage and enjoy getting to know their secret lives with me.