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 by LH Maynard & MPN Sims
One of the questions we’re frequently asked is, “Where do you get your ideas from?”
The honest answer is, “We don’t really know.”
Some stories float into your mind as fully formed entities, complete with plot, theme, setting, characters and denouement. Some start with an initial premise, an idea that one can nurture, develop and finally bring to fruition. Whilst others begin with nothing more that a sentence; one line that acts as a springboard for everything else that follows.
Demon Eyes falls into the latter category.
We had just finished writing Shelter, our first Leisure novel. It’s a strange feeling finishing a novel. There’s elation that you’ve finally reached the end of a project after a year of writing; relief that what you set out to do has more or less been accomplished; and a feeling of sadness that the characters who have been living inside your head for a year have finally packed their bags and gone. So you wander around the places they once inhabited, remembering snatches of their conversations, pieces of action that involved them, and you start to wonder who the next tenants will be. Who are the people renting that space in your brain for the next twelve months?
One of the ways to find out the answer to that question of course is to sit at the keyboard and start typing. Facing that blank space and knowing you have to fill it with words can be daunting. Especially as the only thing in your mind is a static hum of complete emptiness. But your fingers hit the keys in almost a reflex action.
“So, Emma, do you feel you’re fulfilling your potential here at Keltner Industries?” Mark Lawrenson said, leaning back in his seat and fixing her with an inquisitorial gaze from his pale blue eyes.
Okay. So where did that come from? Who is Emma? What is her job at Keltner Industries? Is Mark Lawrenson her boss? If so what kind of relationship do they have?
 An hour later you, the writer, know that Emma is Emma Porter, a secretary in a large corporation. You can picture her in your mind and can see clearly what she looks like. You’re aware that she’s been offered a golden opportunity to progress in her career. You also know that Mark Lawrenson is something of a flirt and, that she’s not interested in him, but you don’t know why.
It would be easy to say that the opening sentence was the key to the plot, but that’s not the case. Plots, like characters, lurk in the dimly lit recesses of the subconscious. After more than thirty years of writing, it now seems obvious that the conscious mind has very little to do with the initial creative process. It’s the conscious mind that makes the decision to start the physical act of writing, but it’s in the subconscious that stores the ideas that enable you to do so.
Emma and the rest of the characters in the novel didn’t appear out of thin air. They were simply lodging in a different part of the brain, in the waiting room if you like, biding their time until it was their turn to take up residence in the main house. And, like all fictional characters, they have a tale to tell. It’s the author’s responsibility to give them the opportunity to bring that story to the reader.
High-minded? Pretentious? Artistic claptrap? Perhaps. But it’s an explanation of sorts. How else could it be that you sit at your keyboard or pick up a pen and start writing, and the words flow, characters appear and start to develop, their story gathers momentum until you find yourself embroiled in a complex web of death and deceit, of murder and mayhem? As the writer, the author, you think you have some control over what happens in your story, but really you’re just kidding yourself. The characters, the people living in your head, are really the ones calling the shots. It’s their story. You, the writer, are just the medium they use. The channel.
Many authors have recounted that their characters have taken over the book they were writing. And then some would say that’s just idle fancy. But, in our experience, it does happen.
Characters don’t just arrive fully formed on the page. They have history, lives that brought them to the point where they’re introduced into the novel, and sometimes their presence is so powerful they demand that their story is told.
In Demon Eyes, Nathan Wisecroft is such a character. Originally he didn’t appear until about the middle of the book. However, it was obvious from his first appearance that he was going to be a major player and as such needed a much earlier introduction to the reader. In the finished novel he now appears at the beginning. And the sentence that kicked the whole thing off, about Emma and her promotion, now comes at the start of chapter two.
More evidence that the subconscious was working hard also came at the beginning of the book. Something was revealed about Emma’s lifestyle that, as the story reached its final stages, became crucial to the plot. It certainly wasn’t planned that way. Demon Eyes wasn’t storyboarded. No copious notes were written. It began as Emma’s story and finished much the same way.
Her story has been told. She’s gone now and others have taken up residency in the mind. And they’re demanding their stories be heard.
Who are we to disappoint them?
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