Guest Author: Rhonda Pollero

My Fake BFF . . .

First, thanks to the great ladies at Riding with the Top Down for letting me chat about my third Finley Tanner book, FAT CHANCE.

Finley is my fourth series, so I thought I’d share a little bit about writing continuing characters and/or locations. The first thing you need to know is that there are some plusses and minuses when you’re writing the same character. The biggest plus is that you really get a chance to explore the character. Finley is my BFF. I know her secrets, her strengths and her weaknesses. And she has an abundance of weaknesses. That was intentional. Reading about a perfect person is boring. So when you sit down to give birth to a continuing character, think about all aspects of her (or his - I did do a seven book hero series) personality as well as her world. Finley’s name set the tone for me - she’s Finley Anderson Tanner, all family names but not in the way you might think. They’re the family names of the men her mother was sleeping with when she got pregnant with Finley. That also provided the tone for the mother-daughter relationship in the books. Then I did friends, siblings, work, play and eventually she evolved into an under-achiever by choice. And just to set the record straight, Finley and I have virtually nothing in common. I don’t like to shop, the latest fashion doesn’t even enter my consciousness and I’m a security junkie who refuses to carry a balance on a credit card. We do share the same sense of humor, mostly because I write all her dialogue and thoughts because she isn’t actually real.

When it comes to building a world, my advice is to cast a wide net. When I wrote The Rose Tattoo series for Intrigue™, it was meant to be a trilogy. Then it turned into a continuing series and thus far, I’ve written twelve. Because I didn’t think with a broad brush, I’ve had to get a little creative introducing new characters.

Maybe the trickiest thing to accomplish when you’re writing a continuing character (or location) is what I call the necessary recap. I won’t kid you - I loathe this moment in the book. This is when you have to sum up the history of the character without making it sound like an info dump. You don’t want to bore your established readers but you also don’t want new readers feeling as if they’ve come late to the party. I use the friend approach. If possible, I introduce a new character who will ask questions that elicit the information. If possible, I do some carry-over. Part of what happens in FAT CHANCE happens because of things Finley has done in previous books. Since she can’t seem to stay away from dead people, her law firm adds a criminal attorney. I got double bang for my buck on that one - I also gained a potential new love interest for Finley.

Of course, the best thing about a continuing character is continual employment. Things are tough in publishing and if you happen to have a publisher excited about your character, count your blessings.

Think outside the box. Cast a wide net. Be willing to drop and add secondary characters as needed. Most importantly, write a character you can live with for years. I’ve been writing Finley since 2005 and I still have fun with her. She’s the best fake BFF I’ve ever had!

Thanks,
Rhonda