twovictorianladies

I’ve finally found him a home!

I created a character for my very first book – you know, the one I wrote in college that will never see the light of day until it gets  a thorough re-working because I was so young when I wrote it? Yes, that one. By the final draft, though, he never appeared in person; he was referred to several times by other characters, but he never actually put in an appearance. But he was a good character, so I’ve been trying ever since to find a place for him.

At first I thought he was going to appear in my Victorian series, and a version of him does exist there. But the differences between modern America and mid-nineteenth century England changed him somewhat, and he wasn’t really the same person any more. I’ve decided they’re related, by the way – the Victorian version is the many times great grandfather of the modern version; ask me and I can tell you the entire geneology.

Then I tried to put him into my mystery series. That worked for a time, but again I found the character adapting to the new set of circumstances I was creating so I changed his name and let him be his own person. He was going to anyway, no matter what I said, so instead of fighting him I just let nature (fiction?) take its course.

I wanted my poor, homeless (bookless?) character to be the hero of my book on culture shock, but that didn’t work at all. Just as the book didn’t do what I wanted, the hero of that book also had far more to say, and do, than I had meant him to, and they weren’t the right things for my still displaced character to say and do. He was completely wrong for that role and it didn’t take long for me to realize it.

But oddly enough, that was the book where he finally landed. Not as the hero, but as the hero’s mentor.  Suddenly, three quarters of the way through, without my knowing in advance that he was going to be there, my displaced character showed up and gave my hero the stern talking to he needed. They’re good friends now, and when I ever get around to writing a sequel to that one (it’s on the table – there are just several others in front of it – I think I need to learn to write with both sides of my brain at once) he’s got a firm place in it. Right from the beginning.

And I am left to wonder if he is the square peg, the round hole, or if I should just write the whole experience off as a parallelogram and be done with it?