When I started writing Jane, I had some extra motivation and a few role models.  I didn’t want to get on the other side of a lawsuit so I made some creative adjustments to her attributes, behaviors and tried like hell to make her SO bad, that no one could accuse me of basing her off a real person. 

Come on writers, even if you have not succumbed to the desire to kill off someone you know through your writing, you have at least considered it.  What good is it to be the god of the page unless you can smite a few or at least turn someone into a pillar of salt.  Ok, I write thrillers so I get to kill ‘em in very interesting ways.  Actually, one of the more difficult tasks is coming up with new ways to do it.  I love the moment I come up with those “new” ideas because I can hop on-line and absolutely freak out my friends who often either avoid me for a bit or offer up copious gratuitous praise to avoid being a test candidate.  Heck folks, go back on the blog and read the post with “…and DIDN’T BECOME A SERIAL KILLER”. It is FICTION folks, I have never killed anyone, “you know professionally”, one of the best lines from “The Whole Nine Yards”.

I try to write killings that are so off the charts that they are unlikely to be something I did, “you know professionally”.  I also tried to write the ever so evil Jane Jordan as an impossibly nasty woman.  Sure, I have had my share of experiences with evil woman (and a few men too), but I didn’t want one of them coming after me with a knife again.  Did you laugh, well, one did try that once.  Life is odder than fiction, which is where I am going with this.

I created Jane from two sources, the first I chronicled in the recent posts reviewing Stephen King’s “On Writing” book.  The essential rules for Jane were laid down by the assignment in the “On Writing” book, but it was left to me to decide Jane’s back-story and how she treats the world.  I thought it would be fun to make her so arch and evil that no one would believe it.  I went wild for Jane’s part in Intervention (the script) and I have so much more back-story for the novel.  I was able to really stretch my legs on that. 

I finished the script for Intervention and Jane’s core personality more than a year ago, and I had the chance to hand it out to some readers.  It is being serialized in this blog, go take a peek to see a “real bitch on wheels”. I have the original short story for her as well and if I get enough requests I will post it here in its entirety (shameless request for comments begging to read it, take note please all you people pleasers out there.)  My biggest concern for Jane was that I had made her SO MEAN and horrid that readers wouldn’t believe it was real enough. 

I left her terrible and sent her out via script.  The thing that stunned me was I started getting calls, texts and pings from readers saying, “Dude (yes some call me dude even at my advanced age) Dude, I didn’t know that you knew Susan, my brothers wife” or “That is just like my cousin Cindy” or “Man my ex-wife is going to be so pissed you modeled so closely after her, you have to change her hair and make her take drugs instead of being a drunk.”  I learned some lessons, there are some really awful relationships out there, it is hard to write a villain too mean (see Jeffery Dahmer et-al for real world confirmation of that) and I worry too much when I should just let the characters in the story go it’s path and trust that to come out well. 

As I write the novel version of “Intervention” right here, please let me know if I am too easy on Jane.  I can’t promise to put in every evil idea you have, but I will read them all with glee.

It’s all part of the process.

Write On

Plot Dog