When creating a jumble of characters and their peculiarities, I often base the entity and traits on self, or people/personalities I’ve had the pleasure—or not—of meeting while navigating life’s many tributaries. Friends. Family. Acquaintances. Animals. I adore this unrivalled chance to conjure up all manner of weird and wacky souls and mould them into the plot as I see fit. Writing magics up a melange of emotions and giving characters depth, substance, heart, and soul lets me hold court. Editing delves deeper into that creativity, bringing the manuscript to life on every page.

Of course, characters habitually resist what I have planned for them. Oh, they can be wilful. Ruthless. Downright nasty, even. Wenark’s feature-length debut, Deadly Dough, beautifully fits this paradigm. A hotchpotch of canny characters, each with their own brand of fancies and foibles, right down to Mr Quince, the huge, fluffy, inimitable pub cat. We likened him to Macavity, the Mystery Cat—aka the Hidden Paw—from TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, yet Quincy’s as different from Macavity as he is comparable. He’s even a suspect in Deadly Dough, believed to be harbouring vital DNA on his fur and whiskers. Mr Q reminds Wen & Ark of Craig David. Not the singer, but a real pub cat who frequented a drinking hole in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE England. CD’s gone now, bless him, but he’s one memorable character we’ll never forget. Mr Quince carries that quality too.

And now, to this ‘canny’ word. What does it mean? In its literal sense:

1.     Having or showing shrewdness and good judgment, especially in money or business matters.

2.     Northern English, Scottish—pleasant, nice. Kind-hearted and genuine.

3.     Wily. A charlatan. Sly. 

As a plotter, writer, editor, and word freak, I look at this definition and think, yes. A few of Wenark Green’s characters have one of those traits. Others, two, and a handful of our rich cast, the multi-faceted types, bear all three.

Writing memorable characters is an art. No reader wants to see one-dimensional folk, with a lack of substance, grit, and purpose. Readers want characters they can love. Hate. Cry with. Scream with. Despair at. Laugh with. Fuss and fawn over. Root for. Succeed with. Help. Grieve with. Share happy times with. Give hope to. Cheer on and champion. The list goes on and on, but, ultimately, for whatever reason(s), readers want to invest in an author’s characters and become part of their world. I love to wrap myself up in a character’s nuances and keep them under my pillow if they’re warming and wonderful, or dump them in a septic tank if they’re vile and obnoxious.

But, creating characters that resonate and wriggle under readers’ skins can be a tough ask. Readers can be so contrary. I should know. I am one, as is my best friend and writing partner. The pair of us can be a pair of fickle fusspots when it comes to liking a book’s cast. We don’t even like some of our own!

Take Ross Pengelly and Annie Clegg in Deadly Dough. He’s a would-be alpha male who says and does all the wrong things, and she’s a horrid harpy with a monstrous overbite and as much charm as a boa constrictor. Both definite 1s on the canny scale. Then along comes Brian Longbottom, the mushroom-foraging, red-haired whinger in our current WIP, Fatal Fungus. He’s a 2, although, where money’s concerned, he’s more stingy than shrewd.

Me and Ark had fun-fun-fun generating AI images of characters from our first two mysteries, which we’ve showcased here. They aren’t final images, more a ‘you get the idea’ type of vibe. Of course, the Windy & Darling cosy mysteries wouldn’t live and breathe without WinDarl themselves, our idiosyncratic protagonists, each with more character than a Dickens’ novel.  

First, a guide to Jon Marcus Windup, aka Windy, the geeky, dessert-loving Mapman who’s a sucker for country life, but lives in town. He’s Aries. An environmental scientist. Is nuts about space, roads, electric pylons, and cats, and often eats double his body weight in cake and chocolate. He’s a wizard of wacky words and fishy facts, steadily single, and, if you hand him a box of double-chocolate chip cookies, he’ll show you how to fold a whopping big map in less than ten seconds, in a dark room, while blindfolded.

Next, ‘tis Wendy May, aka Darling, the odd-eyed, feisty crusader and lawyer turned writer/editor. She’s Sagittarius. Exclusively single. Is nuts about books, hats, animals, and soapbox demos, where she often gives the lawdown in one of her reasonable rants for social and animal justice. She can sink countless cups of coffee without bouncing off the ceiling, likens people to punctuation marks, is a genius at wordplay, and, if you treat her to a bottle of ravishing red, she’ll explain the difference between an anagram, aptagram, and acrostic.

On the canny character scale, our two amateur sleuths are a combined 4. (That’s 2 picks out of 3 each. The first two on the scale, not the third.) With half the number and age of The Thursday Murder Club, but double the eccentricities, Windy & Darling are polar opposites, but Zen connected. Two canny characters? Always and indeedy!

After while.

Wen x

When creating a jumble of characters and their peculiarities, I often base the entity and traits on self, or people/personalities I’ve had the pleasure—or not—of meeting while navigating life’s many tributaries. Friends. Family. Acquaintances. Animals. I adore this unrivalled chance to conjure up all manner of weird and wacky souls and mould them into the plot as I see fit. Writing magics up a melange of emotions and giving characters depth, substance, heart, and soul lets me hold court. Editing delves deeper into that creativity, bringing the manuscript to life on every page.

Of course, characters habitually resist what I have planned for them. Oh, they can be wilful. Ruthless. Downright nasty, even. Wenark’s feature-length debut, Deadly Dough, beautifully fits this paradigm. A hotchpotch of canny characters, each with their own brand of fancies and foibles, right down to Mr Quince, the huge, fluffy, inimitable pub cat. We likened him to Macavity, the Mystery Cat—aka the Hidden Paw—from TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, yet Quincy’s as different from Macavity as he is comparable. He’s even a suspect in Deadly Dough, believed to be harbouring vital DNA on his fur and whiskers. Mr Q reminds Wen & Ark of Craig David. Not the singer, but a real pub cat who frequented a drinking hole in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE England. CD’s gone now, bless him, but he’s one memorable character we’ll never forget. Mr Quince carries that quality too.

And now, to this ‘canny’ word. What does it mean? In its literal sense:

1.     Having or showing shrewdness and good judgment, especially in money or business matters.

2.     Northern English, Scottish—pleasant, nice. Kind-hearted and genuine.

3.     Wily. A charlatan. Sly. 

As a plotter, writer, editor, and word freak, I look at this definition and think, yes. A few of Wenark Green’s characters have one of those traits. Others, two, and a handful of our rich cast, the multi-faceted types, bear all three.

Writing memorable characters is an art. No reader wants to see one-dimensional folk, with a lack of substance, grit, and purpose. Readers want characters they can love. Hate. Cry with. Scream with. Despair at. Laugh with. Fuss and fawn over. Root for. Succeed with. Help. Grieve with. Share happy times with. Give hope to. Cheer on and champion. The list goes on and on, but, ultimately, for whatever reason(s), readers want to invest in an author’s characters and become part of their world. I love to wrap myself up in a character’s nuances and keep them under my pillow if they’re warming and wonderful, or dump them in a septic tank if they’re vile and obnoxious.

But, creating characters that resonate and wriggle under readers’ skins can be a tough ask. Readers can be so contrary. I should know. I am one, as is my best friend and writing partner. The pair of us can be a pair of fickle fusspots when it comes to liking a book’s cast. We don’t even like some of our own!

Take Ross Pengelly and Annie Clegg in Deadly Dough. He’s a would-be alpha male who says and does all the wrong things, and she’s a horrid harpy with a monstrous overbite and as much charm as a boa constrictor. Both definite 1s on the canny scale. Then along comes Brian Longbottom, the mushroom-foraging, red-haired whinger in our current WIP, Fatal Fungus. He’s a 2, although, where money’s concerned, he’s more stingy than shrewd.

Me and Ark had fun-fun-fun generating AI images of characters from our first two mysteries, which we’ve showcased here. They aren’t final images, more a ‘you get the idea’ type of vibe. Of course, the Windy & Darling cosy mysteries wouldn’t live and breathe without WinDarl themselves, our idiosyncratic protagonists, each with more character than a Dickens’ novel.  

First, a guide to Jon Marcus Windup, aka Windy, the geeky, dessert-loving Mapman who’s a sucker for country life, but lives in town. He’s Aries. An environmental scientist. Is nuts about space, roads, electric pylons, and cats, and often eats double his body weight in cake and chocolate. He’s a wizard of wacky words and fishy facts, steadily single, and, if you hand him a box of double-chocolate chip cookies, he’ll show you how to fold a whopping big map in less than ten seconds, in a dark room, while blindfolded.

Next, ‘tis Wendy May, aka Darling, the odd-eyed, feisty crusader and lawyer turned writer/editor. She’s Sagittarius. Exclusively single. Is nuts about books, hats, animals, and soapbox demos, where she often gives the lawdown in one of her reasonable rants for social and animal justice. She can sink countless cups of coffee without bouncing off the ceiling, likens people to punctuation marks, is a genius at wordplay, and, if you treat her to a bottle of ravishing red, she’ll explain the difference between an anagram, aptagram, and acrostic.

On the canny character scale, our two amateur sleuths are a combined 4. (That’s 2 picks out of 3 each. The first two on the scale, not the third.) With half the number and age of The Thursday Murder Club, but double the eccentricities, Windy & Darling are polar opposites, but Zen connected. Two canny characters? Always and indeedy!

After while.

Wen x