What Doesn’t Kill You Can Go in Your Novel

They say “it takes all kinds” to make the world turn, but let’s face it: That motion could be a whole lot smoother without certain people around.

Like, I don’t know…

·         That person who doesn’t like you for no good reason, as far as you can tell

·         The boss who doesn’t give you a raise or bonus two years in a row without explanation

·         Your ex who really was a nice person but lacked the spine to be honest with himself so that he vacillated about the relationship every other day until you’re forced to break up with him on New Year’s Eve, ensuring an utterly miserable evening.

Not that I have anyone in particular in mind, of course…

Except that I do. Obviously. And yeah, I don’t care for the individuals described in bullet points one and two. As for the third example, well, I sincerely wish him the best despite how he could have saved us both a lot of trouble way back when by making up his mind one way or the other.

Life is filled with such annoyances. And there’s often nothing much to be done about them.

Unless, of course, you’re a writer.

One of the many beauties of writing stories is that you can take the kind of revenge on reality-inspired characters that you could never take in real life. Not to say I go around knee-capping my supervisors or burning down other antagonists’ houses with them in it. I could if I wanted to, but that’s probably going a bit too far. I don’t dislike them THAT much.

However, I have given one little letch I used to work with debilitating stomach cramps. Twice. That’s in “Maiden America.” I don’t regret doling out that batch of poison one bit.

And I portray politicians from both parties as conniving, arrogant lawbreakers with delusions of godhood in my upcoming Dirty Politics series. That round of venting felt pretty good too.

But above and beyond the emotional enjoyment of sticking it to the man or woman or group of people driving me crazy, I can use that real-world experience with negative factors to make my fiction more believable and ultimately entertaining and/or compelling.

Hence the reason why I wrote my dedication to “Maiden America” the way that I did:

This book goes out to the amazing individuals who listened to me 
blather on and on and on (and on) about how cool all my historical 
research on Princeton circa 1776 was. You know who you are!

And also to some particularly obnoxious people of my 
acquaintance, who made for amazingly easy models of irritating 
British officers. I could have done it without you guys, but it 
wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun.