Good writing tip
Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 2:49AM How do you make an invented character feel real? Often one is tempted to leave out how he or she earns a living but that’s a grave mistake. The wonderful Geoffrey Household- author of Rogue Male wrote in his autobiography, ''Against the Wind,'' published by Little, Brown in 1958, that in fiction as in life, people were unreal unless he knew how they earned their living. ''I define my hero's economic background as soon as possible,'' he said. ''Then I try to drive a sort of pilot tunnel through the underground darkness of my imagination. I never sit down to this with any real trust that it can be done at all.''
So cherchez the money not the woman. In fiction you might say where’s there’s brass there’s muck, or earth, the kind of earth from which your creations will grow.