Carolyn Crane – Guest Post with the Author

A confession about my characters’ homes!

So, I am terrible at keeping a nice house, or even decorating. I have this friend who is an interior designer, and I love going over there. Her place is so nice. And, crazy as it seems, in my day job, I sometimes get assignments to write about interior design, as though I’m some sort of authority on it, and I’m SO not!! Sometimes I secretly think, if you could see my place, you would never pay me to write this article.

So it was funny when I realized the other day that I live vicariously through my characters, giving them the places I want to live in so badly. Some authors live through their characters for adventure – they bravely go where the writer only dreams of going, fighting monsters and demons. Other authors live through their characters with romance, being swept off their feet by a fantasy hero or heroine, and having fun imagining that.

I give my characters the homes I long for. I looked at all my books, and all my people have homes I want to live in! I’m really careful about giving my characters their own personalities, and their own clothes and lives, and not making them my surrogates. So, I was sort of surprised when I realized give them my dream décor. It’s kind of funny.

In the Disillusionists, Otto has the coolest home that I want to live in. The description:

Bright, blocky, comfortable-looking furniture and rugs provide splashes of color, but the amazing thing is the woodwork. Nearly every wooden surface—walls, pillars, doors—is carved with elaborate patterns and scenes of leaves, creatures, even faces.

…and later

Shelby strolls across the bright oriental rugs to the far wall, touches a large oil painting Otto recently acquired. Otto tends toward magical realism in his art tastes. Forests and winged beasts.

Packard gets the cool home in Double Cross. I’ve always wanted a spacious place like this:

…the brightest, airiest living space you could ever imagine—a fishbowl, really, with more windows than walls, more skylight than ceiling, and more porch footage than interior footage.
In Mr. Real, my heroine’s décor is how I sort of want mine to be. I am so living vicariously through her.

Little by little, she was collecting old pictures and furniture, refinishing stuff in the basement. The mission-style couch and chair were just right—classic, comfy, and sturdy. She’d also found a fabulous marble coffee table, some brightly painted bird statuettes, and lots of tropical-looking plants.

I have another pen name, Annika, who writes about Bank Robbers. Their décor is the coolest:

My bandits’ hideout was a mod glass and stone home nestled into a hill … the interior was full of colorful furniture and modern art and books, and white paper lanterns and a fireplace where the fire was in a strip behind blue glass. It was more whimsical than I’d imagined. It was gorgeous.

Do you see a theme? Bright, colorful furniture, plenty of art, sort of mod stuff. Maybe I need to pay more attention to my own home, and then my characters can get their own personal styles!

I think, in every book, some bit of the author’s own dreams seeps in, and this is one place for me. I was surprised when I noticed.

Question: If you wrote a story (or, for you writers, in the stories you write) is there some little dream of yours that may slip in? The clothes you wish you had, the car, the jet-setting lifestyle, the cool home, the awesome abilities? Let me know! I’ll pick one commenter to win an ebook of Mr. Real!

BIO:  

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