#GuestPost - How Real Are My Characters? by @NancyLiPetri #Author of Lake to Coast Series

About the Book:

Nancy LiPetri now writes in south Florida, after living on Lake Norman, North Carolina, for fourteen years. A fan of realistic fiction that lets you experience a destination along with relationship drama, she wrote her first novel, The Wooded Path, to share the town of Mooresville on Lake Norman, its culture, seasons and lake life as realistic neighbors react in different ways to a tragedy.
Her writing brings the Carolinas to life with familiar names and facts and she also shares her photography from the area on a Lake Norman Board.
Her stories also reveal fascination with psychology and the power of the subconscious. Her characters find themselves struggling with dark thoughts, confusion and temptations. What will they dare to share and act upon? Common themes to The Wooded Path and Across the Lake are infidelity, mortality, morality, and love of all kinds. Content is adult; romance may get steamy yet not graphic. Nancy’s writing has been called vivid, unflinching, realistic and relatable.
She hopes her various characters will reassure readers they are not alone in their secret dilemmas. Readers are bound to recognize a bit of themselves or a friend in the cast of characters. Above all, her stories are intended to entertain with short chapters that keep you flipping pages.
When she’s not at her desk writing with the help of her two cats, and when not having to “social distance” you’ll find her at the beach (often with camera), practicing yoga with neighbor pals and working on her game with the pickleball club (she and hubby play some mean mixed doubles). She also enjoys connecting with fellow wildlife enthusiasts, friends, and readers on social media. Stop by her Facebook and say Hi.  

Nancy on the Web:
Website * Facebook * Pinterest * Instagram * Twitter * Goodreads * Amazon

How Real Are My Characters?

Readers often ask which characters in my books are real. I admit, as a reader I do it too—I find myself guessing which of other authors’ characters are like the writer or someone they know. However, unless the story is called a memoir, most writers of fiction are careful not to make any one character too much like a real person.

I do like to pull traits from real people into each of my characters just to get them started, and then I let the dynamics of the tale grow the fictional person into a unique being. The real person doesn’t even have to be anyone I know well, could be simply someone I observed in a store or some other public place (Laine was inspired by a woman at my old fitness club). With my first novel involving a bunco group, it was natural that my real-life bunco pals would look for themselves in the story. Even though one drove a boat and mixed drinks, another took photos for the group...none had more than a trait or two that wasn’t pure imagination. And as characters develop later in the first novel or in some cases, in other books in the series, their dramas are a result of their purely fictional world.

One reason I like to write is to show others they aren’t alone in their personal thoughts and dilemmas. My characters are often more daring than we are in polite life, daring to share about sex or guilt or whatever you might keep to yourself. I let my characters reveal different perspectives (although I don’t let them bring up politics). I try to capture that people are not usually black-and-white and shouldn’t be judged on a first impression, that we’re all multi-faceted and thus more interesting than stereotypes. I might introduce a character as the way she or he is first perceived by another character, then peel back the layers through the story.

An author friend recently posted that he honored a friend who has passed, in a character who is a doctor in his novel. Another honors her grandson in fictional context. I too have honored real people in my stories, but it doesn’t mean any one character is a particular person. In fact, I enjoyed immortalizing some of my own late parents in tidbits, and Book Two holds special meaning for me because there’s some of my late son in a landscaper/musician’s callused hands...what was said about blues guitar...a humorous quote here and there...

So remember, just because someone drives a boat or plays guitar like the real person did, or is a copywriter who lived on Lake Norman, doesn’t mean the character has anything more in common with real life. Also, just because a character says or does something you wonder if you once told me, ask yourself if it’s possible I know anyone else who could say or do it. Most of us really aren’t as unique as we think we are.

All that said, if I turn to you and say, usually amid much laughter, “You KNOW that’s gotta go into a story!” then that’s how you end up with a true personal connection to a character.

And now I have a Florida friend who keeps telling me, “Hey I’m available for a cameo in Book Three!” Be careful what you wish for.  

About the Book:

In this sequel to The Wooded Path, the character you least expect to return is back, experiencing lake life a whole new way. She’s pushing boundaries. Not worried about fitting in.
And she can’t believe what she discovers.
The second book in the Lake To Coast Series, the story can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, but readers of the first book will find extra fun in the dynamics between the old and new protagonists, comparing the neighborhood styles on opposite sides of the lake, and in knowing more about the backgrounds of other characters that are further developed.
Across the Lake reveals more secrets in the close-knit community on Lake Norman and also takes readers through Spanish moss and salt spray to the famed Outer Banks of North Carolina. Romantic tensions get steamier and relationship complexities come to light on a “what happens here, stays here” getaway.
Meanwhile, a scandal continues to simmer, begging to be sorted out...but at what cost?
Will Kat find what she’s looking for on Lake Norman or on Ocracoke Island?

Book Links:
Goodreads * Amazon