How to build a 3D character for your novel.
Tags: Writing, Storytelling, Fiction, Fiction Writing, Novel Writing

Sociological influences:

Hanna grew up on an Caribbean island. (I have to write what I know right?) She’s half Indian, half American. Her father grew up in a small city in Florida and met her mother on a family vacation when he had just turned 21.

Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the Carnival, Maybe it was the rum. She was conceived on a hotel bed on a tiny island North of Venezuela.

Her father never knew her. He returned to the USA with fond memories and bright future that found him practicing dentistry in his own office going through one wife, two dogs, three children, one gold fish and a garter snake named Herman. He passes uneventfully out of the story, his only contribution being Hanna’s startling translucent gray eyes.

Back on the island, Hanna’s mother soon discovered she’d missed a period…or two.

The family was staunchly Catholic, and Hanna was born quietly in a hospital with peeling paint that smelt strongly of black disinfectant and had no air conditioning. That’s the way it was in those days, and still is in some parts of the Caribbean.

Island rhythms run strong in her blood, to this day, Hanna can’t help herself, she will dance anywhere music takes her. If you ever see her dancing, it’s sweaty, sinuous and seductive. Music possesses her, takes control of her arms and waist and feet.

Even as a child Hanna had a way with little beings. Children and dogs gravitated to her. Her mother, Mavis, still talks about the day the neighbors pit bull escaped into the street. He chased cars and pedestrians, and raised holy hell and found himself in their front yard where Hanna played as a child.

Mavis still recalls the terror she felt as Hanna walked right up to the raging animal and lifted her tiny hands to touch his snarling maw. And before Mavis’ eyes, the brute bowed his head and began whimpering for joy. And in moments the two of them, toddler and terrier, were rolling in the grass, playing and laughing. The neighbor couldn’t believe his eyes either.

Fast forward to University. Fearing Math, she decided she wanted to teach. She spent endless days poring over books and long nights dancing and teasing the goofs and geeks that filled her classrooms. Then one day she stood in front of a roomful of children and she knew this was exactly where she needed to be. The pay was shit. The hours were shittier. Parents, Principals, and little people, time passed till she found herself, still childless at 42 years of age.

There were men, sure, there were plenty of men who wanted nothing more than a few nights with her, perspiring under her sheets. Most she blew off with an airy smile and a hair toss. But there was one she loved: Matthew.

The moment they met, they were inseparable. They’d moved in together, his friends were her friends. His dog -Jake, took one look at her and decided he never wanted to leave her side. Same thing happened to Matt. And then, one sunny day in the month of June, Matthew and Jake took a trip to the grocery store. A truck came out of nowhere. Neither of them returned.

She grieved for two years and almost eight months. When they recovered the bodies, Matt had a little jewelers’ box in his pocket. In it, there was a ring. Hanna still wears it around her neck on a chain.