Have Aliens Beamed Down Into Your Novel?

Sometimes people write to find out what happened to characters in my novels after The End.  It sounds strange, but I know what all of them have gone on to do - although none of their continuing stories have been interesting enough for me to make into an new novel.  But when you're writing a novel it's much more important to know what had been happening to the characters before the start of the novel.  

Another common problem in the 40 first pages I read at the weekend was that characters appeared to have beamed down from outer space into the story.  They'd been hanging around like featureless homunculi ready for some alien force to dump them into the action.  They had no pasts or presents, only futures.  

I'm a real person.  As I'm sitting typing this I'm thinking obviously about the blog post.  But at the back of my mind I'm thinking about last Saturday's event, and the couple of first pages that had characters that were tabula rasas and how I explained the alien concept to the writers.  I'm also aware that my partner's going to pitch up quite soon.  Later on, I need to make a few phone calls.  Oh, and there'll be some writing to do - I've got a tricky scene to get stuck into. So all this is bubbling away in my head as I type.  If a letter arrived now announcing that I've inherited a million pounds...

Yes, the stuff that's bubbling away now would be put on hold for a bit, but it's still there.  My life exists independently of the exciting bits.  The same is true for characters.  They have to have stuff bubbling away, plans that they're making for the future, thinking over things in the past.  It doesn't have to be on a grand scale - perhaps this is where knowing what a character had for breakfast could come in handy - but it has to be there to make the character appear to have a life outside the story.  

It's this life outside the novel that makes character appear real.  

Anyone in St Ives for the September Festival?  I'm giving a talk on Friday 23rd September at 11.00 am in St Ives Library.  Go to the website for more info.