We authors tend to have varied backgrounds and degrees.  And it just so happens, I have an MA in Theater from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, as well as an undergrad degree in Fine Arts: Theater from the College of Charleston.

Lately, interviewers have been asking about my background in theater and how it influences my writing.  So I decided perhaps it’s time to delve into that deeper, devoting an entire blog to the subject of how acting classes affect the way I build characters in a novel.

In the early twentieth century, acting styles were revolutionized by a Russian actor and theater director named Constantin Stanislavski.  He stressed the importance of accessing a memory that would evoke/relay an emotion on stage.  (That’s vastly oversimplifying his work, but I don’t want to put you all to sleep!  So hang with me here.)

I particularly enjoy digging deeply into the childhoods of my characters to find those memories that defined who they became.  Tapping into those memories can make them vulnerable and more emotionally accessible to the reader, even when they are keeping themselves closed off from the other characters in the story.

For example, in Hot Zone, our big, bad ass, invulnerable hero Hugh is an Air Force pararescueman.  He has crawled between layers of collapsed concrete to save earthquake survivors, in particular our heroine Amelia and her one-year-old nephew Joshua.  Hugh is superhero material to the nth degree.

But what makes him accessible?  Vulnerable?  Heart tugging?

Here’s a brief excerpt where Hugh is trying to calm Amelia by keeping her talking:

“Hugh, what makes you do something like this for a living? I can’t imagine anybody willingly coming down here.”

“What can I say?” He settled onto his side, stowing his gear. “I was the kid who climbed trees to rescue stranded cats.”

“No kidding?” She grasped at the piece of normalcy.

“When I was seven, the neighbor’s Siamese got stuck in a big old oak. The family called the fire department, but it was going to take a while for them to get there because of a three-alarm blaze on the other side of town.”

His smooth-as-bourbon smooth bass voice filled the cave with an intoxicating calm. “The neighbor girl was bawling her eyes out. So I figured, why wait? I’d climbed that tree a hundred times.”

His story wrapped around her, sinking into her pores and transporting her to the world beyond this murky gray hell, a world with leafy green trees and fuzzy kittens.

“I’ll bet the neighbor girl was glad to have her pet back.”

“Oh, I didn’t save her Siamese. The cat climbed down on its own.” He chuckled softly. “I got stuck when my jacket snagged on a branch and the fire department had to rescue me.”

She laughed with him—how could she not?—until her eyes stung with tears and she choked on the thick air. “You’re making that up to distract me.”

“Not a chance. I was scared to death up there. Cried like a baby, when I got to solid ground again.” A half smile dug a crease into the dirt on his rugged face. “The little kid had her cat back and looked at the firefighter like he was a god.”

“Ahhh,” she smiled, realizing…. “You had a crush on the neighbor girl.”

He didn’t answer right away.  The dull throb of distant engines filled the void.

“Yeah.” His voice went flat, the smooth bourbon tones turning gravelly.

The kicker here?  This memory is about the woman the hero eventually married, but now the hero’s wife and daughter are dead.  From that memory he shared to try and calm the heroine, we (the readers) have accessed a lot of information and vulnerability from a hero who keeps himself closed off from the world.

And so, that concludes my Memories 101 blog for today!  Thanks for hanging out with me here.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from readers and other writers.

The holidays in particular bring back memories for many people.  What’s one of your favorite holiday memories?

[Ed. Be sure to leave a meaningful comment for Catherine today – two copies of Hot Zone are up for grabs! US and Canada only, please.]