Creative Inspiration

One of the challenges in writing fiction is to create good characters. It is not uncommon to meet someone and think that would be an interesting character. What makes a character standout from the crowd? (Of course there are very good novels where the character is lost in the crowd, and that is a different kind of novel.) Usually there is a personal tic or quality in a character that draws my attention.

A friend recently suggested that he may have found the ultimate character for a novel. The novel is about the man who loves cats and is trying to kick a drug habit. One day, though, he’s in the midst of withdrawal and the straw comes out of nowhere and before it knows it, the cat doesn’t stand a chance.