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THE CHARACTERSThe main character, Max, follows a conventional path to becoming a German naval officer. While he is brave and professionally competent, he does the kinds of annoying things we all do: he says things he wished he hadn't, he argues with his fiancée, he trips over his sword while dressing and hits his head which puts him in a foul mood. I wanted the characters to be real, not cardboard cut-outs of stereotypes. And doing that takes a while. One of things I did was write an essay on each character. Then I developed a family tree back two or three generations even though I didn't use those facts in the narrative. That gave me a very good sense of the characters and what the major influences were on their lives and the lives of their parents, etc., since those are the things that make us who we are. There were also characters that I created who never made it into the narrative because their scenes got cut. Characters grow and change over time, and as they do they hijack the novel and take it places you never thought about. The reason is, as I write about the characters and I learn more about them, there come times in the narrative where some action I had planned for them is "out of character." So I had to change the character or change the scene. It's one of the reasons I don't write from a detailed outline. I know where I'm trying to go and I let the characters take me there in their own way. While every character has something of me in them, and how could it be otherwise, I'm not the main character or any of the other characters. |
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 Copyright © 2009–2011, Charles McCain. Questions/Comments contact info@charlesmccain.com. |
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Charles McCain is a lifelong student of 20th Century military and maritime history. He grew up in South Carolina and is a graduate of Tulane University. His first novel, An Honorable German, a World War Two naval epic told from the point of a German U-boat commander, was published in 2009. Prior to becoming a full time writer, Mr. McCain spent twenty-three years in the financial services industry. Having survived a bout with cancer, Mr. McCain is now at work on a second novel. He lives in Washington, DC.
