Keeping Track of My Characters
When I started writing Home to Beulah two years ago, I had no idea it would turn into a series. And whenever I encountered a plot twist (or three) in a book I was reading, I would think to myself, "How on earth does the author think of these things?"
Well, now I know. Having just published my third Home to Beulah mystery, The Murder of Rhoda Jones, I have all kinds of ideas swirling in my brain. And (of course) the characters start having lively conversations just as I'm trying to go to sleep. I figure I have enough ideas for another two or three books, as well as some short stories.
When I was about halfway through Home to Beulah, I realized that I needed some way to keep track of characters and events. I didn't want to tell the reader that someone was born in 1879, and several pages later have a different year of birth. So the first thing I came up with was a timeline:
This helps me keep track of when, where and who were active in the story. But it didn't really show the characters' relationships with each other, so I started a private "Home to Beulah" family tree on Ancestry:
Here is part of Sophie's family tree; she appears in the second book, North to Naubinway. I'm not showing her mother's side, because that would reveal Sophie's husband and children. Her husband is introduced in The Murder of Rhoda Jones, and her children in the fourth book that's in process.
For the main characters, I've created birth and death dates and places:
While Grace was the leading character in Home to Beulah, and Sophie was the leading character in North to Naubinway and The Murder of Rhoda Jones, Grace's best friend Chloe is (so far) the leading character in the book I'm writing now. One (or two) of the plot twists involves her ancestry, so I used Scapple to sketch a family tree for her:
You may be wondering why two characters are highlighted in blue and pink. Well, as the saying goes, that's for me to know, and you to find out!
(Characters' names may be changed up to 5 minutes before publication.)