Back in junior college someone gave me the novel HAWAII to read claiming it was the best ever. I was excited to read it! However try as I might I just couldn't get into it. Many times as I sat reading a stranger would come up proclaiming it was by far the best novel they'd ever read.
Always I was tempted to reply, "This one, really?" I was bored out of my skull by that book! To me it was just one uninteresting story after another.
I'm not saying HAWAII isn't a great novel, it just wasn't to me. I've never been a big fan of fiction. It's fun to write but I don't like to read it. Plus everything is subjective. This isn't a one size fits all world!
Finally I decided I'd wasted enough of my life on it. I threw it aside never to return. By this time I'd left school and gone to work for my father. As to the person who lent it to me, we had a falling out that had been building for a long time.
One day I came across this book in a drawer and mailed it back to her without a note enclosed and probably too much postage.
The part of the novel where I stopped was the chapter in which the swashbuckling sea captain is heading for Hawaii planning to steal the minister's wife and claim her for his own.
Others have asked, "Weren't you curious?"
No, I didn't care! Geez, these weren't even real people! They were fictional characters!
A couple decades ago a World War II movie was released that depicted graphic re-enactments of the D-Day invasion. Some movie goers were sickened by the violent scenes. I went to see this film for myself. After viewing so many horror movies with people being ripped apart and eaten alive by zombies the sight of a soldier carrying his severed arm seemed tame to me.
Yes, I know one happened for real and was probably much worse than depicted and the other was just someone's dark fantasy. Yet, watching both up on screen it was all just play acting to me.
As a novelist myself I've come up with ways to create characters that are genuine to me. Often I use composites of people I've actually known. I'm familiar enough with their personalities to predict how they would behave in different situations.
As I sit down to write I can easily toss them into a story and slip in and out of their skin. Often while sitting at my dinner table eating I'll hear one of my characters shouting, sometimes swearing at me, "You need to rewrite that part! I would never do that!"
And I reply, "Yes you would, I know you too well. Cuss at me one more time and I'm going to kill you off! I'm going to laugh while I'm doing it!"
