From Placeholder to Perfect Fit: Developing a Character

As you know, I’m writing the final two chapters of “A Healing Love.” One of the concluding subplots in these chapters will involve two characters spending an afternoon with a photographer, having their photos taken at various locations around Westmouth and then at the photographer’s studio.

My original intention was to use this sequence to introduce a character I want to feature in a future book, specifically the photographer. I have the germ of an idea for a story—still very early in its development—where this photographer is asked to take wedding photos for someone from their past, despite clearly stating on their website that they don’t do weddings.

This would ultimately lead to a romance between the photographer and someone at the wedding (which they agree to do for a very, very hefty fee).

The photographer was initially envisioned as a man in his early thirties, who had travelled the world as a highly regarded photojournalist. He eventually settled in Westmouth, opening a portrait and boudoir studio to support his true passion: wildlife and landscape photography.

That was the core concept I had in my head.

But… the subplot of “A Healing Love” will involve this photographer having taken some ‘boudoir’ photos of one of the characters, and I don’t think this character would be comfortable with those types of photos being taken by a man, particularly an ‘older’ man (she’s 21). So let’s flip the gender—make the photographer a woman. That might even be interesting for the future story, too. It also provides me with an opportunity for a little bit of commentary on ‘unconscious sexism’ by having the other character (the one not already photographed) assume the photographer would be a man and express surprise when it isn’t.

I love a bit of social commentary.

Then it occurred to me that I already had a character from an earlier story who could be perfect for this role.

My “Ladz Local Lovelies” series of short stories offers a commentary on the “Lads Mags” culture of the 90s and 00s. In the series, “ordinary girls” send in candid photos of themselves to be published in the weekly magazine “Ladz,” and each week, one “lucky” girl is invited to participate in a professional shoot for the magazine.

I honestly can’t recall whether the actual Lads Mags of that time did this, but I do know that some “Top Shelf” magazines featured it in their “Reader’s Wives” section.

The series of four short stories, originally written for and sold to the “Ruthie’s Club” illustrated story website, showcased the adventures of four “ordinary girls” following the release of their professional shoot.

The first of these was “Laura.”

In the original version for Ruthie’s, she was a student at Leicester University. However, I later retconned the story so that she attended Westmouth Uni instead, bringing the entire series of stories into the Westmouth Universe.

In the universe, Laura’s story is set in 2008, while “A Healing Love” takes place in 2014. The short story does not specify what year of her course Laura was in, nor does it mention her age.

So I thought, what if…

What if Laura were in her final year, and after graduation, she leveraged her appearance in “Ladz” to model for a few years? And what if those years as a model sparked her interest in photography from the other side of the lens?

By the time the scene in which she’s set to appear in “A Healing Love” takes place, Laura will be in her mid-twenties. It’s entirely plausible that she is running a reasonably successful local photo studio in Westmouth at that age—primarily doing portrait work for individuals, collaborating with small local businesses, and offering “boudoir” shoots to local women.

In fact, having been on the other side of the lens would arguably make her ‘perfect’ for those types of sexy photoshoots with “ordinary” women of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Being in their mid-twenties is also an ideal age for characters in the erotic romance novel I aspire to write in the future.

So there you have it. My thought processes, which took what could have been a generic photographer character and evolved into a future version of an existing character from a short story written nearly twenty years ago.

It’s funny how the mind works when it’s being creative.