Signs you might be a Declan Finn Character

Over at the Mad Genius Club, Sarah Hoyt put together a list of signs that you might be a fictional character.

I looked at that and thought -- hey, great idea! How can I steal -- I mean, adapt it?

Because her list doesn't exactly apply to my characters. Heh heh heh.  Let me show you a few things.

1. Your life is, for the most part, boring. Weeks can go by, and you're not doing anything that would interest anybody but yourself. Then, something strange and / or explody happens in the middle of one of your boring, mundane tasks.

-- I like giving my characters hobbies. And the majority of their time is boring. Heck, how much of the first part of the Pius Trilogy was just "Here's the Vatican, here's Vatican security, this is how our day-to-day is."

2.... is similar to Hoyt's, but I think I'll combine that with #10, because there are differences.

3. You have family. In fact, you might have a more complete family tree than some real people. In some cases, Mormon geneologists are blinking going "Um, no" at how far back you can trace your family tree.

--This might have to do with the fact that I had a Sean Patrick Ryan in the far future BEFORE I wrote It Was Only On Stun! or A Pius Anything, and there will be a lot of the family business going around. And because when I develop a character, I write their biography (see #10)

4. There is Something Very Wrong with you.

--Come now, surely you must have noticed that everybody I've written is a little off. The Ryan family likes being shot at. Marco might be a serial killer. Matthew Kovach has barely started yet. And the less said about Middle Earth's Most Wanted Elven Assassin, the better.  Why is this? you ask. Probably because most of the people I know in real life are a little off.

5. You're a little paranoid, and cynical that the world is out to get you ... because the world seems to be out to get you. If Murphy's Law is religion, you must be a saint.

-- This is what I call the Die Hard 2 effect.  Remember how, at the end of the second film, John McClane's wife asks, "Why does this keep happening to us?" Almost all of my characters will, at one point or other, stop reflect on their experiences, and go "Seriously, Murphy, stop."

6. Your love life is slow, and gradual, with sudden sharp peaks along the way.

--For those people who have read Honor at Stake, I don't like to rush my romance subplots ... or main plots ... or anything like that.  My characters don't ever, EVER, leap into bed with another person. Because, I'm sorry, people who screw on the first date make be seriously worry about them. Honestly, who does that?

7. You feel pain, and you get hurt, but only by certain people, and usually by the end of the adventure.

-- Because if I had all of my characters be easily injured by every bad guy, they probably wouldn't survive to the end of the novel. And I grew up playing video games, so .... BOSS FIGHT.


8. You don't let pain or injury bother you until later.

--Based mostly on the fact that there are a lot of guys out there in SpecOps who essentially run on adrenaline until after.  And then they feel it.  Oh boy do they feel it.


9. Expect to be locked in a room with someone with whom you will generate some sort of spark -- romantic or antagonistic, or something interesting.

--Because I grew up on The Prisoner and Babylon 5 (when J. Michael Straczysnki locks two people in an elevator, he really locks them in an elevator.)


#10.  You remember being shot at. A lot. And frequently.  And you remember all of them in insane detail.

--This is because some deranged nutcase can't start a backstory without writing a short story.