Goodreads asked Hope C. Tarr:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Hope C. Tarr Alas, I don't have a very 'mysterious' life, I'm afraid. I do very much believe that we, as writers, graft on to our characters not specific experiences per se (tho sometime we do), so much as the emotional charge associated with those experiences and memories. In the course of my career, I've written about dashing pirates and brave soldiers, prostitutes and princesses--and a gamut of characters between. Apart from the 'brave soldiers,' I don't know m/any of the aforementioned. But like all of us, I do know what it feels like to love someone who doesn't (seem to) return that sentiment, to want something or someone so badly that it's blinded me to the richness of blessings already in hand, and to crawl out of the darkness resident inside us all and climb spindle by spindle toward the light. Mysterious? Not hardly. Human--yes, most definitely. If we can write characters that let the reader connect to their humanity, embrace their darkness and their light, and do so in engaging and authentic ways, then we as authors have done our job and done it well.

flag