Characters Who Aren’t People: When Places Play a Role

Glenda Carroll in Conversation with Vera Chan

You’re reading over a draft of your book. You pause, scratch your head, and think, ‘this fictional café is taking over my story.” Then you decide, that’s not a bad thing.

Facebook Saturday Live kicks off the new year with “Characters Who Aren’t People: When Places Play a Role” or how to use location or activities as a character in your book. For example, does your protagonist spend time in the Emergency Room or racing sailboats or is she/he/they elbow deep in baking flour? What if the character lives in Amsterdam 1942, downtown Chicago in the 1920’s or south of the Border?

Glenda Carroll, author of the Trisha Carson mysteries, will be talking about how she uses non-people characters all the time, on the first Facebook Saturday Live in 2023.

Carroll’s mysteries are set in the tree-lined streets of Marin, the fog-covered Golden Gate Bridge and the ‘play ball’ atmosphere of Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. She thinks her settings often become as important as the real characters.

Carroll will be interviewed by Vera Chan, NorCal MWA Board Member.