APRIL HENRY, WRITER
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    • In the name of research
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      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
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    • Goodbye, 2021
    • How my Apple watch saved my life
    • Masks for Covid-19
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • In the Blood
      • When We Go Missing (May 2025)
      • Stay Dead
      • Girl Forgotten
      • Two Truths and a Lie
      • Eyes of the Forest
      • Playing with Fire
      • The Girl in the White Van
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • The Lonely Dead
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
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    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
  • Fun
    • FAQ
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • How to get an agent
    • Videos with writing tips
    • Writers writing during Covid-19
    • Tips for writers
    • Story starters
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • Need to create a fake social media profile?
    • How to start a new book
    • My daughter is 14 - how can she be published?
    • I'm a teen writer-can you give me feedback?
    • Publications for teen writers
    • Student Writing
    • How to get it right
    • Questions about writing from two teens
    • Should I pay to be published?
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Stealing from Myself to Create a Character

Picture
Written for Amazon in January 2001

When I created the character of Claire Montrose in my first mystery novel, Circles of Confusion, I didn't realize that through her I would explore my own insecurities.

I did know that I didn't want to create a perfect person who knew French and jujitsu, who could hack into a computer with one hand tied behind her back, and who not only knew what Manolo Blahnik shoes were and why they were important, but who also owned two dozen pairs.

Instead, I wanted to write about a real person. Someone who's smart but who never went to college. Someone who knows only a little about everything, feeling like they are always trying to catch up. Someone who likes junk food and has to work hard to not gain weight. Claire doesn't believe you should always think before you act, and thus she runs the risk of looking foolish—or of getting herself into deeper trouble.

In Square in the Face, the second book in the series, Claire has to face up to some of her own insecurities when she is around her boyfriend's friends, a group who grew up with trust funds and private schools. But Claire holds her own. In Heart-Shaped Box, I sent Claire to that place guaranteed to trigger insecurity in most people: the 20th high school reunion.

Like many writers, I use a lot of my own "back story" for my main character's past. Claire and I have had some of the same jobs, although I've never been a vanity license plate verifier like Claire. Claire grew up in hand-me-downs, same as I did. Like Claire, I know what its like to grow up poor, although Claire's life lacked the certainty that mine always had. I had two loving parents. Claire was born to a scatterbrained unwed 16-year-old. Even as a child, Claire was often more mature than her mother. I knew we would always have food on the table for dinner, and Claire didn't even have that certainty. Still, as a child I knew there wasn't money for things, and decided it was better not to ask. At the beginning of each school year, we each got one pair of shoes from Kinneys. But cheap shoes aren't made to be worn day in and day out. I used to take the little orange cardboard checkout slips from library books and (cover your eyes, librarians!) put them in my shoes to patch over the holes in the soles.

In elementary school, popularity seemed based on who could play four-square the best or throw a ball the furthest. I am so uncoordinated that my natural response to anything being thrown at me—keys, balls of all sorts—is to duck. As I got older, being popular was almost synonymous with having money—money to go on out-of-state vacations, money to buy the coolest clothes, money to pay for horse-riding lessons or ski trips. When I was a teenager, I was hyperaware of my big vocabulary, thick glasses, deep voice and skinny frame. As an adult, I feel intimidated when other people quote French or Latin, or refer knowingly to Boswell, Madame Bovary and Nabakov. I worked my way through college, and spent more time trying to figure out how I could get more sleep than I did on learning the classics.

Now I'm successful. I've got a college degree. I make more money than my hard-working parents ever did. On the inside, though, there are days when I still feel uneducated, uncoordinated, unsophisticated. Writing about Claire gives me permission to explore those feelings—and even resolve them. Writing about Claire gives me a way to explore these feelings and even have fun with them. In September, I flew to California. After the plane landed, everyone crowded into the aisle. As I pushed my armed through the sleeve of my coat, I accidentally groped a man standing in the aisle. I apologized. He blushed. And as I walked down the ramp, I was already planning on having the same thing happen to Claire, and I was able to laugh at myself. Writers steal from themselves and call it fiction.

I'm never going to be sophisticated. Like Claire, I'll probably always spill things on my clothes, have hair that refuses to behave, and never get around to reading Sartre. So what? The older I get, the more I realize that everyone is trying to fit in. At some point, everyone feels alone and outcast.

I recently read about something called the 20-40-60 rule. When you're twenty, you know that everyone is looking at you and judging you. When you're forty, you decide you don't care. And when you're sixty, you realize they were never really looking at you in the first place.



  • Home
  • Past News
  • Bio
    • In the name of research
    • Why I write scary things
    • Roald Dahl Made Me a Writer
    • Fun Facts about April
    • My Parents >
      • My Dad, Hank Henry >
        • Witnessing Nat King Cole's Greatest Hit
      • My Mom, Nora Henry >
        • My Mom and the Round Rock
    • My great-grandfather, the killer
    • I come from a long line of criminals
    • Questions teachers often assign
    • 10 Reasons I Love Martial Arts
    • Learning to Fight Back
    • Dear Teen Me
    • Goodbye, 2021
    • How my Apple watch saved my life
    • Masks for Covid-19
  • Books
    • For Teens (and Adults) >
      • In the Blood
      • When We Go Missing (May 2025)
      • Stay Dead
      • Girl Forgotten
      • Two Truths and a Lie
      • Eyes of the Forest
      • Playing with Fire
      • The Girl in the White Van
      • Run, Hide, Fight Back
      • The Lonely Dead
      • Count All Her Bones
      • The Girl I Used to Be
      • Blood Will Tell (2nd in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Body in the Woods (1st in the Point Last Seen series)
      • The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die
      • The Night She Disappeared
      • Girl, Stolen
      • Torched
      • Shock Point
    • For Adults (and Teens) >
      • Lethal Beauty (3rd in the Mia Quinn series)
      • A Deadly Business (2nd in the Mia Quinn mystery series)
      • Matter of Trust (1st in Mia Quinn series)
      • Face of Betrayal (1st in the Triple Threat series)
      • Hand of Fate (2nd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Heart of Ice (3rd in the Triple Threat series)
      • Eyes of Justice (4th in the Triple Threat series)
      • Learning to Fly
      • Circles of Confusion (1st in Claire Montrose series)
      • Square in the Face (2nd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Heart-Shaped Box (3rd in the Claire Montrose series)
      • Buried Diamonds (4th in the Claire Montrose series)
    • Foreign Covers
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • About My School Visits
    • A Sneak Peek at a School Visit
  • Fun
    • FAQ
    • Does Your Character Need a Job?
    • Girl, Stolen Alternative Covers
    • I Get Letters
    • Blob on the Side of the Filing Cabinet
    • Books I Like
    • JB's Cinnamon Rolls
    • Vanity Plates
    • Diary of My First Book Tour (From 2000)
    • 1999 Interview with James Lee Burke
    • 1997 Interview with Carol Shields
    • Oregon, the Writer's Toronto
    • Stealing From Myself to Create A Character
    • Panties in a Twist
    • Heteronyms
  • Write
    • How to get an agent
    • Videos with writing tips
    • Writers writing during Covid-19
    • Tips for writers
    • Story starters
    • Write what you know?
    • What if you get stuck?
    • More tips about writing
    • Need to create a fake social media profile?
    • How to start a new book
    • My daughter is 14 - how can she be published?
    • I'm a teen writer-can you give me feedback?
    • Publications for teen writers
    • Student Writing
    • How to get it right
    • Questions about writing from two teens
    • Should I pay to be published?
  • Blog
  • Contact