For the longest time, I’ve worried about authors who crank out numerous novels based on a recurring protagonist. Don’t they get bored? Why would a novelist want to write about the same secret agent, cop, lawyer, or special ops soldier over and over again? After all, isn’t writing fiction about the act of discovery? The wrenching, difficult, but rewarding process of creation?

It turns out that inventing new lead characters for each novel is not as easy as it looks. Well, not as easy as it looked to me, before I tried it.

The protagonist in my first novel, Cutthroat, was loosely inspired by a very good friend of mine. I say loosely, because I only used his good parts. The bad stuff was straight from my twisted imagination. But at least I had a pattern, a recipe. In the blackest tunnels of the writing process, feeling my away along in the dark, searching for a path to the surface, I could lean back from the keyboard, close my eyes and conjure the dude—what would he say, what would he do, how would he react. And slowly, painstakingly he would lead me to the light.

With novel number two, I’m completely alone. I built my protagonist from scratch. Conjured him out of thin air. And I mean thin. I’ve just completed the first draft and realize with sickening dread that I don’t know him. Oh, sure I’ve written over a hundred thousand words, mostly about my hero, but I still don’t know him. I’m not completely certain why he kissed that girl, but not this girl, why he socked that guy in the mouth, or why he turned down the easy payday. In short, I don’t know what makes him tick. And if I can’t figure it out, there’s no hope for my readers.

But I’ve got a plan.

He and I have been taking long walks together in the woods. Turns out he likes my dogs. And he’s a bit of a talker. I’ve learned about his upbringing, his family, his education and some of his problems, the issues he’s struggling with and how he hopes to resolve his conflicts. The more I get to know him, the more I like him and the more I understand him.

And he’s agreed to take a look at my manuscript. That should help.