How much does experience count for?

Not a lot, it turns out. At least, that’s what I decided when setting out to create the Billy Keene Stories

Sit down to create a crime novel series and, bam, the first trick smacks you right in the face: Merlin, you better conjure a main character with staying power.

Read enough series fiction of any genre you’ll see that, generally speaking, these are The Big Three traits required for the main character of a successful series:

– Get Engaged. He or she’s better be someone that people want to spend time with, see what happens next. Readers don’t necessarily have to like the character — though that helps — but they do have to be engaged.

– Nice to See You Again. Gotta be someone interesting enough that readers will spend time with, then take a break, then want to come back again. In real life we call those kind of people friends and they’re rare and precious. So imagine how daunting it can be (if you let it) to make up one?

– Ah, Me Ole Pal! Going completely selfish here: The character’s gotta be someone  I really friggin’ like. The two of us are going to be spending a lot of time together in my head. There’s enough boring people in the world; no author needs them ratting around in his or her brain too.

The Trick of It All
Up to the point of creating the Billy Keene Stories, I’d only written standalone crime novels and stories. Most all were written from the criminal’s point of view. The characters were likable to some degree and interesting enough to drive a story.

Still, in those stories I knew the protagonist could turn unlikable without fear of ruining a long-term relationship between the character and the reader. Once the story ended, the character went away and there was no need for them to ever bother readers again. A literary one-night stand, if you will.

For the Billy Keene stories, I knew he’d be coming back again and again.  But I wanted something more than a static template. The most interesting people change, grow. I wanted to create a character who could grow too. (Cue high-pitched Pinocchio voice: “I’m a real boy!”)

Usually the protagonists in a crime/detective series  are some variation of the master detectives/criminal. They’re unchanging for the most part and therein lies their appeal. They’re familiar so readers know what to expect. The character never lets the readers down because if that happens readers simply don’t pick up the next book in the series.

Getting down to it, the trick I was looking to pull off: Create a repeatable character — rock-solid traits, beliefs and quirks that become as familiar to readers as an old friend’s — yet give him enough room to grow as a character.

In short, I wanted readers to walk a tightrope of identifying with Billy for his vulnerability while also admiring him for his strengths of character.

It’s Not Easy Being Green
So I started by making Billy Keene green at his job and in life. Billy’s inexperience on the job — mixed with naiveté about the people he’s known all his life and they way they treat him now that he’s The Law — gives him with an appealing vulnerability.

But he couldn’t be too vulnerable. Nobody likes a wuss. People expect strength in their main characters, even if it takes time for that strength to show itself.

So I decided to have all that vulnerability play out against Billy’s personal strength, his humor, his cool, calm manner in the face of small-town chaos, his commitment to action once he figures out what he should do—even if he doesn’t know right away what to do. (There’s another note of vulnerability for readers to identify with.)

Over the life of the series Billy comes to understand the role people need him, as their sheriff, to play in their community. Billy’s learning this through the mentoring of the older, wiser Sheriff Otis Cady and by observing the way he’s treated by people around town.

The Fault In Our Scars
I feel all of this together makes Billy Keene engaging and familiar. Readers want to see what happens next both in the individual stories and to Billy as he matures over the course of the series.

Because Billy’s not a grizzled veteran who’s seen it all, done it all and wears the scars to prove it, the reader gets to go through the experiences and earn the scars along with Billy.

Ideally, when the reader picks up the next book in the series, they’re greeted by the familiar Billy they know and (hopefully) love, but also recognize that he’s lost some innocence because, after all, they were there when it was slowly, painfully stripped away in the previous books.

And who knows, Billy may end up a grizzled old veteran who’s been around the block. We’ll see what happened when we get there.

The only promise I can make right now: Anybody who comes along for the fun, twisted ride will be right there with Billy.