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Characters That Are Real

Lisa Pelessier • Oct 30, 2023

Join me today as I welcome author and blogger Lisa Pelessier as she shares about her latest book.


About MilliM

Ten-year old Millie is obsessed with evenness, from the height of her pigtails to the distribution of butter and syrup on her waffle. Fortunately for Millie, she lives under the governance of the Council of Benevolence, an entity that seems to be just as consumed with conformity and evenness as Millie is. When Millie and her best friend Silas find a very lopsided, very ugly baby on her front porch, Millie doesn’t know what to do. Repulsed and horrified, Millie, accompanied by Silas, sets out for the city and the brazen symmetry of the Council of Benevolence, sure that they can make everything right again. It is only while she is there that she discovers that what you see is not always what you get.



About Lisa:

Lisa Pelissier lives in Oregon where she is a homeschool mother of four and self-published author of five middle-grade fiction novels, as well as an early-readers' chapter book and a YA fantasy novel. Lisa owns SneakerBlossom Books, offering Christian, classical homeschool study guides and curriculum. She also works as a freelance copy editor and virtual assistant. She blogs at EleventhWillow.com, a site she and two friends started for Christians parenting the mentally ill. In her spare time Lisa enjoys making art, playing the piano, and fretting about things over which she has no control.


Connect online

Website: https://www.sneakerblossom.com/ 
Email: sneakerblossom (at) yahoo.com
Blog: https://www.eleventhwillow.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.pelissier.author 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaedkela/ 
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/edkela/ 
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lisa-Pelissier/author/B08794GCR1

Buy Link

https://www.amazon.com/MilliM-Lisa-Pelissier/dp/B08767B3GF


Real Make-Believe People

Making my characters relatable and real is one of the hardest parts of writing fiction for me. Most of what I write is driven by the action of the story, not the personality of the characters. I had been writing stories for my sons for several years when my daughters pointed out that I hadn’t written a book for them yet. We started creating a character—Millie. We didn’t mention the words “obsessive compulsive disorder” when we were imagining her. We just thought up a funny girl who had to—and I mean had to—have everything symmetrical.


Whenever we had a few minutes of down time, the girls would ask me, “What would Millie do here?” They wanted to know how she behaved at the grocery store, the dentist, the doctor, in the car, in all the rooms of the house, in their own bedrooms, at church—everywhere we went my little girls looked at the situation from Millie’s perspective. In our imaginations, we tore down walls, ripped out sinks, rearranged furniture, and stacked books and magazines just so. Millie was a force of destruction, a relentless pursuer of symmetry.


Finally, it was time to put Millie in a book. What do you do with a character that is clearly different, destructive, and possibly unacceptable? I chose to put her into a dystopian world. The Council of Benevolence controls everything. They make sure there is no sickness, pain, or infirmity. They’ve created the perfect society—or so it seems. Millie lives with her parents and four weak, elderly grandmothers. Her mother strives to meet Millie’s need for symmetry and control, and Millie is happy—until a baby with a deformed, asymmetrical face shows up on her doorstep.


Millie knows her mother will want to keep the baby. She also knows that she can’t look at the wobbly, misshapen face every day for the rest of her life. Desperate, she and her best friend Silas get on their bikes and go to the Council of Benevolence, who can, she thinks, solve every problem.


With such an extreme character, I wondered if people would relate to the odd story I’d written. It’s funny, but I’ve had more people tell me they can identify with Millie than with any of my other characters. She’s deeply flawed and longs for order, like most of us. The character-building that I did with my girls for so long paid off in the personality and story of Millie, MilliM. If you’re thinking about writing, and struggle to create characters like I do, I’d recommend playing with your character for a long time before putting them in a story. Getting to know Millie ahead of time gave my book an extra sparkle that has been enchanting for readers.

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