An overview of the characters

I guess we all write based on our personal experiences or on those we have learned about from a variety of sources - friends, journals, other writers, etc.

I always build mine or personal experiences or those of close family members or friends. I find that the intimate knowledge provides an additional layer to the characters.

In this instance, I am about to write a mystery based in South America in the 1430's - before Columbus - and with very sparse historical records. For my characters, I will rely on stories of older South Americans I have heard of (from my great grandparents andgrandparents) plus more recent characters.

Since the history of South America is relatively unknown - when compared to the extensive records for ancient Greece, Persia, Rome, Egypt, etc. For the last three years, the research efforts has been intense and have been primarily based on more recent works and not some of the more 'propganda' type writings of the Spanish historians.

The accounts from the Spanish have had to be used with a TON of salt in most instances. The unfortunate (ror fortunate, I'm not sure) is the plethora of new discoveries over the last fifty years.

With these in hand, the daaily life of the Inca (pre expansion) can be developed.

For this novel, I have developed the characters to be both integral to the mystery while, at the same time, enacting their roles in the building of a vast empire in less than a hundred years. While it may have been lucky, I believe that it took a very strong group of characters that wcould develop an emire that stretched the length of South America.

Imagine a road system that rivalled Rome's. An economic model that has not been rivalled since in its prosperty and even handedness.

Yet this was anation with problems. Ambitions. Prjudices. Fault lines ath appeared everytime it expanded.

So the Characters had to be developed to reflect the birth of this empire.

Tomorrow - the Main Characters