When I first created Derrick Driver, I didn't sit down and write an elaborate biography for him. I didn't know who he would be several books later. I didn't know all the people who would eventually become important to him or how the things he experienced would change him.
I started with something much simpler.
I gave Derrick my attitude.
That grounded him in a way I could understand and relate to. No matter how extraordinary the situation became, there was something at Derrick's core that was familiar to me. I understood his sarcasm. I understood his stubbornness. I understood his tendency to question things and his willingness to act when he thought something needed to be done.
That didn't make Derrick me. It gave me a place to start.
When I put him into a situation, I could ask myself how I would want to respond if I were standing where he was standing. Not necessarily what I would actually do, but who I would hope I could be in that moment.
Then I built him from there.
Writing Beyond My Own Experience
Of course, Derrick was going to experience things I never had.
That's when I began leaning on my experiences with other people.
I spent 26 years in the fire service. During that time, I saw people in situations most of us hope we never experience. I watched people deal with fear, tragedy and loss. I saw people forced to make decisions when there wasn't much time to think about them. I saw how people reacted when someone's life was actually on the line.
One thing you learn quickly is that people don't all respond the same way.
Some people become incredibly focused. Some get angry. Some use humor. Some surprise you with their strength. Sometimes the person you expect to be the strongest isn't, while someone you never expected quietly steps forward and does exactly what needs to be done.
Those experiences gave me something else to draw from when writing Derrick.
I could begin with the attitude I understood because it came from me, then build his reactions from things I had seen in other people.
Eventually, though, Derrick began giving me another source to draw from.
His own experiences.
When Your Characters Surprise You
All of my characters surprise me.
I may have an idea where a story is going when I begin writing it, but I frequently find myself writing scenes I never imagined at the start.
Sometimes I simply discover a better direction.
Other times, the character has changed.
That's one of the things I've come to enjoy most about writing a series. The characters don't reset when I type the first page of the next book. They remember what happened to them, at least in the sense that I remember it for them.
They've suffered losses. They've built relationships. They've made mistakes. They've survived things. All of that has to matter.
There are times when I'll begin writing a scene one way and realize it doesn't work anymore.
Derrick wouldn't do that.
Maybe he would have in an earlier book. But the Derrick I'm writing now has experienced things that version of Derrick hadn't.
So the scene changes.
That's when I know the character has become more than the idea I started with.
And one of the biggest things to shape Derrick was his relationship with Shannon.
Taking a Chance on Shannon
Shannon was a risk for Derrick.
He hadn't allowed himself to become that close to someone in a long time. He had become comfortable keeping a certain distance between himself and other people.
Then Shannon got through.
Derrick allowed himself to trust her. He allowed himself to love her. He began to imagine a life that wasn't just about the job or whatever problem was directly in front of him.
Then she was killed.
That loss did more than make Derrick angry. It had a traumatic effect on his willingness to trust and bond with other people. He had finally taken the chance of letting someone get close, and the result seemed to confirm every reason he'd had for keeping people at a distance.
That becomes a big part of Derrick's journey in The Cost of Killing.
He's grieving. He's angry. He's consumed with finding the people responsible. Revenge matters to him, and he has to confront just how far he's willing to go to get it.
But even while Derrick is consumed by those things, something else happens.
He saves Killer.
The First Save After Shannon
Killer wasn't some magical cure for Derrick's grief.
He couldn't be.
Derrick was consumed by what had happened to Shannon. That's part of the premise of The Cost of Killing. Bringing Killer into his life wasn't suddenly going to make the anger disappear or convince Derrick that revenge no longer mattered.
What Killer did was different.
He kept Derrick bound to his life.
Killer was the first save Derrick made after losing Shannon. Derrick saw a dog that needed help and did what came naturally to him.
He stepped in.
But once he did, there was suddenly another living thing depending on him.
Killer needed Derrick. He expected Derrick to come home.
That gave Derrick a connection to something outside of his grief and his need for revenge. It didn't make those things go away. It simply meant they weren't the only things left in his world.
Derrick saved Killer.
Looking back at the character now, I think Killer helped save part of Derrick too.
The Friend Who Never Left
Then there's Nik.
Readers don't meet Nik until The Cost of Killing, but Nik isn't a new friend in Derrick's life. He's his lifelong friend.
That distinction is important.
Nik doesn't have to find a way through Derrick's defenses. He was already on the other side of them.
He's the person who will keep Derrick's secrets, whatever they might be. He's willing to show up and fight beside him. And if things go completely wrong, he's probably willing to help Derrick hide the bodies afterward.
He might complain about it, but he'd bring a shovel.
There's humor in that relationship, but there's also something important underneath it.
Nik is always there.
And Derrick would do exactly the same for him.
That's an important distinction with Derrick. He's not incapable of trust or attachment. Nik proves that. Derrick is simply very careful about who gets that trust.
Once you have it, though, his loyalty is fierce.
Finding a Way Through the Walls
Elsy comes into Derrick's life differently.
She wasn't a lifelong friend. She had to find a way through the defenses Derrick had built, and after Shannon's death, those defenses were stronger than ever.
But Elsy and Derrick shared something.
She had been hunted by the same people responsible for killing Shannon and trying to kill Derrick.
Elsy understood what they were capable of because she'd experienced it herself.
That gave her room to get through to Derrick. He didn't have to suddenly decide he was ready to trust someone again. They had survived something together.
Sometimes that's how bonds form.
Not because two people sit down and decide they're going to become important to one another, but because circumstances put them beside each other and they discover the other person is still standing there when it's over.
Elsy stood there.
Derrick noticed.
And with Derrick, that matters.
Once You're In, You're In
Then there's Trina.
I think Trina shows another side of Derrick particularly well in The Cost of Killing.
At first, Derrick becomes her protector because she needs one. It's something that has to be done, and Derrick steps into that role.
But it doesn't stay that simple.
Somewhere along the way, protecting Trina stops being an obligation created by the circumstances around them. Derrick becomes attached to her. He becomes her guardian and protector.
She gets inside the circle.
That's probably the simplest way I can describe Derrick's relationships.
His circle is difficult to get into.
But once you're in, you're in.
Nik has been there for most of Derrick's life. Shannon was someone Derrick finally took the emotional risk of allowing inside. Killer arrived at a point when Derrick needed something to keep him connected to the life he still had. Elsy earned her place through what they survived together. Trina needed a protector, and Derrick discovered he couldn't simply stop caring about her when the immediate danger was gone.
Derrick isn't necessarily going to sit these people down and tell them how much they mean to him.
Actually, he'd probably prefer that nobody ask him to.
But threaten one of them and you'll find out.
Loyalty Doesn't Always Have to Make Sense
That brings me to Adira.
Adira creates an interesting question because she isn't human.
I'm not sure Derrick cares.
He isn't likely to spend much time debating the philosophical question of whether an artificial intelligence deserves the same kind of loyalty as a person.
Derrick's calculation is considerably simpler.
Adira has stood by him.
So he'll stand by her.
That's Derrick.
His loyalty isn't based entirely on what someone is. It's based on what they've done, what they've been through together and whether they were there when it mattered.
If Derrick considers you one of his own, he's going to treat you that way.
Human or otherwise.
The Derrick You Haven't Met Yet
This is also where I have to stop telling you things.
There are more Derrick Driver novels coming, and I don't want a Behind the Stories article to take away the experience of discovering what happens to him.
What I can tell you is that the Derrick introduced in Programmed to Win doesn't remain frozen in place.
His circle continues to change.
He will meet people he hasn't met yet. Some will challenge him. Some will frustrate him. Some will earn his trust and become people he would risk his life to protect.
And some he will have to kill.
That's also an inherent part of Derrick Driver's world.
Derrick repeatedly finds himself in situations where there isn't a perfect answer. Sometimes saving one life, or many lives, means taking another.
Those decisions have consequences.
I never want Derrick to become someone who takes a life and simply moves on because he believes the killing was justified. He may know he did what had to be done. He may make the same decision again if put back into the same situation. But that doesn't mean the decision should cost him nothing.
That's part of Derrick too.
The experiences still ahead of him will continue changing the way he looks at loyalty, relationships, family, life and death, and the responsibility that comes with deciding which lines he's willing to cross.
At the same time, the man who was devastated by losing Shannon will discover that he's still capable of letting people into his life.
He'll learn to love again.
Not just romantically, but in the larger sense of allowing himself to have a family around him again.
I'm deliberately not telling you who, how or when.
You'll have to keep reading for that.
Becoming Derrick Driver
When I look at Derrick now, after spending so much time writing him, I can still see the part of him that came from me.
I gave him my attitude because it gave me something I understood. It grounded the character and allowed me to relate to him, even when I was putting him into situations far outside my own experiences.
Then I drew from the people I'd encountered throughout my life and career. I thought about how I'd seen people respond to fear, pressure, loss and situations where lives were at stake.
Then something changed.
Derrick began accumulating experiences of his own.
Shannon changed him.
Nik grounds him.
Killer gave him something to come home to.
Elsy found a way through.
Trina gave him someone else to protect.
And the people and experiences still ahead of him will continue doing the same.
Some will become people he loves.
Some will become family.
Some will stand beside him.
Some will stand against him.
And some will force Derrick to make the hardest decision anyone can make: whether taking one life is necessary to save another.
I may create these characters, but I don't always know exactly where they're going to take me. That's one of my favorite things about writing them.
Sometimes I'll start a scene thinking I know exactly what's going to happen, only to realize the character I created several books ago wouldn't do what I planned anymore.
That's when I change the scene.
Because somewhere along the way, I stopped having to ask myself what I would do.
I know what Derrick would do.
I gave Derrick Driver my attitude.