Jack of Harts

I am a fan of the John Carter of Mars series of books. I’m one of those fans who read all of the books I could get my hands on, not just the first one or two. And of course I went to see the movie that came out not long ago. I loved it. And I have to admit that it influences my writing. One of the ways it influenced me is something John Carter himself said in one of the books. He mentioned that he was basically immortal, and had been as long as he remembered. Going to Mars did not give that to him. He’d simply always been around, watching family and friends grow old and die. He was the perpetual Uncle John to generation after generation of children and had been as long as he remembered.

When I started writing my Captain Jack of Harts series, I imagined him having a similar Uncle John. My older notes even have the guy listed as Uncle John, but I didn’t name him in the stories I wrote. And John or derivatives of that name are VERY common in Jack’s family tree. Heck, his first name is a derivative, just as is father’s name is. Most generations of his family have a John of some kind in them, and yes, I have plotted out his family tree going way back to the 1900s at least. I’m a detailed little planner like that, and sometimes years go by between me leaving a little hint in one story and that hint becoming a major point in others. The man who would become Captain William Carter went through just that kind of years’ long growth as a concept and a character before he ever saw print.

This image was created in Juggernaut 9 at dezgo.com