Get To Know The Six Pack Series: Tyler Ward

Now that my upcoming novel Six Pack: Emergence is heading toward publication, I thought a good way to promote the book would be to talk about some of the characters.

These will be short posts in which I talk about characters and what inspired them. Regarding the main character and the five primary supporting characters, they each have a little bit of me in them. That's typical for a lot of book characters, though -- at least one of their traits will be shared with the author.

So let me talk to you about the main character, Tyler Ward.

Tyler is 18 years old and has dark brown hair and gray eyes. Those physical traits are one I share (well, I used to share with the hair before I started shaving my head). He is intelligent and inquisitive -- not only is he good at absorbing information, he wants to learn more and doesn't stop asking questions. But while he learns information well, he doesn't always put what he learns into practice well. He's the type of person that could memorize the instructions for putting together a complex piece of machinery, but when he tries to put it together, he can't get it to work.

He has natural leadership skills but is sometimes reluctant to use them. Most of all, he questions himself a lot and sometimes wonders if he made the right choice.

Along with the physical traits, Tyler shares the intelligence and inquisitiveness I have. As far as his role as a leader goes, I like to think of him as most of the best leaders throughout history -- those who struggled with issues and what was the best way to go, even as they did well in getting people through tough times. I know a lot of people look for leaders who represent the things those people would like to be, but while those people get the perception the leaders are those things, you often find out those leaders weren't always like that. That didn't make them bad leaders; that made them human.

Tyler gains the power of mental telepathy. It was something I had fun with when I was writing the book and I hope people enjoy what he does with it. It was one part of the book where I took a chance with some things, so I'll be interested to see what people think when the book comes out.