Who Are You?

I really wanna know........

Oh, sorry, got sidetracked by The Who.

Actually, I do that when writing.  I get very involved in who the characters are: what they look like, how they sound, how they think, all of it.  So rather than fight it, I think I'll just go ahead and make that my first goal.....to spend the first part of this nanovel at least giving the reader a glimpse of these four women and their stories, and, by default, the cad who brought them together.

So there are many questions....how does one make them all unique, but similar enough that one man would have targeted them all?  Are there certain weaknesses, vulnerabilities, that make them appealing?  That seems to be the case in real life......or at least in most Lifetime movies or Law & Order episodes.  What kinds of things can a 62-year-old widow, an accountant, a professor, and a single mom have in common, besides the generally typical trait of being female and wanting companionship? There must of course be some overlap in their stories.  How else would they have discovered each other?  And what sort of epiphanies will they each need to have to realize that Good Old Robert/Richard/Randall isn't who he claimed to be?

At least Judith's epiphany is clear.  I hinted at it on my nano page.  She discovers that an important account, an account that her late husband had set up and the account to which she had given Richard access, is empty.  It had been systematically and gradually cleaned out over a series of a few months.  I picture her sitting in silence as the bank manager explains.....she examines the ring on her hand.  Did Richard really buy that for her, or did she unknowingly buy it for herself?  And the trips?  Did she fund those getaways as well?  How much of what was supposed to sustain her was Richard still carrying around as he was doing God only knows what?  And did he even care....was ANY of it true?