Sharing an OC: For the Birds

When Silbrith told me that one of her favorite of my OCs (Original Characters) is Agent Tricia Wiese, I was surprised. Tricia started out mostly as a placeholder; I felt the White Collar team needed a female agent so it wouldn’t be an all-male team until canon character Diana joined them. I fully expected Tricia to fade away once Diana arrived.


Mild spoilers for stories in the Caffrey Conversation AU.

Coincidentally, Tricia came into her own shortly after Silbrith started acting as my beta. When I wrote the plans for the undercover op in Caffrey Flashback, I mentioned that Tricia would be pretending to watch birds while Jones pretended to fish, and that Tricia got the better end of the deal. Jones hated fishing, but Tricia really did enjoy bird watching.

That comment turned into a moment of great serendipity, leading to one of my first insights into Silbrith as a person who has a life beyond writing. Silbrith introduced me to the term birder, and acknowledged her own expertise on the subject.

From that point, Tricia evolved into a much more robust character. Later in Flashback she shows an ability to take charge, insisting that Peter is too upset to drive. Then she helps coordinate the interrogation of a suspect, bringing together members of the White Collar team and Winston-Winslow in a little con to trick the suspect into giving them more information. As Tricia became more real to me, she turned into a smart, savvy woman I’d like to know. I realized that she wouldn’t disappear when Diana joined the team, but instead would become Diana’s mentor.

In Caffrey Disclosure, Tricia realizes Neal is trying to manipulate her. She explains to Peter that she’s handling Neal in the same way she dealt with her younger brothers, and again we see her intelligence as she tries to fool Neal into thinking that he’s fooling her. Meanwhile there’s more birding, as she takes her sons to see puffins while on vacation, and we learn that she supports environmental causes. I mentioned an arrest that had happened during a protest when she was in college, knowing Mozzie would be impressed.

All of that would have been satisfying enough. I had turned an OC into a robust character who felt real to me. However, that was just the start. Silbrith adopted fellow birder Tricia and took her even further. She… No, I’ll let Silbrith take us through what she has done and has in mind. Suffice it to say, it’s been a pleasure seeing Silbrith take Tricia under her wing. (Yes, bad birder pun.)

In return, I borrowed Silbrith’s marvelous OC, Agent Travis Miller. He was supposed to have a couple of guest appearances in Caffrey Disclosure, but I liked the character so much that his role kept expanding. Silbrith was beyond generous each time I mentioned that I wanted to play with Travis.

This sharing of characters is one of the reasons that writing together in this AU feels like writing a TV series. We have to be able to hand characters off to each other to keep the continuity between stories. The fact that Silbrith is able to pick up my characters and have those characters still sound the same is a great tribute to her skills at writing.

FYI, Silbrith has started writing a post about where she's taken the Tricia character, and I think Travis will be featured, too. However, it may be a few weeks before we see that post, as some other obligations are taking precedence right now. My post next weekend will be about how I worked through grief over my mother's death as I wrote stories in the Caffrey Conversation AU.