getting to know you: friends and characters

Getting to know you, getting to know you and to like you.... (acknowledgement to Rodgers and Hammerstein.)

During today's lunch with fellow writers we discussed the concept of visualising our perfect day to help us fall asleep more quickly. I was unable to extract one consummate day; however, as we talked, I was aware of being ensconced in one of a variety of very pleasant days: lunch with friends, followed by a swim.

The former involves a punchy exchange on topics as disparate as writing challenges and rip-off London landlords. We are a small, handpicked group who meet regularly to enjoy each other's company, discuss writing, indulge in serious eating and copious amounts of laughter. All worthy aims and therapeutic to the highest degree, cerebrally and physically. Debating aspects of the writing craft is particularly stimulating and the swim afterwards allows me time to consolidate new ideas.

Breast stroke opens up more than the upper body. This afternoon, as I trawled up and down the pool, delightfully quiet and tranquil, my thoughts turned to characterisation. I tend to think in analogies and often those to do with writing are connected with food or furnishing houses. With characterisation, however, my metaphor is travel: arriving in a new city.

You can take a city tour in search of cathedrals, fortresses, main squares of impressive old townhouses and government buildings. This might give key pointers as to what sort of place you're in. But it's only by raking through the back streets at leisure that real knowledge comes of the location: the bakery which does the best croissants, a tall thin house where a well-known artist lived, the ambience of snow on cobbled streets late at night when restaurants have closed and tourist stalls are boarded up for the day. In time we feel we have a sense of where we are. A familiarity which goes deeper than appreciating magnificent architecture.

So it is with characters, I think. We might pluck at random a hair colour or body build, a profession, a favourite hobby. But what about that character's pathological manoeuver, what childhood event influenced how they are today? When we reach the stage of knowing these traits, our protagonists attain depth. These are the metaphorical backstreets, the authenticity which a palace may fail to provide. If we find ourselves engaged with a book, it's probably more attributable to the hinterlands of characters than their façades.

It occurs to me I sound as if I'm already capable of devising multi-layered characters. This isn't the case. But by writing as if I am, perhaps I'll come closer to achieving this.

Earnestly yours


Jane