You Don’t Know Me, But…

‘Do you actually think of the characters in your books as real people?’ a reader once asked me. Of course I do. If the people who populate my books aren’t real to me, how can they possibly be real to anyone else? Who wants to read about cardboard characters with no personality at all?

At the start of a new novel, getting to know the characters is akin to walking into a room filled with strangers. At that stage none of them know me and I know little about them other than their names and the roles I hope they will play in my novel. I feel as though some are ignoring me while others whisper and sneak suspicious glances at me, the unknown intruder.

‘Hello, I’m going to write about you, so if you’ll just get on with your lives and pretend that I’m not really here…’. How would you react if someone said that to you? Exactly! Somehow, I must persuade them to carry on living their lives under my gaze for the next nine months or so until the book is finished, and they are once again left in peace.

My first task is to buy a thick spiral-bound exercise book. Although I write directly onto a keyboard, I love that moment when I first open the notebook and look at its blank pages. Probably even the most dedicated PC user still has his or her roots in the hand-written word.

The first half of the notebook is taken up by thumbnail sketches of every character, major or minor, with at least one page devoted to each of them. I name them and give them all birth-dates in order to ensure, for instance, that wee Johnny isn’t sent off to school when he’s only two years old, then I add a detailed description and as much as I know at that stage about the character’s personality and the part he or she will play in the book.

It is important to give each character a biographical background because they should always give the strong impression that they’ve been living busy lives before the book started, lives that shaped them and made them the people they are. The book’s merely a glimpse into those lives and when it ends, I want my readers to feel that the characters will continue to live on. The comment that I prize the most is, ‘While I was reading your novel I felt as though I was living among your characters.’ Every character plays an important part in the story, no matter how brief their appearance may be. Even the cat….

That lesson came about with a novel that I loved writing but couldn’t place with a publisher. Most of them liked it, but- that little word that all writers know and dread. ‘Not quite suitable for us,’ the editors wrote in their different ways. I was advised by my agent of that time to forget the book and move on. Sensible advice, for writers who refuse to let go of a piece of rejected writing tend to wither on the vine while waiting for a publisher to snap it up. But that particular book had come so close to acceptance. I know that there was a flaw hidden in it, possibly waiting to be repeated in future writing, so I put it aside for three years and when I returned to it, I found the flaw almost at once. The protagonist, a feisty lass, was loved by two men who, I suddenly realised, were only there to provide the love-interest for her. In other words, they were cardboard cut-outs.

I took them from the book and concentrated on getting to know them; their likes and dislikes, their histories, their views on life. Then when I felt comfortable with them, I put them back into the book. When I studied the storyline from their angle, I found that one of them stayed fairly true to the plot, though he was stronger than before and more believable. But the other didn’t fit into my story at all. This caused problems, and since problems mean conflict the entire book was altered, expanded and strengthened by the new plot developments.

The re-written book was sold to one of the publishers who had earlier rejected it, and it went on to do well.

Once I start writing in the second half of my exercise book, it carries a rundown of the story’s progress, complete with dates. Research material is kept in a binder and essential research books are placed on a shelf near to my computer keyboard, for as well as researching as thoroughly as possible before I start work on the book, I continue this during the writing. Whenever I come across a particularly interesting piece of information that can involve or affect one or more of my characters, I make a note of it in the character section of my notebook, which is referred to constantly.

It is true that the best place to begin a novel is at a time of crisis in the lives of one or more of the main characters, or at least at a time when decisions must be made, and the results will be far-reaching. This acts not only as a ‘hook’ to engage the reader but helps to divert that characters’ attention away from me, the author and newcomer. Readers can find the ‘author’s voice’ intrusive and distracting.

I have never been strong on the idea of re-writing draft and draft. This has to be an individual decision, but in my case, I have learned that too much re-writing destroys spontaneity. Having said that, I always spend a lot of time on the opening chapters of a new book, reworking, altering, adding and deleting scenes until the characters change from strangers to family.

Once the book is underway and I am happy with background and characters I can relax a little. At this stage, it is as though I am sitting in a darkened auditorium, watching and listening as the real people who are my characters live their lives on the stage or screen before me, my fingers working like mad on the computer keys as I try to keep up with them.

But even when the book is moving smoothly and the writing has become a real pleasure, part of my mind keeps a continual watch. It is like riding a bicycle or driving a car; once we learn how to do those things we can relax and leave it to instinct, but part of us is always watching, checking, ready to correct an error or recognise a problems before it gets out of hand.

I love all my characters and while I am writing their stories, they become as real and as dear to me as my children. But the time always comes when I have to tear myself away and send them out into the world to fend for themselves. 

While I venture into another room where a group of strangers is staring and whispering, and say, ‘You don’t know me, but…’

Evelyn Hood