Building the Beloved Character, part 1
/The Inspiration
READ OR LISTEN
Character-driven fiction is by far the most compelling to a reader. A well-portrayed character captures the reader’s imagination, or connects with him or her on such a personal level that the reader feels he/she knows the character and even has a direct relationship with that character.
Some characters are so beloved, readers discuss them on social media, compare knowledge of a character’s activities, comments, features, and argue over what he/she did, didn’t do, might do, or should do.
However, when I’m speaking about a beloved character, I mean first and foremost that the character must be loved by the author. A writer can’t possibly make a reader care about one of their characters unless they themselves first care very deeply about them and know them extremely well.
As it does with any real person, my understanding of a character develops and reveals over time. When I began to develop Merel de Vries, the protagonist of my latest novel When Starlings Fly as One, I wasn’t even thinking about the book or the story. I was in bed, browsing dreamily through my Pinterest feed. And there she was.
She stared at me from a small portrait, a headshot as we say, and not even head and shoulders. The painting was quite old and badly scratched, but the scratches looked like teardrops. Something about her dark eyes hooked me and I couldn’t sleep until I had found something about who she was. The post said only, “Head of a young woman, c. 17thcentury by an unknown Dutch artist.”
The word ‘ashmolean’ appeared in the caption. Living in the U.S., I was barely familiar with this magnificent Oxford museum. I contacted them. They had the painting, but no further information about the subject or painter. In that case, I had a blank slate on which to build. I purchased the usage rights for my book cover, even before I had really started the manucript.
From this portrait alone, I knew Merel was young, smart, petite, and a bit sad. The bow in her hair made her look younger than she probably was, but the grand pearl necklace and fine yellow gown said she lived as a person of wealth. I may never know who she really was, but hope in some way I’ve reflected her truth.
That the woman was Dutch seemed at first to be an obstacle, but then I realized it was in fact an unexpected but perfect solution. I was writing about the Irish Rebellion against the English in 1641. My intention was to come at it as much as possible with an unbiased viewpoint, though my tendencies are rooted in the Irish. The English side was well documented i.e. histories are written by the victors. But in recent years, historians have been digging out the Irish perspective. My protagonist being neutral and fairly young could discover the story from both sides, and yet have her own conflict within.
From there I did what I typically do for a character: I gave her a birthday, parentage, relationships, desires, flaws. Some of what I set up in the beginning changed as I progressed in the story, and learned more about her and how she would react in specific situations. I got to know her, and well before the end of the book I loved her.
She is, as we all are, constrained by her life situations, loving the people who are important in her life, and yet longing for respect, purpose, and freedom — those things which can seem ever elusive.
(NEXT WEEK, part 2 of this blog series, The Imprint of Place)
