Writing Secrets: The characters who shape our lives
My daughter is named for a feisty Jane Austen character. My son is called Joshua – largely, I have to admit, because I fell in love with Mordecai Richler’s Joshua Shapiro and spent years trying to find him in life, so I could marry him.
There are characters we’ve discovered in books who remain with us throughout our lives like lost lovers and friends. What is it that makes them so vivid?
In his advice to aspiring writers, Don DeLillo suggested that one should play between the largeness and smallness of a character. “It becomes important to understand the history of a character and novel.”
We completely agree. The characters you portray do not exist only in the weeks, months or years which make up the time-frame of your novel.
They have experiences which must stretch far beyond the narrow confines of the plot. Not that you’re going to explain their past lives to us, or tell us of their experiences and how they’ve affected them.
Only hints of these particulars might enter into your story, but it’s all there in the way they stir their coffee, or whether they even drink it.
It’s in the small ordinary things that one becomes aware of a life and a person who is as real as any in our own lives – as the best characters should.
Read Richard’s latest blog: ‘Monday Motivation: Corona-time has lessons for our writing‘
Upcoming course:
Community Writing Saturdays: 4, 11, 18, and 25 April
Power of Writing: Starts 1 April
Focus on Scenes coaching programme: 4 to 15 May
