What makes an interesting character in fiction? - by Pauline Francis

A thousand thanks to Pauline Francis who has heroically stepped in at very short notice, after unavoidable circumstances created a sudden gap in the schedule.

There’s so much easily accessible material written about this subject - but I’m letting you have a peep at my efforts to create interesting characters.

I think that it’s easier with the first novel to get the character right. Most of us have a character – or know the sort of character – we’d like to write about. In my case it was Lady Jane Grey (the nine day queen).  I knew that she was badly used by the powerful men around her and this somehow chimed with my experience of an overbearing father in my teens... but I didn’t want to write about a real person. I wanted to create my own character. Isn’t that what writers do?

But I couldn’t give up the idea. Jane had all the attributes of an interesting character: a strong woman up against powerful men, having to fight for what she wanted, cruelly treated and with plenty of enemies. I still stood on the brink. Would a real character be a constraint? History tends to set its characters in stone. We only have the bare bones (or the real bones!). How could I create a character that was as fully rounded as one created from scratch?

Then it struck me.

Jane may have lived in the sixteenth century, but could she really be any different from a teenager today, except in speech and dress? How would I feel if somebody looked back at me in a few hundred years’ time and said I couldn’t be interesting because I’d lived so long ago? Once I’d got rid of that stumbling block, it was easy. I forgot that Jane was real. She was a young girl with hope, dreams and fears. I like to think that Jane is the best of my real characters. If I’m honest, I just wish I’d given her a memorable or funny habit, perhaps one that she only revealed to somebody close to her. I did invent another narrator for this novel (Raven Queen) – Ned –and I had huge fun with his creation. I was going to follow the rules here. He was going to be Jane’s opposite -  extrovert and witty. He is, in fact, gentle and conscientious. Yet all readers love him. So perhaps it’s good to go with the creative flow rather than the rules.

One last word about historical characters. Why not turn a situation on its head?

We all know from history that Kings had mistresses, who bore sons who sometimes claimed the throne. But what was it like to be a pretender? Don’t we automatically assume that he’s part of a diabolical plot to win power? I decided to make the fictional Francis (in Traitor’s Kiss) a good person. He doesn’t actually stake his claim as Henry the V111’s son – but he could have. So he’s still a threat – and clever Princess Elizabeth knows this. Francis becomes one of her victims – she leaves him in a madhouse called Bedlam, just in case he decides to make trouble for her – and this strengthens the harsh side of her character.

I’m going to be honest here. In my second novel, A World Away, I created my central character, Nadie, a Native American girl captured by English colonists. She doesn’t really know her path in life (except to find the English boy she loves) and I think this weakens her voice. I’d love to go back and change her because it’s an interesting novel in all other ways. The other central character, Tom, is well-liked by readers, especially because he has to fight against his stammer as well as his enemies.

How can you bring out greater strength in already good characters?

Condense time: In Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick, the story of murder and revenge is made gripping because the action takes place in a small log cabin over a few days. Or use another character as the ‘elephant in the room’ as Marcus does – in this case, the body of the narrator’s father on the kitchen table. It is that dead father who sends a chill down our spine. He is the interesting character. If the story had been narrated by his son in the future, away from that log cabin, it would have lessened the tension. 

Or use a slight twist that nobody expects: one of my characters goes to France during the revolution wanting to be an anatomist – perfect for a time rich in beheadings. Create a strong side-kick: watch a box-set of the BBC series Merlin if you want a master class in how to do this (Merlin is the servant side-kick to Prince Arthur, using modern vocabulary... wonderful!),

This is an endless subject and I know I’ve only touched on one or two areas and that there are hundreds of you out there who have created wonderful characters - too many to mention...

www.paulinefrancis.co.uk

Being a Writer-in-Residence: Pauline Francis

Today, a guest blog from Pauline Francis - many thanks, Pauline!

I’ve just finished a year as a Writer-in-Residence and want to share some of the pain and pleasure (mostly pleasure). It was my first residency - and a learning curve for me as well as the students. I forgot to take my camera on the day, but this is me at home afterwards.

Where?

The Residency was at a mixed secondary international college in Hertfordshire, which I visit regularly as a YA author, working with the English and History Faculties as well as the library.

Aim?

To improve the creative writing skills of the participants, publish an anthology of their work and raise the awareness of creative writing generally.

Value Added?

I live only ten minutes’ walk from the school, so I was able to offer ‘value added’ such as parents’ evenings, book clubs, writing ‘surgeries’ and one memorable World Book Night for the boarders, with cocoa and biscuits, reading from our favourite books (this is a state school that takes boarders from across the world, which made this writing project particularly interesting).

My students?

The college wanted to choose the participating students through a Short Story competition launched at the school’s first World Literature Festival, which included the opening of a new library wing by Kevin Crossley-Holland. He chose the theme for the competition, ‘Where is Home?’ So the residency had a high profile from the beginning.

I judged the stories and chose ten pupils of mixed ages and genders to use those stories for the residency programme, choosing them for potential as well as actual skill, as we all know that sometimes a germ of a good idea is worth more than perfect writing.

We met as a group twice a term and 2-3 times a term individually, in the library, in lesson time.

How to begin?

I wanted our time together to be different from the students’ lessons. I had plenty of ideas about what makes a good short story and I knew that I’d incorporate them into the sessions; but I wanted to make an impact in the first group session. The students were keen but nervous. I was keen but nervous.

Starting the residency was as difficult as starting a new novel!

How could I break the ice? I hadn’t been keen on the idea of a competition for entry and students already thought their stories were good because they’d worked on them for weeks ….

They had to look at my published book and think: if she can do it, so can I.

I decided to expose myself….I took along some old drafts of my novels and compared them to the published versions. There’s an example below. Students said they were surprised (they were probably too polite to say shocked) by my earlier drafts; but it engaged them.

                                                             

This is an example of a first draft from Raven Queen, when I was struggling to describe the childhood home of Lady Jane Grey (I find descriptions difficult):

“I lived at Bradgate House, a house built by my father’s father, Thomas Grey, who died when I was two years old. He used to boast that the forest beyond – Charnwood Forest- was big and that he had laid water pipes from the stream to the house. The town of Leicester was about five miles to the east.”

(Jane is the narrator)

This is the published version:

“Visitors usually gasp with pleasure when they first arrive. It is thought to be one of the finest houses in Leicestershire; but Ned gazed past its red brick towers, past its gardens soon to be brimming with fruit and blossom, past the stream which fed water pipes to the kitchen – to the darkening trees beyond.

‘I like the forest best at dusk when birds cloud the sky,’ he said.”

(Jane is still the narrator but the house is seen through a visitor’s eye and linked to an emotion)

                            *                           

The hard work began. Students had to justify every word, every character, every time span, every conflict and every piece of dialogue. They drafted and re-drafted week after week, which they did with amazing cheerfulness. Only one student refused to make any more changes to her story after the first term. Fair enough! Her story was wonderful from the beginning and we discussed short stories in general in our time together.

During the last term, students had to read their stories to me, something that they found very difficult; but it did produce the final burst of creativity needed to polish every story to perfection.

And so we had our stories: heart-breaking, uplifting, depressing and amusing. There were stories of homecomings and leavings set in Africa, Cyprus and Germany, and of lost souls searching for a home after sudden deaths. Every one made me cry.

My husband edited. The students wrote author bios and ‘Where is Home?’ was published in-house and sold for charity at a celebratory tea during the following year’s literary festival.

It was an amazing and bonding experience for us all.

                                                                               *

The lowlights ….

• The programme was run though the library and restricted to a few students, although others had general access to me in the lunch hours.
•  I had little or no contact with the staff and other Faculties and did no work with them on any other literacy activities.
• I disliked choosing through a competition.
• I could not contact the students directly through email, which slowed down the re-drafting.
• All meetings were arranged through a member of the library staff, which takes more time, however efficiently it is done.
• I forgot my camera for the final session.

and the highlights….

• The students gained in confidence generally and this improved their English (some had English as a second language). They also read more.
• They bonded as a group and met to read aloud sometimes (especially the boarders).
• Other students became interested and arranged ‘Writing Surgery’ appointments.
• Parents entered the writing competition (although they were not included in the programme) and this led to increased interest in the library.
• Students (not just those on the programme) entered other local and national writing competitions.
• Students on the programme shared their experience during English lessons.
• Students blogged/tweeted about their experience.
• The look of pride on the writers’ faces when they saw their work in print.

I’d love to hear other writers’ experiences of any residencies they’ve done – short or long. For me, it was the highlight of my writing career. I’ve asked the students to keep their first drafts as I do…and to look at them from time to time to see how base metal can change into gold.

Pauline Francis www.paulinefrancis.co.uk