I've been tagged by Deniz (hi Deniz!) on making a list of character attributes. She suggests I do this down to my character's blood type- well, I don't go quite that far. But in other ways, I probably go further.
I'm a firm believer that character drives story, and that we must therefore be as familiar as possible with our characters, their backgrounds, their motivations, their relationships, and what drives them. Once upon a time, I might have sat down at the start of a story and listed all these things. These days, I'm much more inclined to sit down and write. Eventually, everything you need to know about your character will become clear, once you spend enough time with them.
I got a great writing book titled The Plot Thickens, by Noah Lukeman. It's about plot, but a large chunk of it is oodles and oodles of questions about your character. If you feel you're having trouble getting to know your characters well enough, or they seem flat to you, this book could help.
So, what are Bill's characteristics?
Age: He's born in 1896, so 18 when Between the Lines starts in 1914, and 44 by the time it concludes in 1940.
Height: 5'11"- about 2" shorter than his brother Lionel and his son Jared, and about a foot taller than his fiance Kit.
Weight: Bill wouldn't know, and neither do I. He's a solidly built farmer, but fat free. Probably around 95kg.
Hair: Dark brown, short but always unruly. Always wears his battered Akubra hat.
Eyes: Blue, shifting in depth depending on his mood
Hobbies: Well, he really spends all his time working. Whittling is about the only thing he does in his limited free time, other than drinking himself under the table every night (personally, I think he needs a new hobby, and I'm endeavouring to find something for him to do that might add to the story)
Likes: His family (except his brother), his home at Edenvale Farm, whisky
Dislikes: His brother Lionel, thunder/ storms/ general loud noises, crowds. War.
Pets: One faithful cattle dog, Rex
And plenty more. There's almost nothing I couldn't tell you about Bill at this stage. Like the fact that piano music makes him cry, or that he has three bullet-wound scars, or... Anything and everything emotional and otherwise.
Like I say, I didn't sit down and write a character description to get all this. I sat down and wrote 120,000 words of first draft instead. Which in some ways I suppose is like a really elaborate character sketch, and my task now is to pull out the relevant parts and shape them into a story.
Excerpt from Between the Lines
A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.
He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.
The bush.
On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.
He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.
She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.
He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.
If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.
Monday, April 7, 2008
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1 comments:
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