Uninvited Characters and The Chosen Man
But the author's been reading my blog while I read about her book. She's sent me this wonderful guests post with her tale of Uninvited Characters, so, over to you Jane...
I was amused and
sympathetic to Sheila’s argy-bargy with her characters on her blog the other
day, characters do get bossy. I was particularly struck by her exchange with
Tom because members of a reading club had been asking me about my characters. Where,
they wanted to know, did my characters come from?
Well, the truth is I see things:
that is I see people doing things.
The other truth is I didn’t know this wasn’t normal: I grew up knowing my
great-grandmother was ‘fey’; odd things in our family are ‘known’ and just
taken for granted. I assumed most families were like that.
Let me explain what this has to do with Sheila’s bossy characters. My
new novel was something of an accident; I was working on the plot for the
sequel to The Magpie, to cover the
years 1940 – 1950, and went back to Britain to do some research. I arranged to
have a private tour of Cotehele, the Tudor house in Cornwall that is the model
for my fictional Crimphele. Rachel Hunt, House and Collections manager, took me
first to the old Great Hall. As I walked in out of the watery English summer
sun, I saw a tall, sinister figure step out of the shadows near the fireplace
and disappear. His name was McNab. I knew that immediately.
After the Great Hall we wandered through the interconnecting bed chambers,
examining tapestries and chatting about trade between Britain and the Low
Countries; we went up half-staircases and then into the early Tudor tower, up
the narrow spiral steps and out onto the flat roof of the 15th
century fortress. I looked over the crenellated wall at a familiar scene: I
used to live in the area; I know the river Tamar well. But this wasn’t now and
it wasn’t 1940 - I looked down on the river and saw an inland barge bringing
the charming rogue hero from The Magpie
(set early C20th) upriver in the mid-17th
century! This has to be Leo’s ancestor, I thought. Another charming rotter.
Ludovico – Ludo - because life’s all a game for him! I scribbled a few notes in
my book as Rachel, the curator, explained about the river barges. Then we
crossed the roof to look down over the interior courtyard. And there was that nasty
McNab again crossing to the stables, pretending he wasn’t watching me. But he
was - I knew it, I could feel it; my skin was all creepy-crawly.
So there they were, two men dominating the life of . . . Alina: Alina arrived that day as well -
and virtually wrote the first half of the novel herself! Well, as you can see, the
sequel to The Magpie had to be set
aside. But before I could let Alina take us much further I had to do an awful
lot of research because I had never planned to write about the tulip scandal in
Holland in 1636 - or about a Hispano/Vatican conspiracy – or about that creep
McNab in the shadows - or to let a feisty but unwise girl from northern Spain
tell her own story – but they made me do it!
So now I'm wondering how to fit The Chosen Man into my reading schedule. After reading this, how can I resist!
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