35: Poison Memory
I still can’t relate this particular part of Nick’s story to hope. So I’m going to talk to you a bit this week about character development.
Martha is an emerging character. She will only ever be a minor character in the action. She is the agent of One-Armed Nick’s trauma and memory loss. I brought her into the story for that purpose, casually lifting her out of folklore and marching her into place. But because this is a story I’m building on the fly, week by week, she was in no sense a fleshed out character when I first draughted her in. She didn’t need to be, a hinted-at entity was enough. Now, she is starting to come more fully into view as Nick re-discovers memories and starts to build a picture of what happened to him.
What you’re seeing, then, is real-time character development. I know a little more about Martha than you do, but not much. I will build her as I need her. I’m not the sort of writer who is able to sit down at a table and produce large written documents about my characters, with every detail of their life, appearance and history included, before I ever write a word. I need to be able to believe in my characters. They have to be real to me, which means two things: I need to understand their psychology and deepest longings and I need a sensory impression of them: visual, tactile, even the smell of them. Once I have those few impressions, I can start to write them into scenes. Then I let me instincts take over. I can’t fully prepare a character in advance: I have to live them out on the page before they become real to me. Which is why it’s often a surprise as to which direction they go in or how they turn out in the end.
How do you develop your characters when you write? Comment below.
A reminder that on Sunday 5th July, you’re going to get the omnibus edition of One-Armed Nick, which will allow free subscribers to read a little more than you’ve hitherto been able to. It also means you can binge-read it all on one email. I know many of you like to read the story in large chunks.
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Episode 35: Poison Memory
Him at the back, invisible, of course. It was a summer evening, he remembered it. Warm, just turning golden, soft. But the jeering crowd made it ugly. It turned his stomach to see his brothers in their last moments, helpless, the oncoming rush of death a celebration. At least neither of them cried out, he was proud of them for that.
They died quickly, that was a mercy. When their bodies went still, he was poised
