The challenge and magic of creating complex, memorable characters in novels.

Over the course of the four (and a half) psychological thrillers I have written, I have created a smorgasbord of characters.

Being a hopeless planner when it comes to writing books, I embark on a novel, frighteningly, with only two notions - the locale or geographical journey fictitious people will take, and the setting of the showdown (the final place where all characters, shadowy outlines if conceived at all, will somehow find themselves). Backdrops before the final curtain falls have included the flatlands of Hillbrow, the blockhouse on the charred the slopes of Table Mountain and a bridge spanning the mighty Zambezi River.

So I work backwards from these points. Who can I people my stories with? Who can I bring to life to climb into the skins I will provide, and speak their evolving (or devolving minds)?

My stand-alone debut novel, 'Tangled Weeds', hinged around men so I’d overdosed on testosterone. The Sisters of Light trilogy is set in southern Africa over the course of four and a half months from late 1988-1989. The books track the exploits of four complex women.

The female characters were fun to flesh out. I began with the premise that they were young women on personal journeys to adulthood who attempted to gain clearer understanding of themselves and extend - and in some cases find - forgiveness.

I needed strong personalities who would act as glue to hold the trilogy together as I subjected them to heart-stopping peril and evil. I drew traits, quirks and physical attributes from women I’d known in my days as a student at the University of Cape Town. I filled the gaps using my imagination.

Honey Essack took shape first. I could still remember the smells in the cheap and delicious eatery we frequented in Salt River more than two and a half decades before so her parents would own the Curry Leaf Restaurant. I gave her a part-time job working nightshift, manning the morgue at Groote Schuur Hospital while waiting to enrol in nursing school. I had an idea for a hair-raising scene in this setting. I began to picture Honey revving her motorbike in her trademark high-tops her almond eyes flashing when angry.

Honey muscled her way into my consciousness yet I was somewhat flummoxed when she demanded to have a gift - psychic premonition. Later I traced the origins of this idea back, possibly, to the fact that I was a child of the radio. We only got a tv when I was 12 and one of the serials I grew up listening to was ‘The Mind of Tracy Dark.’ Tracy could see into the future.

The Sisters took their forms – egotistical Flash Peterson, a final year music student and singer in a rock band was the child of a priest, and Honey’s older cousin. As cape coloureds, hailing from the Flats, they used colourful language and had a world view that starkly contrasted the others’. Flash’s brother, Derek, in a later adventure gets caught up in gang life and takes a trans-national trip that alters his life.

Joanie Parks was introduced as a somewhat carefree nanny partying it up in London. Bits of this I draw from my own experiences but Joanie harboured a dark secret. Only when she returns to Chistlehurst Manor, the hotbed of secrets and crushing betrayals, did I begin to work out what Joanie could have done that could have been so shameful.

Petra Montgomery, Joanie’s life-long friend is a rich kid battling an eating disorder who seeks her father’s love and attention. Petra was loosely modelled on my brother’s then-girlfriend and her disease was anchored in the pictures of anorexics that I pored over in my father’s psychology books when I was a teen.
Joanie and Petra grew up in Zambia, where my mother’s family came from. I embellished memories and stories of colonial southern Africa that I’d heard such as the scandals of the White Mischief set. From childhood I regularly visited my aunt who lived her whole life in Lusaka.

Whilst the female protagonists develop longitudinally, each book utilises different geography and I can, thus, introduces a range of new players in each book.

In ‘The Dandelion Clock’ the diverse cast traverses Cape Town. I included a serial killer and a bumbling assassin but in my mind’s eye I pictured Helene, my Bergie, tramping the rainy mountain side muttering to herself. Homeless is something witnessed in all the cities. Characters I craft are often inspired by the real-life people I see. I encountered a hunchback beggar frequently for a period. In ‘The Butterfly Wind’ my enchantress, Siango’s spine curves like a crescent moon.

I worked in the arena of adult education and activism for nearly 15 years and promoting social justice remains important to me. ‘Tangled Weeds’ was written as I attempted to process, and understand better, profoundly disturbing social problems. Aden is addicted to crack cocaine. Mandipa is a vulnerable Zimbabwean whose increasing spiral of vulnerability results in her becoming a victim of human trafficking. Daphne attempts to escape poverty and oppression at the hands of her brother as she discovers her sexual orientation.

The novel I am currently working on highlights the hardships of rural girls in patriarchal societies and violence against women. Trending news reports infiltrate my consciousness. Recently, numerous shocking incidents of femicide have rooted themselves in my heart and brain. Further characters are born to expose the plight of the downtrodden and the blights in the society in which I live and operate.

Southern Africa is both breathtakingly beautiful and profoundly disturbing. Writing about it also allows me to provide a window into the rich cultural diversity and folk lore of our land. In ‘The Starlight Tide’, Shafiek Malgas is half San bushman/half coloured. Helene’s memories are infused with her oupa’s splendid myths and legends of the Cape. ‘Tangled Weeds’ introduces Mojaji, the Rain Queen, and superstitions and cultural beliefs of the Basotho people, including ethnographic accounts of circumcision school and other important themes.

I work hard to, hopefully, encourage my readers to see the world through a variety of cultural perspectives so that they possibly become more tolerant. People are products of their environments and experiences. Very seldom is anyone purely good or evil. It is, perhaps, not always a comfortable journey but as Albert Camus put it, ‘Fiction is the lie that tells the truth.’ I, as an author, feel the need to attempt to present social reality in the more palpable guise of fiction.

So I get to know my characters through the act of writing. I cook up a complex stew in which my characters simmer, revealing their personalities through actions, dialogue and reflections. Their psyches, secrets and desires reveal themselves at their own pace and in response to the storyline, infusing distinct flavour.

The process is still mysterious to me and lodged in my subconscious. It is, at times, exhilarating, and at others excruciating. It requires discipline and many, many hours at the keyboard but it is, there is no doubt, magical and fulfilling. It is, for this season of my life, the only thing I want to do.