Do you struggle with getting to know your protagonists? They can be as difficult to get a grip on as real people. Initially they're just the names you've conjured up for them, people shaped words; vacuums; then slowly they become more than words. If their names are their outlines, then their characteristics gradually fill them, like a picture in a colouring book; flaws, traits, predilections, problems. They say most fictional characters are amalgams of people who you know, or have encountered. D.H. Lawrence apparently hardly disguised his protagonists at all, lifting them by their bootlaces directly onto his pages. A sort of literary 'from farm to fork'. It's said that people don't recognise themselves in print, but a number of his protagonists did, and he was apparently not well loved in his home town of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire! Me, I use a brew of people I've come across, acquaintances, friends, and family - ssshhhhh!
Published on October 04, 2022 09:11