What characters hide – The double life of Isobel
How to create a three-dimensional 
character – consider the many people they are
I can never resist a note on the pavement – and as I walked to the Tube this was waiting for me. For those receiving this post in pictureless email, what I found was a card that says Dear Isobel, Happy birthday! With love from Izzy xxx Multiple personality disorder? Double life?
This may seem far fetched, but she might easily be Izzy among friends, while she conquers the world with the stern face of Isobel. Or she could be well-behaved Isobel to her family, a wilder Izzy elsewhere. (By the way, if you like notes on the pavement too, you'll love Found Magazine.)
We all, to an extent, keep parts of our lives hidden. People aren't the same all the time, with everyone. And characters shouldn't be either.
Colleagues don't know what we are like under the professional mask – and sometimes it's quite a dense mask. Close friends don't know the personality that comes out when we're in work mode – perhaps fighting fires, selling door to door, standing up in court to defend a client, ruling the kingdom. Children don't realise their parents are so interesting, and parents don't realise their children are so complex, curious or independent.
*Imagine Isobel's friends wrote a list of what they know about her. Would it be the same as a similar list made by Izzy's friends?
A three-dimensional character has different sides – even if they think they have not got much to hide, and even to people who see them all the time. Those who know Isobel might be surprised to meet Izzy and vice versa.
*When is she more Izzy and when is she Isobel? How do the two halves dress? What do they talk about? What kind of people do they mix with?
Chemistry
As well as the Izzy/Isobel role split, there is chemistry to consider. Perhaps Izzy emerges when a new person arrives – or departs. The infamous Big Brother may have been panned for some of its crasser experiments but one of the most interesting things it demonstrated was the complex dynamics of personal chemistry. I particularly remember in the first UK series a housemate who looked so shy she was invisible but came right out of her shell once another character was evicted. If someone new arrives in the story, such as a potential lover, he (or she) might really bring Izzy alive.
*Who brings out Isobel and who brings out Izzy?
Conflict
These different faces may be a juicy source of conflict – and might even be the entire story. The double life may be overt – perhaps Isobel works under cover. In a less adventure-oriented story, perhaps she is given a choice that creates internal conflict – one half of her wants to take the safe job offer and the other yearns to drop it all and follow her dream – here's my piece on how this drives the entire story in Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road. Or maybe Izzy is a less mature incarnation and perhaps Isobel now wants to be taken more seriously – Deborah Harry instead of Debbie.
Isobel might not even know she's hiding Izzy. Another reality TV series, Faking It, would take a fine art student and challenge them to learn how to be a graffiti artist, or a naval officer and send him to become a drag queen. They were often suspicious of the new world they were pitched into – or they even despised it. They were made to do things that challenged their ideas of what they valued and who they were. They had to wake up sides of themselves they had never expressed before, indeed had repressed. But bit by bit, there was something inside them that embraced this new life. They relearned who they really were.
This kind of change is immensely satisfying. Is Isobel liberated to become Izzy?
*If Izzy wrote a note to Isobel at the end of the story, what would it say?
Does your main character have a double life? And have you found any interesting writing prompts in notes on the pavement? Share in the comments!
