Christy
asked
Tana French:
You write such real, layered characters. Has there been a narrator that you personally had a harder time connecting with? If so, what do you do to tap into that character?
Tana French
Thank you :-). Scorcher Kennedy in Broken Harbour was definitely the one I've the hardest time connecting with. I don't have much in common with any of my narrators, but I really don't *get* a lot of the things that are fundamental to Scorcher - his obsession with following rules, his devotion to doing things the way you're 'supposed' to, his desperation to turn everything into a positive even if it's clearly a bad thing, his fanatical need for control... In real life, I tend to get irritated with people like that. And yet i knew he was the right narrator for this book, so I had to find a way to understand him.
So I started thinking about what might make someone like that, and I thought one thing that might do it was if he was terrified of his own mind - if he thought of it as something slippery and unreliable that might let him down at any moment. That would explain why he had such a need for rigid, externally imposed controls - because he could rely on them, when he felt he couldn't rely on himself. Once I could understand why Scorcher might feel that way, I was able to make him into a real character rather than an irritating rule freak.
It also made me less impatient with real-life people like that. It can be pretty humbling, spending your time trying to understand people who are different from you.
So I started thinking about what might make someone like that, and I thought one thing that might do it was if he was terrified of his own mind - if he thought of it as something slippery and unreliable that might let him down at any moment. That would explain why he had such a need for rigid, externally imposed controls - because he could rely on them, when he felt he couldn't rely on himself. Once I could understand why Scorcher might feel that way, I was able to make him into a real character rather than an irritating rule freak.
It also made me less impatient with real-life people like that. It can be pretty humbling, spending your time trying to understand people who are different from you.
More Answered Questions
Smokydan
asked
Tana French:
Dear Ms. French, Do you find a great deal of tension when establishing the setting of a novel when the setting is a real place, especially if you associate the real place with unpleasant activities or if you characterize the people and local culture in an uncomplimentary way? Think you.
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