Karen Maitland's Blog - Posts Tagged "creating-characters"
Life in Glass Case
I recently paid one of many return visits to Castle Drogo, Devon, the last castle to be built in Britain. Although it’s constructed from granite and looks like a medieval castle it was only built between 1910 and 1930. This amazing building was designed by Edwin Lutyens for the millionaire, Julius Drewe, founder of ‘The Home and Colonial Stores,’ and Lutyens was determined to make the staff quarters and work places as comfortable and beautiful as those for the family, a rare thing in those days.
Unfortunately, the builders didn’t stick to the design for the roof Lutyens had specified, and exposed to the wild weather high on Dartmoor, it began to leak almost at once, corroding the metal ties that hold the stone work together. So, the National Trust who now own it, have undertaken a massive renovation project to save it. Why am I telling you all this? Well, it’s not so much the castle that fired my imagination, though it is magnificent, but it’s what I found in one of the rooms that really set me thinking.
The curators have set up five glass cases, one to represent each of the three sons and two daughters of Julius Drewe. They were remarkable people, because although their father became very wealthy, each of his children devoted their lives to service to others, including one son, Adrian who died in action in Ypres in 1917, along with 80 out of 100 men from his platoon; Basil who was awarded an OBE for his work on radar; and Mary who took into her house over 50 refugee babies and children made homeless through bombing during the World War II, and who set up a nursery at the end of the war for babies, so that women and young widows could continue to work.
Each glass case has a timeline with the major events of the person’s life running across the top and inside each cabinet are objects representing the life of person – a faded letter, a chair, a military cap, a battered travelling chest. But one of the most wonderful objects to me is a home-made stuffed toy with boot-button eyes, that has clearly been so loved and cuddled that it’s to tell whether it was originally a teddy, monkey or rabbit.
It made me wonder, if we could represent the lives of our favourite literary characters what objects would we put in the glass cabinets to represent each decade of their lives? What would we put in the case to represent the childhood and adult lives of Lisbeth Salander, Mr Darcy, Fagan, Jeeves, Madam Defarge or Gandalf?
Then, I began to think what a good way that is to flesh out the lives of the characters we are writing about. When I’m creating a character, I write a timeline of their life – what sort of families they were born into; what if any schooling did they have, if any; their first job and so on. 90% of this information will never be mentioned in my novel, but helps me to know and understand my character, and why they react in the way they do.
But somehow thinking of a series of objects that might illustrate their past gives them an even greater depth. Like that shapeless stuffed toy, what object might they have treasured most in their childhood? An old arrow head; a sea-washed stone that they pretended was a jewel; a doll made by a grandparent or perhaps it wouldn’t be an object they had owned themselves, but something they vividly remembered – a pipe an adult smoked; the fleece from the flock of sheep their brother tended.
And what would that mysterious and unseen curate choose to put in a cabinet to represent my life, or yours?
Unfortunately, the builders didn’t stick to the design for the roof Lutyens had specified, and exposed to the wild weather high on Dartmoor, it began to leak almost at once, corroding the metal ties that hold the stone work together. So, the National Trust who now own it, have undertaken a massive renovation project to save it. Why am I telling you all this? Well, it’s not so much the castle that fired my imagination, though it is magnificent, but it’s what I found in one of the rooms that really set me thinking.
The curators have set up five glass cases, one to represent each of the three sons and two daughters of Julius Drewe. They were remarkable people, because although their father became very wealthy, each of his children devoted their lives to service to others, including one son, Adrian who died in action in Ypres in 1917, along with 80 out of 100 men from his platoon; Basil who was awarded an OBE for his work on radar; and Mary who took into her house over 50 refugee babies and children made homeless through bombing during the World War II, and who set up a nursery at the end of the war for babies, so that women and young widows could continue to work.
Each glass case has a timeline with the major events of the person’s life running across the top and inside each cabinet are objects representing the life of person – a faded letter, a chair, a military cap, a battered travelling chest. But one of the most wonderful objects to me is a home-made stuffed toy with boot-button eyes, that has clearly been so loved and cuddled that it’s to tell whether it was originally a teddy, monkey or rabbit.
It made me wonder, if we could represent the lives of our favourite literary characters what objects would we put in the glass cabinets to represent each decade of their lives? What would we put in the case to represent the childhood and adult lives of Lisbeth Salander, Mr Darcy, Fagan, Jeeves, Madam Defarge or Gandalf?
Then, I began to think what a good way that is to flesh out the lives of the characters we are writing about. When I’m creating a character, I write a timeline of their life – what sort of families they were born into; what if any schooling did they have, if any; their first job and so on. 90% of this information will never be mentioned in my novel, but helps me to know and understand my character, and why they react in the way they do.
But somehow thinking of a series of objects that might illustrate their past gives them an even greater depth. Like that shapeless stuffed toy, what object might they have treasured most in their childhood? An old arrow head; a sea-washed stone that they pretended was a jewel; a doll made by a grandparent or perhaps it wouldn’t be an object they had owned themselves, but something they vividly remembered – a pipe an adult smoked; the fleece from the flock of sheep their brother tended.
And what would that mysterious and unseen curate choose to put in a cabinet to represent my life, or yours?
