Contact me at lucyvictoriabrown@gmail.com because I'm always up for a natter about anything. Well, mostly.

Friday 4 November 2011

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2011: My Character Introductions

I'm 8,000 words into my novel and I've got one pesky thing out of the way: I've introduced all my major secondary characters. It's something I always find difficult and once they're in there I feel supremely satisfied. I'll worry about more/less detail when I revisit this manuscript (in about three years schedule permitting!) but here how things started from the perspective of Lauren, my protagonist.


Shelley - "A woman came into view with curly brown hair stretching beyond her shoulders. Lauren couldn’t catch her facial expression from this range but she instinctively knew she was good-tempered when the tension in the man’s shoulders gradually disappeared as she sorted out his problem for him. Then the woman calmly disappeared out of view."


Dawn - "A young blonde, probably mid-teens, reluctantly got out while he was shouting at her...On closer inspection, Lauren could see she was a petite girl, though probably with one hell of an attitude. She was dressed in jeans and a halter top, barely covered by the leather jacket she was half-wearing. Trouble was the word which sprang to mind."


Viv and Dot are originally depicted as something of a double act and Lauren hears about them from Shelley before she meets them. This is what Shelley says: "Viv’s got a mouth on her but take anything she says with a pinch of salt. Dot comes across as her sidekick but she’s a bit gentler. You’ll see what I mean when they turn up. Viv comes to wash her husband’s overalls and Dot mainly keeps her company. She lost her job, you see, in the last round of redundancies at the carpet factory. She was in accounts." 


Alan - "He entered looking like a train-spotter, a single bag under his arm that couldn’t have contained any more than four shirts. He nodded to Shelley but still seemed a little on edge with her. Methodically, he removed his anorak and hung it on one of the pegs beside the door. Then he glanced furtively to Viv and Dot who had paid no attention to his entrance whatsoever. A flicker of discomfort crossed his face and he commandeered the washing machine closest to the door."


Ben - "Waiting at the door was a small man in a suit and tie. He carried a holdall in the same way you’d carry a briefcase, utterly unconscious to the fact that the long strap was trailing on the floor. He was a weedy little man with thinning brown hair and thick eyebrows that dwarfed his thin nose. A small smile tugged his lips with effort as he saw Shelley. It disappeared when he caught sight of Lauren hovering behind her."


Trying not to think too much about whether the characters on the page match the characters in my head. Time enough for that later! 
 

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