The Imprint of Place and Time

BUILDING THE BELOVED CHARACTER, PART 2

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One’s surroundings can have as much to do with a person’s development as his or her parentage. Most of the time but not always it determines heritage, language, social mores, learning levels, and the nature of formative experiences. 

Somewhere along my lifeline a formative experience sparked my fascination with castles, and particularly Irish castles. Thus, I’m always writing about them. But, what kind of person actually lived or worked in an Irish castle? How did it affect what they knew, saw, did, or how they felt about their lives? 

A view to an Irish landscape

In the 17^th century, Ireland was surely wilder and even more lushly green than it is now, but its neighbor England, one of the world’s most powerful nations at the time, saw Ireland as both a dangerous threat and a precious emerald jewel. The threat was that Ireland was mostly Catholic, and should the Spanish choose to attack England they might use Ireland as a back door for entry. At the same time, land seemed abundant for the taking, to reward nobles and military leaders, for harvesting timber, wool, and flax, and for soaking up the lucrative fish oil industry—a very ripe plum to be plucked.

From the time of King Henry VIII, the English had envisioned plantations across Ireland—settlements of pious and hard-working English families—intending that eventually Ireland would be predominantly English-Protestant, living strictly and peacefully under English rule. This, as one might imagine, created a fiery tension between English and Irish—and my description is at best a gross simplification of a very complex and heated situation.

My novel, When Starlings Fly as One, takes place when King Charles I is in bitter conflict with the English Parliament and headed for civil war. The Irish Parliament supports him and even sends money in hopes of maintaining his lenience toward Catholics and resolving a long list of Irish grievances that he agreed to but hasn’t yet addressed.

By 1641, as the English are so distracted, Irish clans are uniting for a chance to take back their island. The rebellion spreads through unity of purpose, but it suffers under disorganization and the divisive goals of individual clan leaders—including one who insists on capturing the defensive castles along Ireland’s southern coast—and especially Rathbarry Castle in County Cork.

My protagonist, Merel, began life as the only child of a painter’s apprentice and his wife. in a port city called Harlingen in the Dutch province of Friesland. She would have lived with her parents in a small wood-framed house with a thatched roof. Upon arriving in Ireland, she is orphaned and goes to live in a large castle fortress on the windy southern coast. She must quickly adapt to life as a lady’s companion within the high walls of a bustling castle that soon comes under siege. She finds herself amid this conflict, an innocent who must eventually choose a side. 

She, like many servants at that time, is at the mercy of her employers, her status bordering on slavery, trapped within stone walls and expected to do what she’s told. Castle life is not as luxurious as it might seem from a distance. There is drudgery, filth, discomfort, fear, lack of control over one’s own destiny, and growing tensions the longer the people are confined together within the castle walls. 

And ever-present is Ireland’s landscape, ever-changeable, at times vast and empty, still as a painting and yet undulating, crowded and bloody, or cool, wet, and windswept—adding to the disturbed atmosphere of the time. 

I didn’t plan so much trouble and bewilderment for Merel when I first saw the portrait by a Dutch painter that inspired her character (see Part 1). Clearly, she was clever, secretive, perhaps loved, and perhaps exploited in some way. 

As I researched the story, certain events had to occur as it developed, and certain things existed in her surroundings such that, rather than imagining what happened to her, I realized them. She had to be Dutch, I realized, because it was the only way she could come into the conflict without bias. Also, she had to have a certain status that would give her access to every part of the castle. And she lied, I realized. She lied to get her way, to stay out of trouble, and to gain the respect she desired. So much about Merel’s character became clear to me as she lived the events, explored the location, and adapted to the structure of her new surroundings. 

(NEXT WEEK, part 3 of this blog series, Informing the Spirit)

Building the Beloved Character

Part 1: INSPIRATION

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Character-driven fiction is by far the most compelling to a reader. A well-portrayed character captures the reader’s imagination, or connects with him or her on such a personal level that the reader feels he/she knows the character and even has a direct relationship with that character. 

Some characters are so beloved, readers discuss them on social media, compare knowledge of a character’s activities, comments, features, and argue over what he/she did, didn’t do, might do, or should do. 

However, when I’m speaking about a beloved character, I mean first and foremost that the character must be loved by the author. A writer can’t possibly make a reader care about one of their characters unless they themselves first care very deeply about them and know them extremely well.

As it does with any real person, my understanding of a character develops and reveals over time. When I began to develop Merel de Vries, the protagonist of my latest novel When Starlings Fly as One, I wasn’t even thinking about the book or the story. I was in bed, browsing dreamily through my Pinterest feed. And there she was. 

She stared at me from a small portrait, a headshot as we say, and not even head and shoulders. The painting was quite old and badly scratched, but the scratches looked like teardrops. Something about her dark eyes hooked me and I couldn’t sleep until I had found something about who she was. The post said only, “Head of a young woman, c. 17^thcentury by an unknown Dutch artist.” 

The word ‘ashmolean’ appeared in the caption. Living in the U.S., I was barely familiar with this magnificent Oxford museum. I contacted them. They had the painting, but no further information about the subject or painter. In that case, I had a blank slate on which to build. I purchased the usage rights for my book cover, even before I had really started the manucript. 

From this portrait alone, I knew Merel was young, smart, petite, and a bit sad. The bow in her hair made her look younger than she probably was, but the grand pearl necklace and fine yellow gown said she lived as a person of wealth. I may never know who she really was, but hope in some way I’ve reflected her truth. 

That the woman was Dutch seemed at first to be an obstacle, but then I realized it was in fact an unexpected but perfect solution. I was writing about the Irish Rebellion against the English in 1641. My intention was to come at it as much as possible with an unbiased viewpoint, though my tendencies are rooted in the Irish. The English side was well documented i.e. histories are written by the victors. But in recent years, historians have been digging out the Irish perspective. My protagonist being neutral and fairly young could discover the story from both sides, and yet have her own conflict within. 

From there I did what I typically do for a character: I gave her a birthday, parentage, relationships, desires, flaws. Some of what I set up in the beginning changed as I progressed in the story, and learned more about her and how she would react in specific situations. I got to know her, and well before the end of the book I loved her. 

She is, as we all are, constrained by her life situations, loving the people who are important in her life, and yet longing for respect, purpose, and freedom — those things which can seem ever elusive. 

(See part 2 of this blog series, The Imprint of Place)

Nancy Blanton is author of four historical novels set in 17th century Ireland. To learn more, visit www.nancyblanton.com

My Father, the Fortress

HOW PERSONAL MEMORY INFORMS STORY

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My fourth novel, When Starlings Fly as One, was completed, edited, and in production before I realized what personal experience had bubbled up to inform the story, and why I needed to tell it. The experience is not unique by any means, and so I wonder if it might stir the ashes among readers as well.

My father’s ashes were scattered in 1997 along a winding, tree-lined creek in Ireland’s County Clare. I’ll never know the exact location, having been about 7,200 miles away at the time, living in Seattle. His second wife and my niece made the long, sad journey and carried out those final wishes. After that, life carried on, and nothing was ever the same.

With Dad on my wedding day

Like many children of the Depression Era, my father, the eldest son, had to grow up faster than he should have. Abandoned by his own father who couldn’t support a wife and four children, he had to step up to an adult role and look after his siblings while my grandmother did everything she could to succeed where her husband had failed. She ran a boarding house, raised chickens, grew a garden, cooked and cleaned, and held a job as clerk at the county courthouse. 

My father drew on his mother’s strength and formed his work ethic according to her relentless standard. If he’d been a sensitive boy, as a young man he toughened, building his walls of solid material, meant to withstand the fiercest assault, the worst deprivation, the deepest insult. In time, when faced with troubling situations, he made sure that if someone had to suffer, it would always be the other guy. He was a fortress.

Me and Dad: I was only 13

One day he was impressed by a wealthy man who worked as an accountant, managing other people’s money. He determined then and there his future career. All he had to do was figure out how to get it. In the navy, he learned if he performed well on a particular test, he’d be sent to college instead of to sea. He made sure he’d be among the top three scores. He went to the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton.

In similar style, when he saw a beautiful woman walking to work along a sunny street in Miami, Florida, he decided she would be his wife. He found someone who could introduce him and then he pursued her. She became my mother. 

Why wouldn’t he then, build his fortress with the firm belief that he could control things and make life unfold as he planned it? But life is life, after all. Perhaps the first fracture came when his wife delivered three girls instead of the three boys he’d intended. But princesses have their value, too, and he would never abandon his children as his father had done.

Typical night at the dinner table

For we three daughters, it wasn’t easy living within those fortress walls. We lived comfortably, but demands for performance were sometimes unreasonable. Expectations were high, matched only by harsh criticism and humiliation. Winning his approval was supreme, but it was the smack across the side of the head that I remember most, and being invisible became the best course of action. But we also knew that inside the fortress we had a place. We would always eat. We were protected. And even if we ventured far beyond the fortress walls, if things went wrong we could return and the gates would open. 

No one could have foretold what effects the new era—of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll—would have against that fortress, finding cracks in its outer walls, and seeping into the safest chambers to change thinking, shift desires, alter the paths of lives. There was rebellion inside and out. The great fortress walls began to crumble, the towers to shift. The gate didn’t lock anymore. Some unexpected things came in. Other things that had once been good went out. 

All of these experiences colored in some way my telling the story of Ireland’s longest siege at Rathbarry Castle. No one expected the siege. Good things are lost, there are unexpected arrivals, there are many kinds of rebellion, along with moments of brilliance and foolishness. Transformation.

Grad school graduation

My father became like the tall, standing tower that remains amid a castle ruin: still majestic and proud, but with nothing left to guard or protect except himself. He softened, not quite returning to the sensitive boy, but taking his enjoyments quietly, his disappointments with a shrug, no longer firing from the battlements. At night he would go to an Irish pub and sing Danny Boy, a song of a parent wishing for return of a son from war; a song that, in the words of journalist Maddy Shaw Roberts, “deeply cries for home.”

I didn’t expect that after more than two decades since my father’s death, grief still rises. And what better way should it come than in story? I, like the protagonist, return to the fortress even though I know it can never be what it once was. I can’t fix it. But I can take the stone and rubble that remains, dust off a few bits to see what they can tell me, sweep out the darkest corners, and craft something of my own. I think my sisters and I have each in our own way made our father proud. 

www.nancyblanton.com