When Characters Interrupt...

Over the weekend I was being creative- making cakes.

Now I have to say I feel calmer than I usually do on a Monday morning after a few days of not having peace to write-having my other half and teenage children around is not conducive to my ability to concentrate on writing anything.

(My weekend blog post is usually written late Friday night when it's quiet.)

So it was quite unexpected when Sunday morning one of my characters interrupted me while I was brushing my teeth.

Now Jago is a secondary character in my Dorset novel. He is most definitely an alpha male, and he does have his own story, but that's for the future- even though he'd prefer his story done now. But as I don't know all of it he will have to be patient.

In fact his story starts a few weeks after his last appearance in the main novel. I know how he meets the future love of his life; I know her name and some of her back story, but that's about it. It all goes in the notebook specifically for his story.

So there I am, toothbrush whirring in my mouth and Jago springs into my conscious to tell me why he goes against his own rules at the start of his story. It's all to do with his sister.

And then, assured I was eager to go and write this insight down, he strode away, back into that area of my brain where my characters wait and continue developing until I'm ready to work with them.

Now I know to a non-writer all that would sound like I'm a little crazy, but to those of us who write, our characters don't always wait until we're at the keyboard to arrive.

Quite a few of my past characters have popped in to give me information when I'm in the middle of cooking a meal, or doing some other domestic chore.

(A few have even intruded while I've been writing a completely different story.)

So next weekend I'll make sure I've got a notebook and pen handy just in case one of them turns up...

Have any of your characters arrived at an unsuitable or inconvenient moment?

Costume Heaven for the Writer of Historicals...

The Dictionary of Fashion History by Valerie Cumming, C W and P E Cunnington published by Berg (an imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd). This is a revised and updated version of the latter two authors dictionary.

(When I saw the cover image of the Victorian, red and yellow corset, close to, one of my future (but unknown) characters flitted by wearing it...)

Now admittedly I do have quite a few books on historical costume on my bookshelves, some are general, other specific to certain time periods such as the 18th or 19th century. But they each have elements that the others don't.

The newer books have beautiful coloured illustrations, which allow you to see detail, while the much older books relied on old illustrations and black and white images to accompany the text. But old copies of books by Phillis and her husband can be very expensive second hand- and I've picked up a couple in charity shops, but still had to pay quite a bit for them.

The updated dictionary gives a general date period, and a description of the garment, sometimes even a relevent quote. I like the mid-19thC term Howling bags, a slang term for trousers which sport a very 'loud' pattern. I've seen some modern trousers that would certainly fit that description!

If you've ever wanted to know what a particular fabric looked like, or what fibres it was made from, then there's an A-Z covering 50 sides; a glossary of laces- again with dates and descriptions, and a page of obsolete colour names.

Now I don't think anyone would question why the (16th C) Yellowish-green Goose-turd became an obsolete colour...

There's a comprehensive Bibliography too- and I do have a few of the books mentioned.

As many of my characters inhabit the 18th and 19th centuries, I can visualize their clothes better and appreciate the effect on their movements, as well as the texture.

In my Dorset novel my heroine sometimes has to wear clothes that are completely different to her normal attire, and I know that when she first puts them on it will feel strange to her...

Ideally I'd go and look at costumes on display, but costume museums are few and quite a distance from me, and won't necessarily have garments from the time period I need. So books, the web and costume postcards are very useful.

If I chose a particular costume item I'd like for using now, it would be a Calash- especially when I've been to the hairdressers and the weather is breezy... :-)

From any century, what item of clothing, footwear or headgear would you choose?