The Office Assistants (if only they had opposable thumbs)

 As I’m neck deep in editing and couldn’t come up with anything writing related that wasn’t a rant I thought I’d introduce you to my two office assistants.

Now I’ve always been a dog person, but for many years we just had cats. Cats who would lie on my keyboard, knock my screen over and walk through paint (I’d almost finished a tricky commission once when Tiger walked through orange and red paint and proceeded to walk across the bottom of aforementioned commission…oops).

But about twelve years ago I finally caved, and Freddie came to live with us. The rescue warned us he was mad, and were we sure? We were (although getting him whilst getting the garden landscaped may have been a bit of a mistake). He was the last of twenty-one dogs from a puppy farm, and I fell in love. The cats, not so much. Tiger would hide under the washing hanging over the landing banister and whack him on the nose whenever he went upstairs. He soon admitted defeat and they became friends.

He has never learnt the concept of ‘heel’ and for many years he was ball-obsessed, so a typical spanner.

Now he’s an elder statesman and spends much of the day snoring, has selective hearing, but still enjoys his walks and a treat of a ‘pigs-ear’. Oh and will occasionally put the junior office assistant in his place.

Bramble is nuts, completely nuts, but I’ve never known a dog that is so affectionate once he knows you. He came to us through a friend and it was an interesting start. He didn’t like men, barked at every noise in the house and insisted on sleeping on the bed as close to me as he could get. (He’s still very velcro, but at least he will sleep in his bed at night).

He’s scared of other people, dogs, cats and he isn’t a huge fan of the bright yellow wheelbarrow that is currently outside our neighbours house. But he’s getting better, slowly. We can have visitors, and he gets excited when his favourite people visit, presenting them with a soggy hippo (a toy one, not a real one, just in case you were worried).

They are very good at reminding me when it’s lunchtime (walkies) and tea-time (4:00pm not a moment later). So they get me to move away from the screen. Wish they could make me a cuppa though.

Actually all this has got me thinking about their different personalities and how important it is when bringing your characters to life you think about that. How they react to different situations, how they interact with other characters and the world around them. No two dogs are the same, neither are two people, but their reactions are consistent. It’s important to ensure your characters behave in a way that they would.

How do I get to know my characters? I talk to them, a lot. I listen when they talk to me (usually at three in the morning). For a character to be believable, you have to give them layers. It’s ok saying ‘He was six foot two with brown eyes and hair’ (my current MC), but what is his motivation for what he does, what are his quirks? How does he react to situations? What happens to him to change his reaction? 

I have a lot of notes on who he is, what has happened to him etc. Stuff that will never go into the novel, but because I know him and how he will react I can throw stuff at him and move the plot along. (He doesn’t always like what I do to him - and sometimes I can’t blame him for that). 

Sometimes he challenges me on how I write his reaction. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I’d do this.’ Most of the time he’s right.

Sounds like I’ve lost my mind? I haven’t (or at least I don’t think I have - others may disagree). I’ve talked to other writers and we all have something similar. My characters all sit around a huge farmhouse table, drink tea and tell me what to write, another writer friend keeps all hers in a kind of green room, waiting to be called to the stage. 

We know they aren’t real, but to make them believable they live in our heads, and we observe them, just as we would observe real people going about their business. 

So this did end up being about writing, who’d have thought it?