Writers on Writing is our regular conversation with a writer or industry professional about the writing craft, industry insights, and their own practice. This week, we spoke to Rosie Dub about writing convincing characters to emotionally engage readers, while navigating plot, landscapes and psychologically and physically varied perspectives.
How do you approach writing from the perspective of characters whose psychological or physical experiences differ from your own, while still ensuring respect and authenticity in their portrayal?
Unless we’re writing about ourselves, all our characters will have differing perspectives and experiences than our own, though there’s a spectrum of difference that ranges from a little to a great deal. We all interpret the world through our emotions, our memory, our experience and the ideologies which (often unconsciously) frame us and form us. Writing about different genders, ages, sexual preferences, economic statuses, political beliefs, cultures, races, historical periods and so forth, requires above all, responsible research. And on some occasions, feedback from other readers to ensure the writing is as respectful and authentic as possible.
There’s also a second factor that I think is important. Underneath the colourful array of costumes we wear, we’re all connected by a common humanity. I’ve always felt that if we want to connect well with our readers, it’s important to portray our characters’ costumes vividly and responsibly, while also portraying their humanity. This helps to bridge differences and connect us with each other. So for me, the answer to this question is a combination of these two factors – research and human connection.
What do most well-written characters have in common?
Well written characters don’t have to be likeable, but readers need to engage with them on some level, usually emotionally. Readers need to care about a character whether or not they like them. There needs to be something at stake, and the strongest stakes often reside first and foremost in the internal state of a character, and are then mirrored in the external plot. Stakes usually relate to conflict– inner conflict, interpersonal conflict, external conflict. These propel a story forward, and a character into change and development.
Characters feel plausible when they act and react to situations in ways that are convincing. Each character is unique and carries their own unique set of experiences, psychological patterns and so forth, which means each character will respond to a situation in a unique way. Well-written characters drive plot, not the other way around. So, if we devise a plot and then force our characters into it and make them react how we think they should, then the result is usually an unconvincing story with unconvincing characters. Backstory is important as it shows readers the past influences that have formed (and often drive) a character. Character reactions to situations are driven by motivational factors that create cause-and-effect threads in their lives, forming patterns of behaviours that tend to repeat until they learn something about themselves and begin to change those patterns. We usually see this happening in the character arc, with a series of turning points and/or epiphanies that signify moments of understanding and shifts in behaviour and plot direction.
In your novel, Gathering Storm, the Australian landscape is often a mirror for characters as they discover who they are. How can the Australian landscape particularly inspire exploration into character?
Firstly, in folk tales and mythology across time and space, landscape has always symbolically represented a journey into the psyche. Whether it’s the desert, a forest, a mountain or an ocean, embarking on a journey into these spaces is metaphorically equivalent to embarking on a journey inward, and the treasure the character is generally seeking is self-discovery. The plot moves forward while the character moves inwards and begins to discover something about themselves. The wilderness is a place where inner change happens. A place where fear is faced and old wounds healed.
This is the case in Gathering Storm, where the outer journey, which involves a trip through central Australia, is a metaphor for the inner journey which involves Storm’s journey into the past to unravel the lies that make up her history, and into herself to face the monsters she’s so afraid of. Gathering Storm is a rite-of-passage novel as well as a road story.
When I began writing Gathering Storm, I had no idea how important a role landscape would play in it. The story moves from the snow-covered Malvern Hills in England to the harsh heat of the Australian outback, a dramatic contrast in itself, but then there are the contradictions that are deeply embedded in the relationships the characters have with the places in which they live, or once lived, or never lived, but still dream of. The novel is steeped in nostalgia for something just out of reach. For belonging. To place. To family. To self.
Most of us live in cities perched on the edge of Australia, facing out to sea. Everything behind us is ‘out back’. Many of us have never been there and yet it carries such a mystique. I grew up in the suburban wilderness of Adelaide, with its manicured lawns, neat fences and garden beds filled with roses, lavender and lovingly tended hydrangeas cowering under well placed umbrellas. Even in the city there was a contrast between these neat gardens and the throaty laugh of the kookaburra, the eucalyptus scent of the gum trees, the fierce summer heat and the frequent dust storms that blew in from ‘out back’, turning the sky orange. But leaving the city behind for the desert is another contrast. We see then just how tenuous a hold humanity has on nature, how frightening and dangerous it can be in the desert but also how beautiful.
What are some examples of well-crafted characters?
This is difficult question! There are so many of them to draw from and I also find it hard to separate the characters from the plot and the world of the story they inhabit, all of which should work seamlessly together. So I’ll just do a quick scan of my bookshelves and list a few very different examples.
Jane Austin’s characters are brilliant – occasionally verging on caricature because of the lacings of humour she uses, but always complex, which is a difficult balancing act. Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice is phenomenal.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are two wonderful characters but neither would be so credible or interesting without the other, which is often the case. We see this in Lord of the Rings too where together a group of characters create a beautiful symphony, such as The Company of the Ring.
It’s easy to forget that memoirs also depict character/s, because they’re drawn from real life. Jeanette Winterson’s, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, is a great example of a memoir which builds a nuanced picture of both Winterson and her problematic mother – something she also does well in fiction, in Oranges are not the Only Fruit. Drusilla Modjeska’s Poppy is a fusion of fiction and memoir as the author gradually builds a picture of her mother for the reader.
In the Earthsea Quartet, Ursula Le Guin creates an incredible character in Ged/Sparrowhawk and shows his deep inner journey into the shadow aspects of himself. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time uses the first person skillfully to reveal a teenage character, Christopher. And Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore is another great example of a teenage character, very different styles and approaches but both compelling and moving.
Dr Rosie Dub is the author of two novels: Flight (Harper Collins) and Gathering Storm (Penguin) which is being adapted for screen. She’s currently working on The Girl with the Lead Boots, a narrative non-fiction book about how story forms us and how it frees us. Rosie is facilitator of Centre for Story, a platform for reimagining ourselves and the world through story. Her PhD explored the nature of story and its role as a developmental tool for individuals and cultures. She shares her research in the writing workshops she runs in the UK and Australia as well as her newsletter, Alchemy of Story. Rosie currently teaches on the online MA in Writing program at Swinburne University and also works as a mentor and manuscript assessor. She lives in Hobart, Tasmania.
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