Where does a story come from?
I often wonder if it is solely out of the author’s
imagination or out of their experience? Unless it is a story handed down from
previous generations, the answer must in most part be a combination of both
imagination and experience. It certainly is in my case.
I think some authors start with a character they are
fascinated with, real or imaginary or an event they want to relate. As you may
know, Michael Morpurgo is one of my favourite authors and he so often takes an
actual event and weaves a story around it.
I always start with a story I want to tell to which I add
settings, characters and events – some of which are entirely fictional and some
relate to places, people or events that I have either experienced or been told
about.
Both Nick North books started with a desire to tell a story
with a Christian undertone that dealt with the difficulties that can be
inherited down generational lines. As I have written previously this is a topic
dear to my heart. In Nick North: Blood Quest
Nick deals with a generational curse that has affected
his family for many years. Into this I added a section about witchcraft in the
Middle Ages. In Nick North: War Zone
the story revolves around Leone’s family and a tragedy from the First World War
that plays out into the present day.
The next Nick North; still in the writing process will
feature the work of SOE in the Second World War though continuing the theme of inherited
generational problems.
 |
| Odette Sansom SOE agent |
However there is much more to writing novels than the plot
or storyline. You need convincing characters.
I can honestly say that unlike Basil Fawlty based on the real life
Torquay hotel owner, Donald Sinclair, my characters are not based on real
people. I tend to have a fictional
person in mind for whom I then create a character profile.
Settings however are another matter. Aston Turnberry is a
combination of two villages in Buckinghamshire and the church, central to the
story in Nick North: Blood Quest, was
based entirely on the church in a village where we used to live. The scarecrow
festival in Nick North: War Zone was
also placed in that village.
 |
| 'My' Aston Turnery church |
If I don’t have a mental picture of a setting I want to
write about or have not experienced it like a First World War battlefield then
I pore over pictures till I am confident I can place my story there. In my
latest Nick North I needed a picture of a World War Two aircraft used for
dropping agents in France that I found via Google.
Events that make up the story and carry it along come from
all manner of places. The letters in Granddad’s diary in Nick North: War Zone were based on the letters my Great Uncle wrote
to his brother, my grandfather from the Western Front. The scarecrow festival
though came from photos that a friend showed me of a festival they had
visited.
One of the events central to the resolution of this story
came about in unusual circumstances. It was important that Harry, the soldier
terribly wronged in the War, had his name added to his local war memorial in
Burradon. I will not divulge why his name was not on the war memorial as that
might spoil the story for those who have not yet read the book.
I got the idea for this small part of my story on, of all
places, the bowls green. I was playing bowls and one of the opposition was
telling me about a mate of his that was killed in the Suez crisis whose name had
been omitted on our local war memorial. He felt so strongly about this that he
contacted the Royal British Legion who have now attached a special plaque to
the memorial with his friend’s name on it.
 |
| The actual war memorial. If you look carefully you can just see the plaque on the back panel. |
My latest book, due out soon, about trafficking of children
into domestic slavery relies on my experiences of visiting Romanian orphanages
in the 90’s. I rather hoped my descriptions of life in the orphanages would be
out of date but unfortunately, after checking with a Romanian friend and another
who regularly visits Romania, the descriptions are still all too accurate.
Nowadays fantasy novels abound and I salute those authors
who can create worlds, people, animals and situations that have little
connection to 21st century life on Planet Earth. However my
favourite type are those where people from our time and place find themselves
in another world such as C S Lewis’s Chronicles
of Narnia books, John White’s Archives
of Anthropos and Victor Kloss’s The
Royal Institute of Magic books.
What’s your favourite type of book?
