Sometimes I see a face and it is almost as if I recognize that person; it could be the face of someone I pass in the street, I might even turn and watch them walk away, it might be someone on TV, it might be someone in a photograph or in a painting like this picture by my favourite artist, Joseph Wright of Derby. That face wills stay with me, and gradually a personality will emerge, or a character, and that character might then seem to be in conversation with someone else… maybe another face I’ve seen.
If I’ve seen a real person, or seen a film of a person and see their face animated and with different expressions, that may add to the character forming in my mind .. or maybe it is only in my mind that the character comes alive. Sometimes a single glance, the tightening of lips, the narrowing or widening of eyes, a small gesture… and motives begin to emerge. Why is he looking so suspicious, why did her eyes light up, who did he see, what did she hear?
It may take a long time before my character appears in some sort of sequence of events which may form a plot; sometimes he or she may seem a major payer and then be sidelined by events or other characters, or maybe he or she had merely a walk on part, but began to dominate the scene! I remember reading once about how Steve McQueen, a relative newcomer in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ stole so many scenes for the much more famous star, Yul Brynner, just by the slightest movement or change of expression.
The picture I have used as the featured image is entitled ‘A Philosopher giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a lamp is put in the place of the Sun’ and what draws me to it, apart from the wonderful use of light is the man on the left, a friend of Joseph Wright, Peter Perez Burdett, a man who is often used as a model in Joseph’s paintings, a man who has a most enigmatic and interesting face… maybe he will be a model of someone… someone who may appear in one of my stories!
Lois Elsden 