So where do I start?

I’ve challenged myself to write about these twelve girls, classmates I think, at a state school, a private school, a boarding school? Are there any sisters, twins maybe?

This is a picture I found in a magazine years and years ago; it is a photo of Japanese school girls from some time ago, before the war. Usually when I start writing I make very few plans or notes, although I have usually been working on the story in my head for quite a while, months, sometimes years. But if I write about these  young women, I think I will have to do more planning than I usually do.

I will have to give them names… so should I give them Japanese names? If I do I’ll have a lot of research to do; which names were popular in Japan in the 1920’s, what sort of family names might they have, what might be the significance of particular names…  I wouldn’t want the research to come between my inspiration and my story so maybe I should just give these girls the English translations of their names, such as Night Rain, Hollyhock, Cold, Little Lily… Which of them is called Hollyhock, I wonder? Maybe number one, the girl top left…

Or maybe I should make them English girls, use their expressions and the characters I deduce from their faces and demeanour… forget the Japanese connection except as an inspiration. So if their story is in England…

What would be the plot? It would be no good just having descriptions, or endless conversations between them, there has to be a plot…, a plot with twelve background stories, twelve personal contexts, twelve puzzles to solve. Twelve girls of the same age… how would I enable the reader to differentiate them and remember their details. How would I make them distinctive as people… that’s the trick! To make twelve similar people different and memorable!