I don’t know if it’s the same for other writers, but when I’ve finished writing a story – and I mean in most cases a novel, the characters continue their lives in my head, sometimes for quite a while. I don’t ever write their story for public view, but quite often I do write it for myself, just to unwind from that very close and intimate engagement. Sometimes it is from the point of view of the main character, sometimes it’s someone else who reflects and thinks about the events which happened to them, and try to disengage themselves and deal with whatever trauma made the climax of the story!
This is happening at the moment with a novel I wrote quite a few years ago, ‘The Stalking of Rosa Czekov’. A character who was supposed to be just an incidental guest at a dinner party, a walk-on rôle, became key player. Now they and the main character through whose eyes the events unravelled have left the small, sleepy, seaside town of Easthope – an imaginary place where many of my stories take place, and are setting off on the next part of their lives. They have no idea where they are going, I have no idea where they are going, but at the moment they are recovering from the ordeal in the final chapters, in a small hotel. In many ways they are strangers to each other, and to be honest, there’s not much action, but a lot of interaction. What I’m writing won’t ever make it as a new novel – unless something unexpected happens to them, a surprise for them, and for me! I will carry on with this, until something new arrives, while at the same time I’m writing the next parts of two other novels, the mysterious story of Jay, and the strange things which are happening to Lol and Ellen while renovating an old farm.
Sometimes, very occasionally, an random and new idea is triggered by something I’ve written. When I was first beginning to write novels, there were a couple which were pretty shocking (in terms of how good they were, they weren’t shocking at all in the plot or story-line, very predictable in fact!) and thankfully, I had the sense to put them away. However from one of them, an idea emerged which did in the end develop into something else. The proto-novel I wrote was called ‘A Strong Hand From Above’ and there was a dramatic and violent scene towards the end involving two of the characters. That was the climax, the big finish… as usual the characters continued their lives in my head, and I began to think about something new – a novel which begins after a traumatic event, about how the characters who were involved i must have been damaged and changed.
This eventually became the Rosa Czekov story. Rosa had been involved in an absolutely horrific event before the novel begins, and she is damaged and changed. Although that shocking incident is described and talked about by the other characters, it’s only written about as a newspaper report and as an interview with a journalist. Now I’m beginning to wonder if the ideas I have about what happens after the end – not to those specific characters, but two people in a parallel situation and with a different past which has brought them here – and a different adventure ahead of them. Wait and see!
Lois Elsden 