Tessa, the main character from my second novel, Thyla, is interesting amongst my characters. From the beginning of my writing career I have been primarily interested in depicting contemporary adolescents in my fiction. Daisy Blue and Paulina (from Three Things About Daisy Blue) were both very much modern teenagers and the characters in my current projects are also teenagers struggling with the issues thrown at them by contemporary society. It doesn't give too much away about Thyla to tell you that, while the book is set very much in present day Hobart, Tessa's worldview and reactions to the situations she finds herself in don't seem to fit with the image of a young person raised in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her entire outlook on the world is very different from those of other characters I have focussed on due to this and yet she finds herself in a very contemporary, modern environment. She is sent to a boarding school and surrounded by young people who have been raised in “modern society”. This made for a very interesting character arc for Tessa! Tessa is also probably my favourite of my published characters. She may come across as naïve, as she has lost her memory and is thus very reliant on other characters for her own safety and wellbeing, but there is a strength within her too, and a deep sense of self. That idea of the highly vulnerable and the emotionally – and physically – strong within the one character is very compelling to me. Add to that a firm sense of moral obligation at odds with an emotional response she has to another character and Tessa becomes one very intriguing character!
What kind(s) of character do you consider this character primarily to be, or how would you describe this character?
Tessa is, I suppose, the classic “unreliable narrator” - but not by choice! Her long-term memory has been erased in an accident. But rather than making her the “blank canvas” many characters suffering from memory loss can become, Tessa is highly complex. She is at once very “young” and very “old” and wise. She provides a moral compass for the story and for other characters as she has a strong sense of duty and right and wrong. And yet we discover as the book goes on that Tessa's own moral compass has not always pointed in the right direction! She places great importance on being in control of her emotions and yet she has done something which to many of her kind would be seen as a great betrayal. Also, there is the “wildness” behind her stoic and sensible demeanour that provides another dichotomy to Tessa's nature. She's not the sort of character that can be summed up in one sentence, especially as she is only just rediscovering who she is!
What is a character from a published fiction story by another author you would compare this character to and why are they similar?
Ooh, that's difficult! I expect this will be a difficult one for most authors to answer, as your characters become so real and three dimensional to you it's unimaginable that they could be compared with any other character from fiction! That said, a trope of fantasy and paranormal fiction is the ignorant outsider thrown into a foreign situation and forced to navigate this new world they find themselves in, often with little knowledge of the way this world operates. In Tessa's case the world she finds herself in just happens to be “the real world”, whereas the world she inhabited before could probably be considered closer to a fantasy world. I suppose in this respect I've drawn on characters such as the children from the Narnia series, William Corlett's Tunnel Behind the Waterfall series and even contemporary fantasy series such as Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom and James Moloney's Book of Lies. And having grown up with the strong and complex females presented in the works of Tamora Pierce, of course Tessa's inner strength and sense of duty could be compared with Alannah or Veralidaine from the Tortall universe. It would be a great compliment if anybody did make that comparison!
To what extent did you use any pre-existing character formula, template, paradigm, character design, archetype, or theory or principles of making or analysing character in planning, writing, and refining this character?
I don't consciously, but that's not to say that – as a heavy reader of fiction – I don't do it subconsciously! It sounds very “artistic” but Tessa, along with all my characters, just seemed to grow inside me organically. Her character quirks and history and the challenges she faced all combined to make her feel like a very real and complex individual to me. Tessa can be seen in terms of several archetypes, I suppose: the child, the hero, the anti-hero and also “rebirth”. In later books, the mother archetype could be applied her too. None of these fits her exactly and I think all of the most interesting characters in literature don't fit an archetype. I wish I could say I used literary theories in constructing my work but I consciously don't read much literary theory. It scares me a bit and makes me feel insecure in my own writing methods!
How would you describe the first chapter, scene or section of this story in one paragraph?
Tessa is found in the forest behind Hobart. She has no memory of her past. She is taken by a policewoman, Connolly, to the hospital where she is rehabilitated. She has an aversion to light. She is dirty and her hair is thickly dreadlocked. And she has thick, striping scars on her back. She doesn't recognise modern technology and she is frightened both of knowing her past and of not knowing. As the chapter continues Tessa finds a small lost boy wandering in the corridors of the hospital and helps reunite him with his family. She learns through doing this of her sense of duty and her desire to help others. Throughout all of this Connolly stays with Tessa and Tessa becomes attached to her. At the end of the chapter Connolly gives Tessa a notebook to write down her memories so she might remember who she is. Then she informs Tessa that she must leave the hospital and go to boarding school at Cascade Falls.
Pick one of your published stories. How would you describe the introduction of the main character, or one of the main characters, in this story?
In Three Things About Daisy Blue we meet Daisy with a list of “three things”:
“Three things you should know:
1 This wasn’t my idea.
2 I am only doing this under complete duress.
3 I don’t like you.”
The list is directed towards her diary, which she names “Angelina” because that's a more glamorous name than “Diary”. We learn through this that Daisy likes lists and that she also likes the idea of glamour.
Daisy goes on to say: Hi! I am Zee Blue. I am one hundred and seventy-three centimetres tall. I have blonde hair, blue eyes and a killer smile. I like fashion, movies, celebrity gossip, my best friend Jazz, and Robbie Chandler. I don’t like politics,homework, nerds, weird people, and I definitely don’t like diaries.
Through this introduction we become aware that Daisy places heavy importance on physical appearance. She is also very concerned with popular culture, friends and boys. She has very definite ideas about her likes and dislikes but they are all very superficial. Daisy – or “Zee” as she likes to be known – defines herself through these lists of likes and dislikes and “favourites”. That is what she knows of herself and it doesn't go very deep!
What makes this an effective character introduction for this story?
Because Daisy goes on such a journey of spiritual and emotional growth throughout this story, and because over the course of the story she comes to a much deeper sense of who she is, this initial introduction to her – one that covers only surface insights into her character – is both effective and important to our sense of where Daisy is now and where she will travel during the novel. We immediately place her as a “superficial bimbo” but our perception of her is greatly challenged by revelations during the course of the narrative. We discover Daisy as Daisy does herself. I wanted to set Daisy up as a character that at first seems superficial and even unlikeable so the reader could have their initial conceptions of her challenged as they read further, and so the reader could follow Daisy on her path of self-discovery.
What major changes does this character go through, or what major challenges does the character encounter and how does the character respond to them?
During the course of her journey, Daisy is forced to confront some truths about herself and her past that go beyond the surface facts she uses to define herself. She is forced to acknowledge the truth about her father and the impact this has had on her life. She also learns that friendship with boys is possible and that friendship with someone she judged on surface appearances can be rewarding and challenging as she comes to know the truth of that person. She delves into her own hopes and dreams, with the help of her knew friends, and envisions a path for herself that goes beyond the limited dreams she had expressed before. Daisy finds herself liberated from the constraints she put on herself.
How would you describe the most important minor characters in this story and the changes in their character, or the challenges they encounter and how the respond them?
There are very few minor characters in Three Things About Daisy Blue. It is predominantly a character examination of the two main female protagonists – Daisy Blue and Paulina Gifford. The only minor characters are Cody, a young documentary film-maker, Wayan, a Balinese waiter, and the mothers of the two protagonists.
Both the males challenge the female protagonists in their perceptions of themselves. Cody – a love interest for Paulina – encourages her to query her ambitions and to free herself from the idea that she must be a certain way in order to gain approval. He is set up from the beginning as an assertive – at times almost arrogant – character. But we find out that this gungo-ho attitude is due to his tough upbringing and his desire to transcend the limited goals of his working class roots.
Wayan conversely leads by example. He is not didactic and pushy, like Cody. He introduces Daisy to his family, including his sister, who is faced with physical challenges and yet transcends them in her ambition to become a surfer. Wayan knows that introducing Daisy to his sister will provoke her to question her own treatment of her body and her perception of herself. Wayan's character remains static throughout the novel (which is, after all, set over a very short time period). We learn of his ambition to be a doctor in Timor, like his father, and his wider goals to help the people of that country to heal and rebuild.
The parents of both the girls are interesting and complex characters in themselves and even though we don't see much of their story – as the focus is on the journey of the young girls – I was conscious of making their characters more real and three-dimensional than the parents in many YA novels. Mrs Gifford unknowingly puts pressure on her daughter to succeed and Mrs Blue – in dealing with her own grief about the death of Daisy's father – neglects the effects this incident had on her daughter. Neither parent is a bad parent. They try their hardest and this is an important message for the girls to learn: both their mothers are only human beings. I like that we see the parents being “human” throughout the course of the book.
What does the story gain from the minor characters?
As I've noted above, all the minor characters in Three Things About Daisy Blue play a role in the development of the girls throughout the book. Whether it is by overtly conveying a message or by subtly introducing the characters to a way of life they hadn't imagined for themselves, or whether it is simply by being an honest and fallible human being, each of the minor characters contributes something to the enhanced sense of self that the girls come to by the end of the narrative. The girls grow through the influence of these outside forces. They are forced – overtly or otherwise – to confront truths about themselves that they may never have acknowledged without the aid of these characters. If Daisy Blue and Paulina had been allowed to continue in the “bubbles” they put themselves in, their lives may have gone down destructive paths (physically and emotionally). However the minor characters in the narrative “pierce” these bubbles and show both girls a future they could not have imagined for themselves.
To what extent would you describe the characters in this story as typical or atypical of characters in your fiction stories?
Neither and both! Daisy Blue and Paulina are both young people going through the trials and tribulations of what it means to be a young person – and what it means to be a human, because really, are we so different from the person we were at fifteen? They are unique characters who may seem at first to be archetypes but when you know someone on a surface level, everyone is an archetype, aren't they? I try and see every character I create as a unique human being, not a one-dimensional purveyor of whatever message I'm trying to get across. Good books aren't about a “message”; they are about characters and if the character is true and whole the message comes through anyway. Daisy Blue and Paulina have facets to them that are typical of all of us, and yet they have their own unique quirks. Hopefully this is true of all my characters – they are universal and yet very much their own wonderful creature.
Author website: http://www.kategordon.com.au/
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