Character In The Lines ...

from Jacqueline

I’m still in England, and have just arrived back in Sussex (at my mum’s house), following a couple of days in London.  At the moment, I love London.  It really is hopping, and probably the most dynamic city in Europe – certainly the richest, that’s for sure, and you need every penny while you’re there!  And I say "at the moment" because there have been times in my life that I have disliked the city, have been disappointed in its character at every turn.  But right now I like the place.  If you want to read a book – a really great novel – that demonstrates a fine example of place as character, you would do no better than to read Capital by John Lanchester – it’s a witty, smart, clever story about London that manages to weave a social message with a “thumping good read” - as the British reviewers are often known to say when they get their hands on a good book.  But I digress …

One thing I love to do – wherever I am – is to go to exhibitions of photography, particularly if the photographer is known for being able to capture character in a face, a place or a moment in time.  I prefer black and white photographs – there is something about the way shades of light and darkness come into play to bring out the essence of personality, of mood, of intention, even.  I will often stand in front of one photograph for ages, just looking, just thinking, just wondering – who would that character be in a story, if I were to write about him/her?  Call it research by another name, a flexing of the creative muscle, another way to look at how we develop character, and the possibilities there for the writer.  On Wednesday, my friend Corinne and I went along to a major exhibition of David Bailey’s work at London’s National Portrait Gallery, and it was fascinating.  I guess if you’ve heard about David Bailey, you will probably think of him as a photographer of sixties icons, such as Jean Shrimpton (“the Shrimp”), probably the best known model of her day.

 But he also took these photographs:

The nasty looking pair at the bottom were the gangland kings of crime in the east end of London in the fifties and sixties.  The Krays were beyond brutal and put quite a number of other gangland wonder boys in concrete boots – and they’ve been holding up docklands along the Thames ever since, giving new meaning to the words “human support system.”  Look at those faces – say you were creating a gangland monster, how would you bring those faces onto the page, with all their shades of light and dark and charisma and sociopathic madness? Can you see it?

This is one of Bailey’s photographs that might not resonate with you, but it does with me. It’s a WW2 bombsite in East London – in the 1960’s. In my childhood there were bombsites all over east and south-east London in particular – hard to believe that the building of arenas for the 2012 Olympics helped get rid of the last of them.  What words can ever be used describe this sort of place?  But remember that, amid the terrors such detritus points to, the human spirit might have been battered and bruised, but not quite destroyed.  That place is a character as much as the flesh and blood of any human, and as a writer, if I am setting a scene there, I'll need to get to the nub of it in the way I string together words and phrases.

 Last year I went to another exhibition – the work of famed photographer (and costume designer), Cecil Beaton.  He was known for photographs like this - oh, and he also designed the costume:

That's doing things the other way around - giving color and texture to a character from the page.  Here's another of his photographs:

But during the war he was not only a member of the intelligence services, but a wartime photographer.  With this photo of a young child wounded in the bombing of London, he managed to garner more support from the American people for war with Germany than all the politicians put together, when it was published in LIFE magazine.

 He also took this photograph.  How would you describe the men in that bomber? Can you see tension?  Can you tell their ages?  

One of my photographer heroines is Vivian Maier.  What an extraordinary woman.   She was not a professional photographer, but she produced a phenomenal body of work cataloging life in Chicago in the middle of the last century.  Towards the end of her life, locals thought she was a batty old lady who walked or bicycled the neighborhoods with a couple of cameras around her neck, but she left thousands of prints and negatives when she died – the story of how they were discovered can be read in many places online, just Google her name.  But look at these, for example, then wonder who these people are and what stories you might give them.  If I were your writing teacher, I might call this an exercise in character.

This one is a favorite:

So next time you read the news or you flick through a magazine in print or online, look at the faces, look at the places, at the detail, at the minutiae.  There are stories there you know – string a few together, and maybe you'll have enough material to create a thumping good read.

And before I leave you - next Friday is a VERY BIG DAY for me. I'll be telling you all about it in my next post, which will be here at www.nakedauthors.com on Saturday April 19th (I think I will be too busy all day Friday, and too excited and nervous all day Thursday to tell you about it ...)

Until then, have a great week!