Mistaken Identity
Do you still stick stuff on your walls or have you progressed through clip frames to proper grown up pictures and paintings? In our house, everything above ground is pretty grown up, but my work area is an ever changing free-for-all (currently plastered with Spanish icons and images of Javier Bardem - it's work, honestly). Does your writing spill over into your environment, or do you tend to keep it all contained? If you haven't tried it, visual and audio prompts can be really helpful in building atmosphere - think of all those detective films where you see the investigation HQ, plastered with maps, photos, brainstorms. Images and music can help you build a strong case.
The way we express ourselves in our surroundings is also an interesting 'tell' about character. I was writing about a teenager's bedroom the other day, and realised how obsessively we all used to festoon our 'space' with images. The images on his wall acted as shorthand for his character. Our walls were reflections of who we were - or wanted to be. Moving into a new study at school or halls at university, you inherited the pock marked walls of the students who had gone before you - the blutak and sellotape scars. At a certain point, every girl had the Man & Baby, every guy had the hot tennis player. In themselves they say a lot about the soft focus porn of the unreconstructed 70s and the 'new man' ideal of the 80s - chiselled six pack but nifty with a nappy.
When I heard 'No Such Thing' it reminded me of those days - maybe you also think it harks back to the 80s - a little bit like the lovechild of Clapton and Go West. It reminded me of sitting in a study drinking Earl Grey with a boombox that would devour casette tapes, and the pictures on the wall: Georges Marciano perfume ads (Jane Russel type model on a haystack), 'Un esprit libre dans un corps sage', Betty Blue, 'Why Not?'. It made me think of freewheeling through silent summer lanes - cut off blue jeans, the hum of insects by the lake, Gauloises Blondes, hawks keening in clear skies. What did you have on your wall as a kid? The Pink Floyd prism? Che Guevara? Maybe thinking about the world within a world you built for yourself (your room/study in your parent's home/school) is a good way to ground your characters - what home have they built for themselves?
Of course - appearances can be deceptive. It's not an 80s track - it just evokes the same feelings as Go West (below - haven't they aged well?) Never assume anything with your characters - scrape the surface, let them talk and it's amazing what will come to life. The story behind Man & Baby is a case in point - the 'ideal' man was paid £100 (a reduced fee because he fell asleep on a sunbed the day before the shoot and they had to retouch his burnt chest). As a result of the photo, he claimed to have slept with over 3000 women - and the only babies he fathered he has had nothing to do with. He was cute but it was the fantasy that seduced everyone - he was like the Pied Piper of Athena.
TODAY'S PROMPT: Do you ever do that thing where you are walking down the street and think you have spotted an old friend? I seem to go through stages of this - do you think thought patterns tend to be cyclical? Has anyone ever mistaken you for an old friend, how did you feel - how do you feel at the thought that someone out there bears that close a resemblance to you? Maybe you have a doppelganger out there ... What about actually bumping into people you haven't seen for years? I was grocery shopping yesterday, and two women in their 60s suddenly cried out, hugging, almost in tears - they hadn't seen one another since school, and excitedly swapped news about grown up children, husbands, old friends. Glancing at them as I walked past, their faces were alive - you could see the young women they once were. Why not take some time with your journal or draft and think about the stories behind your characters - why not have them experience something that triggers a deeper understanding of who they are and what they are about.
