A character take over!

With thanks to Antony Barlow at Tiny Tree Books for suggesting the book and blog feature, and to author Richard J. Sutton for the wonderful book and this insightful feature piece. Head over the the Armadillo Home Page for a review of the book which is our featured Book O' the Week.

A brief overview from Richard J. Sutton ~ During a hike in the Scottish Highlands, teenager Erik finds a stone pendant that once belonged to St. Columba. He begins to see things that no one else can, while a spate of strange incidents throws the local community into confusion and fear. Erik is soon drawn into a snowbound otherworld, where he uncovers new abilities and forms unexpected alliances in a struggle against an ancient evil. Set in real and imagined locations around Loch Ness, Sleeper on the Mountain blends Scottish history, folklore and Norse mythology into a contemporary YA adventure. Richard J Sutton explains how his characters gradually began to shape and eventually drive the plot.

As much as anything, this is a story about identity and belonging. Whilst these are familiar themes, they never lose their power in Young Adult fiction, which makes it such a rich territory for writers. You really get to explore a character’s growth, how they experience things for the first time and how those experiences continue to reshape their perceptions and values.

I think we’re all drawn to individuals who are uncertain about who they are, but who eventually start to believe in themselves, in their abilities, and trust their own decisions. That’s how my protagonist, Erik, came to be. At the beginning, he is naive, insecure and uncertain about his future, which gave him plenty of space to grow. Watching him become more empowered as a result of his experiences was definitely a rewarding part of writing the book.

My female lead, Ingrid, is steadier and more emotionally mature than Erik and the other boys. As the dialogue and action came together, I formed a mental picture of the two: Erik was like a hare, quick and wary, and tricky to pin down, while Ingrid seemed more like a burning coal, resilient, fiery and passionate. I used this kind of imagery with other characters too, and it helped shape their dialogue and motivations while creating tension going forward.

I found it useful to jot down key turning points and position my characters within them in order to set the tone and connect the many narrative threads I’d developed (and discarded!) over time. This proved pivotal in shaping the story arc. Without giving too much away, it's another key character, Joro [sorry I can't get the accents here], who anchors Erik’s transition into his new reality while reinforcing the mystical and mythological undercurrents of the book.

Whilst not new to writing, I am a first-time author and didn’t find my voice until I started writing dialogue. I was terrified to do this at first, but it began to flow naturally once the characters took shape in my head. The friendships we form, and how we bounce off others, greatly helped with that, and provided much of the humour I was looking for, whilst I relaxed and let the epic setting move the action along. I like using absurdity to bring out character humour, reveal flaws, or test ideas, exaggerating someone’s paranoia so that it becomes comedic or even slightly unhinged.

The early drafts I’d drawn together quickly began to favour a quest structure. I was keen on the idea of two worlds colliding, and this meant I had to find a variety of allies and antagonists in each. The fact that characters are separated by a thousand years of history wasn’t the problem I imagined it would be. For the novel’s prologue, the language needed to be formal and restrained as might befit an early medieval monk, and it was fun digging out some colourful insults and profanities to announce the arrival of the Vikings, but beyond that I felt no particular urge to introduce archaic language.

Once I’d settled on a quest structure, I wanted the story to feel like a life journey; my protagonist always climbing, pushing upwards despite everything thrown at him, towards the top of the world – and then to explore the flip side of that.

Having worked in both the non-fiction and now the fiction communities, I’m conscious of the conversations around lived experience in writing. I did question how best to portray a character grappling with oppression when I had no direct experience of it myself. Erik’s mixed-race background became a way to explore a sense of alienation – how we might feel disconnected from others, or as though, in some way, we don’t belong within our own communities.

Allowing your characters to drive the story, rather than simply moving them through it, is one of the best pieces of advice I received when I started writing YA fiction.

Richard J. Sutton is a retired journalist and editor of publications across heritage, education, and sport.  His debut novel, Sleeper on the Mountain, is published by Tiny Tree Books.