Scribble chats1 are a great way to get to know your characters; scribble chats were introduced to Ely Writers in our fourth meeting2. I love a scribble chat with my characters.
Sometimes, they go badly and what the character says isn’t right. This happened with Michael’s father. But it’s ok: if you’re not happy with the results of a scribble chat, you can try again another time.
Sometimes, they go really well, like the time I chatted at length to Teresa then Ben.
An example of what can happen with a scribble chat
My character Ben’s relationship with his flatmate, Michael, was unsatisfactory. They were supposed to be friends from school, yet Ben seemed older than Michael and didn’t seem to particularly like him. It seemed unrealistic that they were friends from anywhere, let alone school. It also seemed weird that Teresa, who was friends with Michael at school, Michael and Ben wouldn’t hang out together more. These thoughts were troubling me, but I didn’t know how to fix the problem.
Unrelatedly, I’d had a scribble chat with my main character, Teresa. I wanted to find the details in her world3; and I did. I found out all sorts of stuff about where she lives and works, where her family live and so on.
I thought I’d ask Ben the same questions; I hadn’t had much interaction with Ben, a minor character, up to this point, so it would be interesting to find out more about his background. I asked him about his family. He was ashamed of his maternal grandparents, but his body language and tone completely changed when I asked him about his paternal grandparents. He told me, They’re Teresa’s grandparents, too. Her mam is my dad’s brother. Me and Teresa are cousins.
And that fixed everything that was wrong about Ben and Michael’s relationship. They weren’t friends – in fact, they didn’t even know each other – before becoming flatmates, so they didn’t need to get on with other, never mind like each other. That Ben is older than Michael is now possible, and, in fact there is an age gap: Ben is Teresa’s older cousin, and is therefore older than Michael, who is the same age as Teresa. Ben and Michael became flatmates through Teresa, who knew they were each looking to move into a new place, but that neither could afford the rent by themselves. It’s fine that Teresa, Michael and Ben don’t hang out together much.
The age difference also meant that a romantic relationship between Ben and another character who is older than Teresa could happen.
Everything slotted into place, just because of a couple of scribble chats.
References
- 2022. Scribble chats at Ely Writers.
- 2017. Your book’s world at Rosie Johnston Writes.
- 2022. Ely Writers meeting 4, July 2022: review at Ely Writers.