Approaching the Light by Allison Symes

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

I trust it’s not too late to wish you a Happy New Year. January does seem to go on for ever and ever, amen. There is a wonderful Brian Bilston poem about that (Mnemonic), which is worth looking up if you haven’t come across this. It always makes me grin.

There is a plus side to January. As the month goes on, we are literally approaching the light. The evenings seem longer (especially noticeable if you are taking the dog out). 

I like to write and read a mixture of light and dark stories. In the latter, I want there to be some sense of hope. For light stories, I want some “bite” to them. Humorous stories can make you think while they’re entertaining you. 

I prefer my characters to be a mixture of dark and light given nobody is perfect and I don’t like wishy-washy, too good to be true portrayals. I suppose this is why I identify far more with Jo March from Little Women than I do with her sister, Beth.

I also love redemption stories (especially A Christmas Carol and yes, I did watch the best version of it, The Muppets with Michael Caine, in the run up to the recent festivities). Where someone is on the wrong path and they can be helped to get to the right one, that is a theme with powerful resonance.

Again it appeals to my not wanting characters to be too good to be true (as it is so hard to identify with those). But it also appeals to my deep belief “a life can be put right”. There is hope there for one thing. We could all do with more of that, I think.

When it comes to approaching the light with my characters, I draw up a brief list of what I think their positive and negative traits are. Just doing that will trigger ideas and I will know because I’ve thought about what my character is like, they are more likely to come across as realistically drawn, even if I set them in some fantasy setting far, far away and a long time ago.

I don’t go into chapter and verse  because I find knowing the broad positive and negative traits (e.g. they’re funny and at the same time can be as ratty as hell when provoked enough) gives me my way into knowing the character better. Then I will know what they would do and how they would react given any circumstance.

I prefer my characters to approach the light. It strikes me as being a more positive direction to go in. Even the “lightest” of characters can (and I think should) have depth. 

 

I’m thinking of Wodehouse’s wonderful Bertie Wooster and the latter’s take on Roderick Spode (who is based on Oswald Mosley). Bertie is spot on with Spode and shows great depth of character when railing against Spode. Wonderful to read too.

 Onward to the light then!