Careers for Characters by Victoria Chatham

 

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In my historical romances, careers, as we understand them today, did not exist for my heroines. Young ladies of quality were trained from a young age to look for an advantageous marriage, manage a household, and raise a family. However, my leading ladies all had a streak of independence and wanted more than being lady of the manor.

Emmaline Devereux followed in her father’s footsteps and became a spy in the Peninsular Wars. Juliana Clifton learned to swordfight because she didn’t want her brother to have all the fun. I knew next to nothing about sword fighting, so I watched several YouTube videos, but my understanding of methods and techniques with different swords grew to a new level when I attended some fencing classes.

Lady Olivia Darnley loved books and knew her way around libraries. One of my Regency belles, Hester Dymock, was an herbalist and healer. Charlotte Gray learnt map-making skills from her father and millinery from her mother. Phoebe Fisher grew up on a farm and became a competent horsewoman. My Brides of Banff Springs heroine, Tilly McCormack, became a chambermaid at the famous Banff Springs Hotel. The heroine of my new cozy mystery series is a sixty-six-year-old retired primary school headmistress.

I don’t recall having to create a career for any of them, as they all evolved organically. Charlotte Gray was the only one who gave me any trouble. As I saw it, Charlotte’s story was about being a lady’s companion in a quiet country home. I thought she might become the vicar’s wife, very genteel and respectable, but Charlotte wanted adventure, so that was what she had, and then some. It took me a while to figure out a connection between spying and map-making, smuggling and millinery, but once I built her backstory, it came together quite quickly.

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When we start writing, we are encouraged to write what we know. I knew very little about any skills my heroines needed other than using herbs and horseman(woman)ship. I’ve been around horses since I was five, and my life-long interest in herbalism at age nineteen. Spying during the Napoleonic Wars was rife, and the Duke of Wellington was rumoured to have a network of some four thousand spies. I have always liked maps, so it wasn’t too hard to work that theme into Charlotte’s story. The millinery, not so much.

As the author, you can choose any career for your character, but they will tell you what they like and don’t like, what they can and can’t do, and what they might want to learn. Authors may use their own experiences of a career, as John Grisham did with his legal thrillers, or let their imaginations run wild as J.K. Rowling did with Harry Potter. With judicious research, you can build careers for your characters about which you, the author, know nothing. Dick Francis, the author of over forty horse-racing-related thrillers, had many different careers for his characters, from a glassmaker to an art forger, a horse transporter to a meteorologist, a barrister to a movie star playing detectives on the big screen.

I needed to learn about ranching, cattle, and rodeo stock for my contemporary Western romances. One of my heroines was a lady rancher, another a photojournalist, and the third an interior designer. You might wonder about those last two characters, but those leading ladies became involved with ranchers, so they had to have their own careers.

Once an author has the career background, has done the research, and has begun writing, what emerges is as authentic as possible. However, I hope none of my future characters wants to climb mountains or be a trapeze artist, as I have no head for heights.  

Victoria Chatham

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