Secondary Characters by Victoria Chatham

 

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A story without a good character or story arc is like a straight piece of string. Boring. Uninteresting. Then tie a few knots in it here and there, and it becomes a different beast. Why is the knot in that place rather than in this place? Why is that knot bigger than the others? Does its size mean something important in the plot or an ‘aha’ moment for the character? And what does that squiggly little knot between two bigger ones indicate? Could it be a red herring slipped in there to catch the unwary?

The plot arc is the story’s shape, while characters have internal and external arcs that can create conflict. At the beginning of the narrative, Character A may be lacking in confidence. He or she thinks they are useless, unlovable, and ordinary. Then events test them as the story progresses, and we see that character overcome their ‘negative press,’ the false image they have of themselves, and by the end, they see they are useful, lovable, and extraordinary.

Secondary characters in a story are there to bring out the best in or give support to Character A, which doesn’t mean that they are less critical. They still need a good backstory, and the author needs to make them as well-rounded as Character A and not a caricature. They need names, strengths, and weaknesses, the same as Character A. While we might lay out every aspect and nuance of Character A for our reader to get to know and understand him or her, we don’t need to see that for the secondary character, even though the author will know it. Secondary characters are great for discovering facts, as Lord Clifton instructs his secretary Edward Pargetter in my book His Dark Enchantress.

Lucius tapped his forefinger against his lips, his eyes narrowing as a scheme began to form in his mind.

“That could be most fortuitous, as long as the under-secretary is not one James Horace.”

“If you wish, I could make enquiries as to whom exactly my cousin is attached.”

“I do wish, Edward, and it must be done as discreetly as possible. I also wish you to discover who else Lady Darnley has invited to dinner. Now, will I be signing my life away if I do not read these damnable letters?”

“You’ll never be sure, Sir.” Edward handed him a freshly trimmed pen.

Because Edward has been employed by his lordship for some time, they have developed respect and liking for each other, as indicated by Edward’s quip. Or this example of a working relationship from Legacy of Love. Ranch foreman, Colt McKeacham, relies on his lead hand and horse wrangler, Bailey Johnson. 

But still, the worm of misgiving in his gut wouldn't give up. He twisted in the saddle and motioned for Bailey to join him. 

"What's up?" Bailey asked, pushing his horse up beside Colt's.

Colt shook his head. "Not sure. Something's not sitting right." He swore under his breath. "Hell, I'm going back. Take over for me."

"Sure. You worried what Callie might get up to on her own?"

Colt nodded. "I didn't believe Robert. Now he's dead. Callie's only been here a few days, and she's already been involved in one accident. Bailey, did she fall off that fence when we drove the horses in, or was she pushed?"

Secondary characters will have a different perspective on Character A, and understand and appreciate their likes and dislikes. They can help the reader build up their image of the main protagonist, like peeling an onion in reverse. They might be more like the person on the street, someone the reader can easily relate to, rather than a lord of the realm, hot-shot sports hero, billionaire, or whoever your Character A might be. One thing is sure, don't ever underestimate the strength of a secondary character.

Victoria Chatham

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A Writer's Melting Pot by Victoria Chatham

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Beginning a new book is always an exciting project for me. There are places to research, houses to build, characters to create and plots to devise, all or some of which may eventually find their way onto my pages. 

I start with my characters, getting to know them as I build their backstories, their life histories with all their strengths and weaknesses, failures and successes. Whether I am writing historical or contemporary Western romance, my character questionnaire follows the same pattern. The characters have to reflect their era, so I'm careful about naming them, and if I'm writing a Regency romance, then I have to make sure my characters' titles are correct.

Next, I work on my settings, the stage on which my characters perform. My Regencies have a mix of city and rural settings because the peerage split their time between London, for when Parliament was in session, and their country estates when it adjourned. The busiest time, known as the Season, was between Easter and when the House adjourned in July. By then, most people were keen to get out of town because of the smell.

Country estates are lovely to create, and many of my imaginary ones come from illustrations in books like Country Houses From the Air or The English Country House and the very useful Georgian and Regency Houses Explained. I have floor plans for country houses and smaller but no less impressive townhouses. From there, I can create my settings with a measure of accuracy and viability. What might be included on any of these estates as far as farms and crops are concerned, are all gleaned from internet searches for letters and records of the big houses, some of them going back hundreds of years, and depend on what part of the country (being England, Scotland, or Wales) the estate is. Building styles change somewhat from county to county depending on what materials are available or how wealthy the lord of the manor might be.

Weather, with all the light and shade that comes with it, plays a part in my settings, too. For information

on a particular year, I start with a visit to https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history, and to pin-point a timeline for where my characters are, I consult https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1818&country=9. The weather can affect so many aspects of my character’s mood. If it’s warm and sunny, then likely she is too. If it’s raining, all sorts of events can transpire from that. Think Marianne Dashwood getting soaked in the rain in Sense and Sensibility. Rain heralded my hero’s arrival in Folkestone in my book His Dark Enchantress. It fit his mood and the seriousness of the situation in which his wife, my heroine, had been abducted.

Plants and flowers play a part, too, and for this, I use a Reader’s Digest book of English flora, plus Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. It pays to know what plants grow in which part of the country because someone will surely call you out if have a daffodil growing where it never would or a lark singing in central London as this is a bird that likes open countryside.

How I dress my characters also comes into play, and for this, I use an Illustrated Encyclopedia of Costume, Fashion in Jane Austen’s London and just because, The History of Underclothes. When I go home to the UK for a visit, I'll go to museums. One of my favourites is the Costume Museum in Bath. YouTube can be particularly useful, especially clips like Undressing Mr. Darcy. I guess I’m a bit of a nerd because I do enjoy research, and if I come across a particularly interesting snippet, it makes my day. Whether I can use it or not in a book becomes another matter altogether.

I'm fortunate to live in Alberta, Canada. Touring the Rockies, visiting small towns and their museums, and going to rodeos have all helped with my Western settings. It's said a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have many photographs of mountains and rivers, open prairie and dusty badlands. I've interviewed cowboys and stock contractors and once spent a day on a working ranch where the owner was quite shocked to hear that I had never seen a moose. "There was one down in the muskeg this morning," he said. So off we went in a well-worn pick-up truck to find the moose. After driving around for an hour, there was no sign of said moose, so we looked at some of his stock and went back to the ranch house for coffee.

Most authors are people watchers, but in addition to watching, I like talking to them, too. You never know what might come up in conversation. Someone might throw away a line that you know you just have to fit into your dialogue somewhere, as in Legacy of Love, where one cowboy asks, "Are you being straight with me?" and the answer is "straighter than a yard of pump water." Writing is a joy and a challenge, sometimes a frustration, but never, ever, boring as all the elements that make a story come together in the melting pot of this author's mind. Oh, and the new book? Look out for Loving Georgia Caldwell coming this fall.

Victoria Chatham

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My Favourite Month by Victoria Chatham

 

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Of all the months of the year, September is my favourite month.

That might be because it is my birthday month. It is also the beginning of autumn, my favourite season. This, according to the poet John Keats, is the ‘Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness.’ I love watching the leaves on the trees change colour from the green of spring and summer to gold and bronze, russet and red.

Cool, crisp mornings can be followed by clear blue skies and balmy sunshine. There may be a spell of Indian Summer, that dry, warm period that can occur after the first frost and before the cooler temperatures of October set in.

Or the mornings might shimmer with a gossamer-light mist draping late-season blackberries on the
hedgerows or making spiders' webs glisten. French author Lea Malot says, ‘September was a thirty-days long goodbye to summer,' while Virgin Woolf wrote, ‘All the months are crude experiments out of which the perfect September is made.’ That seems about right to me.

But the weather, like fate, can be fickle. During my first visit to Canada over thirty years ago, I went out in jeans and a t-shirt on a beautiful sunny September morning. In the afternoon, the temperature plummeted, and a blizzard blew in. I had to buy a jacket and boots and found traffic had ground to a halt which necessitated taking shelter for the night in a hotel. These days I am prepared for any eventuality.

Now the evenings are beginning to draw in, it's time to cozy up to the fire and start thinking about the next novel.

​Victoria Chatham

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A Blast From the Past by Victoria Chatham

 

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I'm often asked if I read outside my genre of historical romance. The answer is an unequivocal and resounding yes. Books are a feast and I devour them. I enjoy and follow my fellow Books We Love authors, but beyond that, I have a penchant for Lee Child, Jane Austen (still) and many, many more both old and new. A recent search for a much-loved book, The Old House at Railes by Mary E Pearce turned up something totally unexpected, an autobiography Good Morning.... Good Night by Tim Langley.

The only Tim Langley I had ever known was huntsman at the Berkeley Hunt where I had worked in my teens as a groom during the 1962-63 season. Could it be the same Tim Langley? Yes, it could and now I have my copy with the cover embellished with the same illustration as a birthday card I have kept for many years of Tim with the Berekeley Hounds. Tim was a real gentleman, always well turned out and polite, but definitely a character.

I never hunted, and today fox hunting is viewed through a very different lens, but I loved the hunt horses. I had three in my string: chestnut Duet who was a real sweetheart, grey Thor who had the longest back of any horse I've ever known, and Tangerine, another chestnut who never learnt to walk but jiggled and jogged along working himself into a sweat and always took forever to cool down.

Duet

This was my first home away from home and it's no wonder I now write historical fiction. Berekeley Castle was our backdrop. It has been the ancestral home of the Berkeley family since the first motte and bailey was erected at the time of the Norman Conquest. The stables were built during the time of Queen Anne (1702 - 1707) and had barely changed at all. The last window on the second floor was our bathroom, the next window along was the kitchen, and the flat apartment was shared by us four girl grooms. 

The routine was all about the horses, from getting up at 4 am for first feeds and skipping out the stables, then exercising them at 7 am for two hours. After checking their hay nets and water buckets we would have our breakfast. Then it was back to the stables for proper mucking out and grooming. Lunchtime the horses were fed again with the hay net and water bucket checks and in the afternoons we cleaned tack, swept the yard, and did whatever odd jobs needed doing. Anyone who has ever had the care of stabled horses will understand the routine of feeding little and often, taking away the waste product and generally keeping everything in order. We all took turns at the early morning starts and the ten o'clock last stables. 

After a month, when my parents came to visit me for the first time, they were so shocked they threatened to haul me home. I'd lost weight with all the extra physical work, they were appalled at our flat, and I was as happy as a cricket. I stayed. Each horse had its own character. Duet was such an obliging gentleman, Thor had a weird sense of humour as if you bent over anywhere near him he was likely to nip your backside. He also had a way of moving without you noticing 

Thor

until he had you pinned against the stable wall and would then look over his shoulder at you as much as to say "What are you going to do now?" 

After all this time I don't remember all of the horses. There was Trio, a full brother to Duet. Zulaika, who loved to watch the birds, Wexford, a big grey who was so fat when he came in after being at grass all summer that we didn't have a saddle that fit him, Doctor who had navicular disease and had to be euthanized, Big Ears (if I remember correctly her real name was Lady Jane) and a black thoroughbred called Judes Hill. 

After a day's hunting, he was always the one we had the most trouble settling down. I won't go into all the reasons this can happen, only that no one went to bed until any of the horses had calmed down, cooled down, and could be safely left. I'm not a poet, but I did write this after one particularly late night.

JUDES HILL 

Ten o’clock.
Last rounds.
Sweet smell of hay
Drifts from warm stables
Where horses shuffle, sigh,
And soft whiskery muzzles
Nuzzle goodnight.
 
But not Judes Hill.
He has been hunting today
And his thoroughbred body
Is hunting still.
Sheen of sweat on neck,
White striped face stark
Above the stable door,
He peers into the night.
 
His ears twitch this way, that.
Has he missed the plaintive
Wail of Master’s horn
Sounding ‘Gone Away’?
Was that the full cry of
Hounds in flight?
Steel strikes stone under his
Restless feet.
 
I unbuckle surcingles,
Loosen steaming rugs.
Islands of foam float
On the sea of neck,
Shoulder, flank.
On with his cooling sheet
And out into the night
We go.

We walk and walk,
This horse and I.
He stamps his feet and tosses his head,
His mane flutters like
Tattered rags against his neck.

I talk about everything
and nothing into his willing ears
until his head drops,
and the thrill of the chase
drains from his body.
Now we can rest.

From beach ponies to the hunters, from friends' horses to our much loved Arab, the books about horses that I have read and still like to read, I think you've gathered by now that I have a passion for this marvellous creature that is unlikely to ever go away. Horses appear, in one way or another, in all of my books. In historical novels how can they not? And even in my contemporary western romances, cowboys need horses. Look out for my next contemporary western, available for preorder now and releasing on June 1st.

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Victoria Chatham

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