The weather, as I write this, is wet and windy. In a literary sense, if I felt the need to include it in a story, I would describe it as “wild and raging”. My main character, the Protagonist, would also be wild and raging, if introduced in this setting; an angry being.
It isn’t that the weather is hugely important or that scene-setting is hugely important; it depends on the story being told and the characters being introduced. But looking back on the opening scenes of my own novels I can see that the mood I created in the first paragraph reflected the tone of the story and the main characters. Perhaps I subconsciously did this to create the mood; or did the necessary mood of the characters and story lead to the tone of the opening paragraph?
I can’t actually say, as the characters themselves dictate that crucial opening paragraph. But I would say that the weather has certainly played its part in setting the scene, which in turn has set the tone of the novel.
I knew protagonist Marcel intimately before settling down to write Chantilly Dawns. He was damaged, bruised, lost. I saw him in a big protective overcoat, pulling up his collar metaphorically against the world and literally against the wind. So he created his own weather in my mind as I first set him down onto the paper. The miserable grey sky was a reflection of his misery; or just my cruelty as a writer adding to his misery?
Oddly enough, now as I share those opening paragraphs, I’m aware it’s all about the silence and emptiness of the racecourse, just as important and crucial to the tone, but no mention of the weather at all. An icy October wind is all that is noted. So it would seem there is a subconscious setting of tone! In my mind, the cold grey October weather, but on the page it’s the cold silence of an empty racecourse.
“Longchamp racecourse, even at eleven in the morning, had a magical quality. The stands were deserted, yet the familiar atmosphere of the race crowds hung in the air. Marcel Dessaint walked through the centre of the silent grandstand, down to the racecourse rails, and gazed out across the course. Behind the winning post, above the yellowing autumnal trees, the Eiffel Tower could be seen, the leafy canopy of the Bois de Boulogne encompassing the course. Marcel’s eyes swept round the circuit of the course, as though following the progress of an imaginary race, and finally came back to rest on the winning post. The grinding misery that had been with him since his entry to the racecourse suddenly became more than he could bear and he turned abruptly away. The stands were as empty as his heart. He didn’t belong here; not anymore.
Pausing to adjust the collar of his expensively tailored coat, as an unusually icy October wind renewed its attack, Marcel wandered to the far end of the parade ring, to the gates that marked the entrance to the racecourse stables. As he gazed longingly through the wrought ironwork several lads passed by, carrying rugs and buckets and joking cheerfully to each other; but their cheeriness turned instantly to chilling silence the moment they saw him. Most looked to be about his own age, twenty-six, yet he shared nothing in common with them. They fitted easily into the closed ranks of this racing world; were part of the racecourse, just as Marcel had once been. He had taken his position for granted, in fact never really been aware of it.
He was an outcast in the only world he knew.”
Wild and raging as the weather currently is here as I write, that’s not who Nick Marchant is, the chief protagonist of my next novel, Sainte Bastien. Though his bark and his bite are both equally feared, Nick is more blustery than raging; a busy man always on the go, living only for his work; on the surface impatient and intolerant. Before beginning Sainte Bastien, I struggled endlessly as to who my main character would be. I juggled between Nick and his teenage son Dominic. Both would tell the same story, but each in his own perspective. I liked both. Which was it to be? Which might work best? Hmmm… decisions, decisions, decisions… mulling, mulling, endless mulling…
To stay focused, I wrote an ambiguous “prologue”. It wasn’t intended to be an actual prologue or to be used anywhere in the story. It was just to remind me of the story’s theme and tone. It headed my first, otherwise empty, page.
“Pain comes in many guises. It can be physical or mental; minor or crippling; invisible or scarring; inflicted and endured. It can be a necessary evil in the process of healing. Or it can be a deliberately devised torture.
That afternoon, in that room, it was all of those. It crackled in the atmosphere, enveloping both its victims, as breaths were stifled and tears clung fiercely to the eye, never once betraying emotion. Emotion was buried too deep, sealed in by grief and violence.
When it was over, it was over for good, but, for one of them, there would be no healing.”
It didn’t help me to fill the rest of the page and in the end I gave up thinking about who would lead the story and just sat down to bloody well write it. Here’s the time and place, let’s see where it might go… So here we are, may as well start at the actual start, the first day of the Flat racing season, it’s March, it’s cold, it’s windy, it’s busy, bustling, noisy and crowded. I want an attention grabber, so, bang, Mark Ashton does that. Both Nick and his son Dominic could be there in that scene as I write it. In fact, Dominic most certainly is there in person; but he doesn’t make it to the page. He’s silent, brooding, private. This isn’t his scene. Blustering Nick, he just writes himself into it, it’s where he belongs, and there I have my Protagonist. Years of thinking about it, Nick or Dominic, and in a matter of minutes, penning an opening scene, Nick steps up to the role of his own free will – my Protagonist, main character.
So the scene-setting, the mood, the tone – it turns out it is crucial. Maybe not to the book or to the reader, but to the author it’s the fundamental building block. And, in the end, having lived for a year and a half with the not-really-meant-to-be-a-prologue heading the first page as it evolved into 300 more pages, I kept the Prologue. By god, it helped me with my “eureka moment” perfect ending! Never underestimate the power of setting a tone.
“It was, if nothing else, a memorable start to the Flat season.
A large crowd cheered and whistled as Mark Ashton walked from the grandiose pillared steps of the Doncaster weighing room out to the parade ring, his head high, his hand raising in the jockeys’ time-honoured gesture of ‘touching the cap’ as he acknowledged the crowd. His smile said it all.
It was good to be back.
His appearance in the parade ring was remarkable for two things. For one, he didn’t have a ride in the race. And for another, he didn’t have a stitch on.
Around him, owners, trainers and jockeys, huddled in their various factions, paid scant regard to the latecomer, despite the raucous whistles from the crowd. A biting March wind raised the collars of their coats and kept their heads low, ripping through the thin silks of the inadequately-dressed jockeys.
Trainer Nick Marchant, protected beneath his standard garb of tweed overcoat and aged trilby that most people would swear had accompanied him from the cradle half a century earlier, kept a paternal eye on the two-year-old colt jig-jogging past him as it threatened to become a handful for the young boy leading it. The wind was upsetting several of the horses, their unease infectious, but the whistles and cheers of an unusually rowdy crowd were proving to be the final straw. Nick allowed his gaze to stray from his charge to the source of the unwelcome noise and his good-natured roguish features creased into sudden concern.”
Wind and collars again, but purely coincidental, I assure you! Nothing subconscious there, I’ve been at Doncaster in March, and November, on numerous occasions and always it’s cold. The crucial thing there was the noise and crowded busyness of the scene; that’s what aligned itself to Nick.
Pete Allen, the star of Gala Day, was a different kettle of fish. Gala Day was always going to be his story, he was always going to be the first character we meet. A talented apparent rogue up to no good. Where better to meet him than in his perfect environment, apparently up to no good. Pete set the scene, and not vice versa. Pete doesn’t have inner demons haunting him, no emotional baggage, he doesn’t need clouds or wind, metaphorical or otherwise; he’s fun and likeable. It’s just a scene, without a heavy weight of mood.
“The Newbury crowd roared as the thirteen runners sprinted towards the winning post in the penultimate race of the day.
“And Satin Princess bursts through now to take it up, it’s Satin Princess, with Breadline making some headway now in pursuit, but nothing’s going to catch Satin Princess, she’s going three, four, five lengths clear…”
From his position on Breadline, Pete Allen was thinking much the same as the racecourse commentator. Resigned to second place, he put in some stylish effort to close the gap; more for show than through any real hope of succeeding. But he already knew – as he had known when pulling out for a challenge deliberately timed too late – that he couldn’t win.
In front of him, former Champion Jockey Bob Graham had dropped his hands and was coasting home to an effortless victory. The style that had, in the past, won him three Championships was elegant and distinctive. And yet…
As Pete edged closer he couldn’t fail to notice that Bob was in trouble. Cursing under his breath, he watched Bob kick his feet from the irons of the slipping saddle and put his left hand back to try to prevent the saddle slipping down under the filly’s belly. The saddle was by now round her loins, Bob riding her bareback.
‘Go on, go on,’ Pete muttered through clenched teeth, ‘go on, go on… oh shit!’”
After that, the populated apartment block that is my brain was evacuated. Those characters stayed with me, but no one new moved in. Alarming! I’d always had characters buzzing around, waiting for their story to be told. How do you conjure them up? Sadly, you can’t. Just be patient and wait…
Eventually I lost patience and enlisted the minor players of Gala Day, Chris and Terry. They had moved on and had a story to tell, but it wasn’t enough. Joy joined them, she had also been in my mind for a bit, from elsewhere, and had quite a meaty plot with her. Hmmm… Her son Jack arrived and linked Joy with Chris and Terry. And then someone asked me why my own horse wasn’t in my books – bingo! His name was slightly adapted and his ability grossly upgraded to become a champion racehorse and even provide the title!
However, I had a new problem. Three joint protagonists. They would take equal share of the story as it unfolded; not to mention the suddenly necessary police inspectors. No scene-setting as such but how to move from one character’s scene directly to the next?
In the opening pages I instinctively introduced each protagonist with their opening line of “We’ve got a problem.” Maybe because they were causing me one! Three protagonists each with an individual problem about to become entwined. And then subconscious took over and offered me ‘word association’ to link one scene to the next. For example, a scene with the detectives might end “skating on thin ice” and that would lead me straight to the ice bucket in the stables of Chris and Terry. This worked for me throughout, without thinking about the last line, I could then use the keywords within it to kickstart my next scene. Some readers’ reviews found that annoying, some loved it, some thought it contrived. It wasn’t contrived and it wasn’t for the benefit of the readers; it was my mental springboard from one scene to the other and hugely helpful to me as a writer.
It’s interesting, because an author friend advised always ending your writing day mid-sentence, so that you can pick it straight up again the following day, rather than sitting puzzling over what next. I really can’t do that, I like to end at a conclusive end, ready to start afresh; but the mental prompts of word association served a similar purpose, I imagine.
The moral being we can’t control these things. What works for one writer doesn’t always work for another writer, and indeed what works for one book or story might not necessarily work for another. And, ultimately, did I deliberately use these little tools for tone, mood and scene-setting/changing, or was it all simply divine intervention?
(c) Lissa Oliver
