May 2026 …
Recently I started drafting a new novel. I had outlined some characters, and centred the novel around some iconic scenes I’d created many months ago. However, I was unsure how to extend that to a full novel. After creating a thumbnail type outline for my characters and a broad story arc, I tentatively started writing their story.
I soon found myself in a hole – I struggled to feel that the story was progressing. Things were simply too neat and tidy. I recalled the experience of writing Grey of the Night, and discovering my character, Laura Grey. In the first draft, Laura was ‘merely’ a detective searching for a missing man. She was nominally the antagonist and only lightly sketched in my character notes. About a quarter of the way in, I realised she was having it too easy – she was not being challenged – merely following a trail of clues to find her target.
So I decided to put her ‘under pressure’. I made her work life complicated, I made her personal life complicated, and I made her inner life laden with frustration and misguided assumptions. All of these pressures allowed me to more clearly understand how she would react to different situations. She became so interesting as a character that, by the end of the first draft, I decided that the story should be about her; she became the protagonist rather than a more incidental antagonist.
And yet Laura was largely unplanned. When I placed her under pressure, she effectively revealed her side of the story. At various moments in the draft, I would pause and wonder, ‘what could happen here that would increase the pressure on her?’ Often pressure would come from an unexpected source. Placing her under stress meant I had to think about how I wanted her to respond. I wanted her responses to reveal that she was more than a stereotypical detective, possessing core principals that allowed her to make good choices.
In Trials of Henry, the challenge was quite different. Henry’s story arc was largely defined by the historical record. My challenge was to make him an active character whilst he spends a great of time in prison, isolated from the rest of the world. In his case, I came to reveal his deeper character by finding ways for him to place pressure on the prison guards and officials. In his case, the pressure reveals that he has some power to control his situation, but that he has to use it wisely.
In my current novel, Dianne, the female protagonist, is largely aloof and cruising through her situation at the start of the story. However, events happen to apply pressure on her. Does she roll over and run away or does she stand up and resist? When she stands up to resist, new sources of pressure arise, forcing her to work harder to adapt and respond. In the process, she becomes a much more interesting character; the whole story has to be read to discover how she evolves and grows as a result of the challenges. That is the joy of reading stories with great character arcs.
The same occurs in real life. Times of great stress and pressure reveals a person’s deeper character. Some portray themselves as confident and capable in day-to-day life, but crumble at the first sign of stress, while others who are quiet and unassuming reveal themselves to be resilient and calm under pressure.
For me, part of the joy of writing is the opportunity to reflect on the behaviour of characters and how it mirrors real people. The development of a story is most pleasurable when the characters are plausible and authentic, including when they are under pressure.