Thursday's Children 9/27/12 Part I Where Do Your Characters Dwell?

"We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us."

WINSTON CHURCHILL, Sir Winston Churchill: A Self-Portrait

How much thought do you give to the places your characters live?
By that I don't mean geographic location (that'll be another blog post), but the actual house itself. 

Home. There's a loaded word if ever there was one. It might summon feelings of comfort, embarrassment, even terror. A house invariably affects the lives of its inhabitants.  How a home looks, sounds, and even smells, all help to convey its signficance within a story.

A house can be as much a character in the story as any of the human ones.
Houses have personalities.
And sometimes secrets.

 

The George Jacobs Senior House (see below) was an inspiration for my book
UNQUIET SOULS

Do you think a home can absorb the essence of those who have lived there?
Can walls, ceilings, and floors retain memories of their own?

If so, could a psychically sensitive person experience past events or personalities if she were to touch one of the structural beams that had once belonged to it?
I used this idea as an inciting event.

The Jacobs house collapsed during the 1930s.



Geo. Jacobs Senior's House c. 1891

This farmhouse helped me flesh out a minor but still important character.
Ezekiel Hovey,local historian and elderly bachelor, who lives with his white cat Mary.
 

Don't you think this house might smell like boiled cabbage and litter box?

In my YA Contemporary FOOLISH, Sparrow (the MC) lives in a mobile home adorned with hippy graffiti and crammed to the ceiling with her mother's unfinished art projects - it's only a few crocheted afghans shy of being featured on "Hoarders".

But notice the flowers.

So picture this van, as a mobile home, but only half-painted (because her mother never completes anything she starts). 

Of course it's on the wrong side of town, underscoring Sparrow's "have-not" status.

No wonder she can't wait to get the hell out of there. 

But in her next residence she plants a garden, to make her new house feel like home.

Many of us have ambivalence about the places we've called home.

Here's where I envisioned Opal MacBride, (the MC in my book TENDRIL) living with her grandmother, Pearl.
A cottage tucked into a cleft between forested hills, by a quiet lake in New Hampshire where trees and steeples frame the sky.
The walls inside are painted marigold yellow, delphinium blue, and geranium red.

A very "female" sort of place if you like symbolism, which I do.

But after Pearl dies, Opal must live with her Uncle Ned, a lighthouse keeper.

The perpetual fog smells like ocean creatures. When the swells are big Opal hears the hiss and roar of a sea monster, but when the waves are calm Opal imagines she hears mermaids whispering. The walls, floors, and furniture are white, like Opal (who has albinism).
Her uncle has an unhealthy obsession with her.

 

Constant movement, craggy cliffs, and of course, the lighthouse itself, you can't get much more "masculine" than that. It is here that Opal must reclaim her sexuality.



Photo Courtesy of Kari Jo Spear

Where do your characters dwell, and what does that say about them?

Does knowing what a character's house looks like, smells like, sounds like help your reader understand him or her?

Does knowing where your characters live help you understand them better?

For Thursday's Children this week Kristina Perez blogged about Falling With Grace, and as a former competitive figure skater I bet she knows a thing or two about that. Her post goes up on Thursday.

Here's the Linky List so anybody else who wants to share their Thursday inspirations can be part of an ongoing Bloghop.

Inspirational Images & Documents for "Unquiet Souls"



George Jacobs House c. 1891

Unquiet Souls is a YA Paranormal novel based on the premise that restless spirits may attempt to satisfy their thwarted passions through the living.  (Seeking representation).

The story is set in present day Maine but has connections to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

I am descended from Mary Towne Estey.  She and her two sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Cloyce, were accused of witchcraft.  Mary and Rebecca were hanged.  During my research for this book I was most inspired by Margaret Jacobs, accused at age seventeen.

Trial of George Jacobs by Thompkins H. Matteson 1855

There are no known images of Margaret Jacobs or her grandfather, just as there are no known trial records.  Her grandfather wears a red cape (note his walking stick on the floor).  Margaret is in the tawny skirt, pointing - accusing him of witchcraft.  Her mother, known to be mentally disturbed, lunges at her from behind. Margaret's father, George Jr. is beside George Sr.  The young people in the front are having "fits".

 

Miniature believed to be of S. Parris

George Jacobs Senior's Marker
at Rebecca Nurse Homestead

 

Some of my sea glass collection



Recantation of Margaret Jacobs

Margaret's letter to her father from Salem jail