I am delighted to welcome Choc Lit author
Lynda Stacey
After the launch of my paperback House
of Secrets, I decided to take a closer look at my characters. Today I look at
both Poppy and Buddy and how to use children and pets in a novel.
Why use three-year-old little girls
and puppy springer spaniels in a novel?
I needed Poppy to be innocent and
young enough to be affected by Liam. I needed Madeleine (her mother) to have to
protect her, the reader to feel an empathy for her and for her to come over as
vulnerable. If Poppy had been a baby, I wouldn’t have been able to get her
interacting, nor would I have been able to get her to create a link between
Madeleine and Bandit, who automatically wants to look out for her and keep her
safe.
Buddy had been a recent gift from
Liam. He’d been bought for Poppy as a bribe after he’d shouted at her. I needed
a puppy that would learn fast and after owning spaniels myself, I know how
intelligent they can be. I also knew that teaching a spaniel the command
‘speak’ was simple. Initially, Madeleine teaches Buddy to speak to earn food, a
way of trying to get Poppy to eat. I also knew that the command ‘speak’ would
come in very useful later on in the book and used this to my advantage.
Are they plot muppets or not ...?
It’s very important not to allow
your sub-characters to turn into ‘plot muppets.’ When your heroine has a child
it’s important to remember that they are always there. In real life a child
can’t just disappear because the scene doesn’t need them. A child always has to
be there or they have to have a good reason not to be.
If for any reason you’re writing
a scene where the child isn’t needed then they need to either be sleeping, away
at a nursery or school, they need to be being looked after by someone else or
you need to find a ‘safe’ place for them to be. Children of this age can’t look
after themselves.
It’s similar for the pet, a dog
always needs to be looked after. As your novel progresses it’s important to
remember that the dog needs walking, feeding and playing with. Like the child,
you can’t just allow them to disappear without trace for huge parts of the
book.
What makes a good sub-character?
And of course this is only my
opinion.
Each character in a novel has to
be there for a reason. They need to have a purpose. Poppy’s reason was to
create a bridge between Madeleine and Liam, she’s scared of him, barely eats
and her mother naturally needs to protect her. She’s also instrumental in
bringing Madeleine and Bandit together, she creates the softer parts of the
book and shows Madeleine’s maternal side to it’s full.
And Buddy, well … he’s
instrumental in the novel too and a character in his own right. But, you need
to read House of Secrets to find out what happens next …
An extract of the novel that
shows both Poppy and Buddy in action!
‘Oh, Poppy, come on. Don’t cry.
It’s not your fault. Mummy should have known better.’ She pulled the child away
for a moment and smiled at the tear-stained face. ‘I know, tomorrow morning,
you remind Mummy and we’ll scrub-a-dub you all over until you sparkle like a
princess.’ She watched as Poppy began to smile.
‘Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go
and let Buddy in.’ Both glanced in the hallway mirror in a well-practiced
manoeuvre, flicked their hair back simultaneously and laughed at each other,
before running through the old Victorian terraced house, past the two rooms at
the front and down the passage that led to the back room and the old kitchen
that had long since seen better days.
Madeleine quickly placed Poppy on
the floor and opened the back door where an excited Springer Spaniel puppy sat
waiting.
Buddy jumped up and down. His
tail wagged a hundred miles an hour and as soon as the opening was big enough,
he burst in through the back door and straight into the arms of a waiting
Poppy, who collapsed on the floor, giggling, as he licked, jumped and wagged
his whole body excitedly.
Madeleine smiled. Poppy was so
different when Liam wasn’t there. She was happier, playful and appeared to
blossom in his absence. Whereas when he was home, she tended to sleep, play
with teddy bears in her room or disappear to a quiet corner where she’d sit for
hours playing with Buddy. It broke Maddie’s heart to see her daughter unhappy.
But what could she do? She’d known moving in with Liam was a mistake but she’d
had no choice. The block of flats that she lived in was being demolished. She’d
been dating Liam for eight months and he had seemed the perfect boyfriend,
loving to her and kind to Poppy, so when he suggested she move in with him,
she’d agreed.
‘Look, Poppy, do you think Buddy
wants his breakfast?’ she asked and Poppy started nodding enthusiastically.
Reaching for Buddy’s bowl, Maddie
pulled a biscuit from the box, broke it with her fingers and crumbled the
pieces into the ceramic dish. She then soaked it in milk before placing the
bowl on the floor where Buddy immediately pounced, his nose disappearing deep
within the dish as it began to rattle around the floor.
‘Would Poppy like some breakfast
too?’ Madeleine asked hopefully, but knew what the answer would be. The immediate
shake of Poppy’s head confirmed what she’d already thought. She’d noticed over
the past two months that Poppy often refused food or only ate tiny amounts and
Madeleine nodded her head in confirmation of what she’d been trying to avoid:
the days that Poppy didn’t eat always seemed to coincide with Liam being mean
to her and Madeleine knew what had to be done. She had no choice but to leave.
She needed to take Poppy as far away from this environment as she could.
Madeleine pulled another biscuit
from the box and knelt down on the floor. ‘Here, Poppy, watch Buddy eat his
biscuits.’ She held the treat up in her hand and waited for Buddy to sit before
her. ‘Buddy, speak.’ The puppy barked to order and both Poppy and Madeleine
began to clap. ‘Good boy. See, Poppy, Buddy loves his breakfast. Do you think
that you’d eat some lovely breakfast too?’ But once again Poppy shook her head,
clasped her hand over her mouth and lay down on the kitchen floor.
Madeleine shrugged her shoulders.
She had to get her daughter to eat and began searching the cupboards for
something that might tempt her, but the cupboards were almost empty and she
resigned herself to pushing a slice of bread in the toaster. Maybe she’d find a
way to persuade Poppy to eat it.
Madeleine turned around and
laughed as she caught sight of Poppy lying flat on her back on the kitchen
floor, submerged in what was left of the milky cereal, giggling and squirming
as Buddy pinned her to the floor, licking at every remnant he could find. Seeing
her daughter returned to the carefree three-year-old that she should be all the
time.
About House of Secrets:
A woman on the run, a broken man
and a house with a shocking secret...
Madeleine Frost has to get away.
Her partner Liam has become increasingly controlling to the point that Maddie
fears for her safety, and that of her young daughter Poppy...
Desperation leads Maddie to the
hotel owned by her estranged father – the extraordinarily beautiful Wrea Head
Hall in Yorkshire. There, she meets Christopher 'Bandit' Lawless, an ex-marine
and the gamekeeper of the hall, whose brusque manner conceals a painful past.
After discovering a diary
belonging to a previous owner, Maddie and Bandit find themselves immersed in
the history of the old house, uncovering its secrets, scandals, tragedies and,
all the while, becoming closer.
But Liam still won't let go, he
wants Maddie back, and when Liam wants something he gets it, no matter who he
hurts...
About the author:
Lynda, is a wife, step-mother and
grandmother, she grew up in the mining village of Bentley, Doncaster, in South
Yorkshire.
She is currently the Sales
Director of a stationery, office supplies and office furniture company in
Doncaster, where she has worked for the past 25 years. Prior to this she’d also
been a nurse, a model, an emergency first response instructor and a PADI Scuba
Diving Instructor … and yes, she was crazy enough to dive in the sea with
sharks, without a cage. Following a car accident in 2008, Lynda was left
with limited mobility in her right arm. Unable to dive or teach anymore, she
turned to her love of writing, a hobby she’d followed avidly since being a
teenager.
Her own life story, along with
varied career choices helps Lynda to create stories of romantic suspense, with
challenging and unpredictable plots, along with (as in all romances) very happy
endings.
Lynda joined the Romantic
Novelist Association in 2014 under the umbrella of the New Writers Scheme and
in 2015, her debut novel House of Secrets won the Choc Lit &
Whole Story Audiobooks Search for a Star competition.
She lives in a small rural hamlet
near Doncaster, with her ‘hero at home husband’, Haydn, whom she’s been happily
married to for over 20 years.
My thanks to Lynda for being such a welcome guest today and for sharing her thoughts about her latest novel, House of Secrets, and also to Lusana at Choc Lit.
~***~
