Making Heroines!

In each of my three novels, I created - I hope! - a heroine for her era. But how to go about that? How to create Ada, an illegitimate child born to a housemaid; Louise, born to parents who will one day be evicted from their home; and Frances, out of her depth as a newcomer in a community whose language she does not speak? 

The key is to know more about your character than you will ever reveal on the page. So, for example, what are her hobbies, fears, favourite food and music, bad or good habits, the clothes she likes to wear, her dreams or nightmares? This gives a platform - and also a hint of how she will react in certain circumstances. And, if you know her well, you will be able to give the reader a sense of her character with the smallest comment or passing thought...  

Louise, in The Girl from Simon's Bay, runs barefoot to the beach but must contain her carefree nature when she becomes a nurse in a formal uniform and carefully whitened shoes. Ada, in The Housemaid's Daughter, is taught classical piano by her Irish Madam but feels her soul lift when she hears the music of the townships, which she christens 'Township Bach'. And in The Fire Portrait Frances, clad in blue linen and a straw hat at the school gate, realises she needs to dress in trousers and velskoens (local leather shoes) to fit in. Learning some of the language helps Frances - and she keeps quiet about just how much she understands. After all, if the author keeps some of her character under wraps, then she can surely keep some secrets from the locals - although they keep a greater secret from her than she realises...

Did I base my heroines on real people? No. Ada, Louise and Frances are unique individuals who have sprung from the imagination and yet they - and the other characters in the novels - do contain snippets of those I've encountered throughout my life. Like the wonderful lady I met while stacking shelves as a student, and who taught me rudimentary Xhosa; the charming Coloured nurse who cared for me in hospital; the grandmother who taught me the piano and murmured about life in an arid, rural community, the politician whose deceit caused me to stand up in a public meeting...  

More next time!