MORE ABOUT CHARACTERS

MAKE READERS CARE ABOUT YOUR CHARACTERS

The book I believe is my best writing has a large cast of characters, ranging from baby Daisy, who looks like Harry Hill without the spectacles, to the various old people who inhabit Sundowners Retirement Home. Plot is important but if readers don't relate to the characters and care what happens to them, why bother? Here are three from ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS: Charlie, my main character, a 30-something 'ugly duckling' who inherits a fortune and buys a retirement home, and two of the residents, Jenny and Freddie.

Here's Charlie herself: We went to Alma da Cuba, an amazing place, converted from a church. It has this incredible lighting, the alter glowing scarlet and blue, lights everywhere like huge candles, and a mezzanine restaurant above the bar and dance floor. It was gobsmackingly beautiful and I was as gobsmacked as anyone else, until I'd stood around for an hour or more, pretending to admire the architecture, snapping my fingers to the music, making fake calls on my phone. Playing wallflower. After that I escaped to the restaurant and ordered something laced with chillies. I blamed the chillies for my tears, but that was just an excuse I made to the waiter.

Jenny: "I'm such a silly idiot. Scared of my own shadow, my husband used to say. But - I can't help it, I can't - "

I knew Jenny's story. Abused for years by a lout of a husband, who'd recognised from the start a woman he could dominate completely. Jenny must have been a beauty in her youth, even now there's still the shadow of that beauty. But she also bears the marks of that violent relationship. Old breaks. Scars. A malformed cheekbone. There were no children. She had become pregnant once and her husband had punched it out of her. The only good thing he'd ever done was to leave her a reasonable fortune when he died, so that she could find a haven for her remaining years.

And finally Freddie: Freddie was a bank manager in the days when bank managers were always available and happy to be of assistance. He wore sober suits, crisp white shirts and his old school tie, and only his closest associates knew that he was a cross dresser. Even his wife had been unaware until the morning she found him posing before her dressing table in an eau de nil silk Teddy and a pair of her best ten denier tights, at which point she had selected a solicitor from Yellow Pages and commenced divorce proceedings.

Believe it or not, there's a happy ending for two of these three characters. The third - well, I had to have some tragedy, otherwise I might be writing for Mills & Boon!

ME, DINGO AND SIBELIUS is one of my books available on Amazon, and I will be donating all my royalties from October, November and December sales to our local hospital's Radiotherapy Unit Appeal and my local church's repair fund.

Happy Christmas, everyone!