The Maker and the Solitary Bird, and why I don't outline

I was raised as a writer to believe that plot emerges from character, and not the other way around. For this reason, I do not outline my fiction, as it is of no purpose to lay out plot points before I understand the emergent characters.

I feel that I have much to learn about my characters and my work in progress in general, despite having worked on it for about four years now. I have written about 70,000 words in those four years, but most of it is exploratory and to be discarded. The latest excerpt I have shared is one of the keepers, I think. At the very least, it introduces two characters in my novel that have a central role to play. These are the Maker and the Solitary Bird.

The Maker emerged spontaneously, like all good organic characters, and she came with a strong visual impression from the get-go. The closest I have got to a physical image of the Maker is this photograph of social realist post-war photographer Grace Robertson, as she appears in the 1989 portrait photograph by Richard Baker. I reproduce that photograph here, naughtily without permission.

Grace Robertson, 1989. Photograph by Richard Baker. See on Getty Images.

Grace had an amazing, and deeply human, face. Just from this photograph and a quick review of her folio, I truly wish I had met her. Sometimes amazing people just look amazing. Learn more about Grace’s photographs here. Also to note, with respect, that Grace passed away two days ago at the age of 90. Vale Grace Robertson. I hope she doesn’t mind my posthumous reference to her image for the face of my Maker.

Suffice it to say I am determined to write a novel wherein the principal character is a tall woman of late middle-age. No idea where that came from; as I said, the Maker just emerged when I wrote the Story of the First Prime.

The Solitary Bird is another organic appearance in the text. This is the first artificial creature of any importance in the novel. You have already met Corvus, the Solitary Bird, in the second excerpt I shared. Now you see them where they first appeared (I say ‘them’ as Corvus is not gendered).

Where will these organically emergent creatures go in the Bedtime Stories? At this stage I have no idea. I am working on faith, of a sorts. I have faith that they will find their place if I just keep writing, day by day; this faith is based on nothing more than the fact that they emerged whole, and complete, spontaneously in the writing. We shall see what happens to them in due course.