The So-called Self

Who are our characters? Who are we, really?

But first:

I’ve been sharing this newsletter for a while now (quite a while!), and I’m grateful for every one of you who reads it. Starting today, I’m opening up a small paid tier — not because the free newsletter is going anywhere (it isn’t), but because I want a place to go deeper with the readers who want that.

Paid subscribers get:

• A monthly ‘behind the book’ post — the real story of where a scene, character, or setting came from, including the ones I was too superstitious to talk about while I was writing

  • • Bonus fiction: deleted scenes, alternate POVs, short stories set in the Bennett Sisters world

  • • Early access to new covers, titles, and release news before anyone else

  • • The occasional voice note from my writing desk in Montana, which may or may not feature commentary on the weather and wildflowers

  • The first paid post goes up next week. It’s a story about Pascal — and a short scene written from his point of view the morning after the ending of Blackbird Fly.

If you’ve ever finished that book and wondered what he was thinking, this is for you.

→ Become a paid subscriber — $5/month: lisemcclendon.substack.com

Or become an annual paid subscriber — $50/yearly.

Either way, thank you for being here. The free newsletter continues, always.

— Lise

Today’s post is about the curious case of fiction. The novel, or short story, is a strange thing. What is it really about? Person, place, or … thing? What do you look for in a book? Setting? (France, yes!) Plot? Characters? The voice of the author?

I have led writers workshops over the years and I find one thing the most fascinating aspect of behind-the-scene info about writing a novel— the contrast between the outer story and the inner story. It’s also the key to making a story the best it can be.

The So-called Self

After thirty-some years of making up imaginary people I’ve noticed a trend in my work. (Finally, you say! Ha! I can be a slow learner at times.) That I am partial to secrets is perhaps a given in a mystery writer. Secrets, hidden facts, and unknowns from the past make up the plots of most mysteries. But I’ve also noticed that I like a good secret identity. A secret self.

The Self: what is it exactly? Part nature, part nurture, a combination of the blending of genetic material and the people who influence and care for you as you grow. Before a person has children they often think whimsically about how they will bring up their children *just so,* avoiding all the perceived mistakes of their own childhoods. After their baby is born a new thought pops vividly into play: “This child has his own ideas!”

So it is with characters. Bringing a fictional person to life on the page takes a strong will, persistence, and luck, combined with a talent with words and feelings that make a writer tick. Yes, feelings. A writer must have a well of emotion that isn’t far from the surface. (The reason we can make ourselves cry while writing!) The so-called Self of fiction is both the person the character presents to the other characters and the emotional life she often hides from them. That this hidden Self holds secrets about her identity that she doesn’t want anyone to know is just human nature. There are parts of each of us, our innermost Self, that we guard with every fiber of our being. Things that make us ashamed, emotions we aren’t proud of, our jealousies, our envies, our weaknesses we hope desperately nobody has noticed. Just like real people, characters hide the real core of themselves. But as writers we have to know that core, to understand the way people trick themselves and manipulate others, to just plain “get” human nature in all its weirdness.

In my second Bennett Sisters mystery, Gillian Sargent has hidden her past quite well, and with good reason. But when she disappears on a walking tour in France, the Bennett Sisters, lawyers and sleuths, must dig deep to find her before something bad happens to her. This involves outing her real identity, whether she likes it or not. For much of the book she is a cipher: The Girl in the Empty Dress, all external perception but nothing inside. She is pretty but a little odd, and definitely secretive. This outward view is the way we perceive most people we don’t know well — which is of course most people. Even our closest family members do not always reveal their true selves, leading to dysfunctional families (Birds of a Feather), “had-I-but-known,” and more. Most people wouldn’t try so hard to hide their past though, unless there was something really juicy and/or terrible to hide. Does that apply to Gillian Sargent? But of course.

The theme of the secret identity is also a big part of PLAN X, my Rory Tate thriller. (Rory is of course my own not-so-secret identity.) A professor of Shakespeare is badly burned in a bomb blast in a college lab at Montana State University. The heroine, Cody Byrne, a police officer, is tasked with finding his next of kin who appear to be nonexistent. Unwilling to let go of the case that may help her get past a debilitating case of PTSD from an Iraq tour, Cody embarks on an unauthorized journey to find out his real identity. Along the way she finds out more about her own self. This is something that fiction does better than real life: make connections and parallels that help the world make sense, if only for a moment. Real life is much more random. It’s generally cruel and its timing sucks.

Writing fiction is about writing characters. Yes, you have to know how to plot but it’s your characters and their secret selves that carry your story. It’s the difference between the outer story (the events that happen to and by characters) and the inner story (the emotional journey your main character is on). The inner story resonates much deeper with readers even as they hang on the suspenseful events of the plot.

Ying and yang. Plot and characters. The outer shell and the real Self: you can’t have one without the other.

---

If you enjoyed this, please consider upgrading to read more behind-the-scenes tales of writing and France and the Bennett Sisters.

PS: The newsletter will always be free! Cheers.