Making Real Characters Come Alive in a Novel

How does a writer make real characters come alive in a novel?

Very carefully.

You do not want to misrepresent a historic figure.

It was an interesting exercise to write intelligently and honestly about several World War I people in A Poppy in Remembrance.

My real characters included Mary Lee, Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, Black Jack Pershing, Oswald and Biddy Chambers, and Eva Spink.

Quotations

A novel is a story in written form.

“Listen to me carefully. Oswald Chambers is too important a person in people’s spiritual life. You cannot make a mistake in any words you put in his mouth.”

My writing teacher at a writer’s conference was adamant.

I followed his advice and traveled to the Wheaton College Special Collections library where I read through correspondence and other papers left by Oswald Chambers.

My novel includes ten quotations from My Utmost for His Highest. I applied to Discovery House Publishers and received written permission to use those specific quotes.

But he’s one of several real characters with dialogue in the novel. How did I invent that?

Very carefully. I examined the writings I had and either adapted things Oswald wrote in his diaries and teaching or made the answers as simple as possible.

I did not want to make mistakes.

Examining other materials

The same thing was true of T. E. Lawrence.

While I did not directly quote from Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I examined Lawrence’s memoir of his time in Arabia to fashion the words I gave him.

For Eva Spink, a young student of Oswald Chambers at the Bible Training College, I read her diary entries and adapted them and a few of her actions to facts I knew about her.

Pershing and Churchill were so voluminous, I either quoted them or wrote non-inflammatory dialogue.

I got so good at imitating Biddy’s voice, I became confused about whether or not I had an actual quotation in a letter she “wrote” in the novel.

I was convinced I’d adapted it, but in reality, I made it up.

But I spent a long time trying to track down the source of that imaginary letter!

Sounds

What did they sound like?

We know Churchill’s growl from the radio speeches he gave during World War II.

Like it or not, I couldn’t help but hear Peter O’Toole’s careful diction from the movie Lawrence of Arabia, when I wrote T. E. Lawrence’s scene.

What do you think of his description in A Poppy in Remembrance:

“Lieutenant T. E. Lawrence shook their hands and gazed at them with pale aquamarine eyes. His fair hair and high tenor gave him an immature air, but his descriptions of the desert and those who lived there, as well as thoughts on the political situation beyond the Suez, mesmerized.”

Mary Lee, General Robert E. Lee’s daughter, naturally spoke with a Southern (American) accent.

Oswald’s voice carried a lilt of Scotland–where he lived until he was fifteen-years-old.

Photos

I’ve written before about my attempts to accurately describe Oswald Chambers’ burial service.

I spent a long day examining and trying to imagine what that day was like based on the three photos we thought were of the event.

The next day, Peter Wenham wrote from Australia and provided me with more!

Thanks to his help, I could correctly describe what people saw who attended the ceremony.

I knew T. E. Lawrence was careful about his dress and that after a time, he disappeared into Arab “mufti” or clothing that looked like that worn by the locals.

But what about Oswald and Biddy Chambers?

I spent a lot of time at Wheaton looking at their photos from WWI.

Mrs. Oswald Chambers was the result of all that research!

Goal

All this research had a single goal: to write an honest and accurate novel.

You’ll have to read A Poppy in Remembrance to find out if I succeeded.

For more information on the novel, click here.

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