I started writing my first book when I was still at school. It wasn't historical fiction, it was high fantasy, and it was the first of ten books, under the collective title The Watcher's Heir . I knew from the word go that it was going to have this number of books, although I didn't really work out exactly what would happen in each one. Twenty-five years on and the books are still not finished, although I now only have a couple more to go! Every Christmas I settle down and manage to write a chapter or two more, and every New Year it is my resolution to finish them. I suspect this will go on for a few years more. In the passage of time since then, I've written more than a dozen books. I can't quite pinpoint what it is which keeps obstructing the conclusion of these books. It could be that I am not the same person I was 25 years ago (who is?!), and so the voice which began the books is almost unrecognisable. It could be that I have now passed the age almost all of my ...
I'm quite confident that, if I start this blog with "remember the scythe?", most people reading it are going to immediately know where I'm pointing you to!
That's right: Poldark. Now, I know that the series with Aidan Turner and his famous scythe was actually a remake of an earlier programme, but let's just focus on this more recent iteration of Winston Graham's novels about the eponymous Cornish hero.
One of the things which is so wonderful about Poldark as a series - not only onscreen but even more so in the novels - is that it covers such a vast period of time. Because of the time in which it is set, there are huge local and global changes taking place around the characters and, when you have been invested in them for so long, you can really experience the upheaval alongside them.
This is something I attempted with (what I hope) was a reasonable degree of success in my Early Story of the Rite trilogy. If it ever actually appears on bookshelves, it won't be called that, but it's still very much in the early stages. I love that one character appears in all three books: main character, supporting character, bit part*...
In Poldark, this is represented not only by his screen time (which decreases sneakily as the series progresses and we become involved in the stories of Morwenna, or Doctor Enys) but also by the subtle fading of that significant scar which stretches down his face. If there's one thing that Poldark reminds us as viewers, it's that scars fade but never fully disappear.
Poldark is a great opportunity to lose yourself in the story of one person and, even as we start to move away from Ross's story (there is only so much happily-ever-after that tv is willing to show us), there is still a sense of the ripple effect: everything we are seeing as part of the story results from either a decision Ross made or else something which happened to him.
So, it's a great one for watching to immerse yourself in characterisation: to notice how one character can impact on the lives of so many more. And this is something which I thoroughly enjoy developing as an author, and experiencing as both a reader and a viewer.
*this breakdown will never not make me think of the original lordoftherings.net, which convinced me that the cast list for every film was split into "The Fellowship, Supporting Cast, Bit Parts"
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