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mercurygray · 4 years

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Earlier today on one of my Discord servers we were discussing how best to introduce an original character into a fanfic. There were many good and interesting approaches considered, but the question got me thinking about how I do this, generally, and the question seemed to invite creating a new character, from scratch, to see how she got on selling her story.

I was in the middle of a meeting when a lot of this discussion took place, so I had a very brief sketch in my head. This young woman - we'll call her Phyl - works in air traffic control at Ramsbury.

If I start the scene up with the Paraguys on their way to a plane, she's just a bit of background noise - something to whistle at as they go by on one of their jumps. But if I start up on her, in the control tower, bored to sobs, waiting for lunch and discussing the arrival of the Americans with a friend on shift, I've been given some reasons to pay attention to the story, hopefully I've hooked the reader into which Americans, given them enough of a picture to start them thinking about who the endgame might be. I have to establish her on solid ground before I go anywhere else or no one is going to give two figs.

Let me know what you think?

These night shifts were the very devil.

It was all well and good if you were at a station like Biggin Hill or Tangmere or Gravesend, where there were sorties flying at all hours and crates going out on a regular timetable, but Wiltshire wasn't quite as handy for the Channel coast as Suffolk and Kent, and a posting to sleepy little RAF Ramsbury meant a lot of very exciting evenings with nothing but a cup of tea, an empty radar plot, and the crossword for company.

In other words, absolutely thrilling.

Aircraftswoman Phyllis McCray contemplated the bank of clues and tapped the end of her propelling pencil against the page, tea cooling close at hand. "Unkempt women, nine letters."

Her watch partner turned around slowly in her chair, slightly slouched, the leads from her headset catching her before she made the full rotation. "Us."

Phyl gave her a patient stare. "I think that rather leaves us a bit short, Bern, I said nine letters. Slatterns! Right, thirty five down, a sticker that doesn't know it's been licked, starts with S - oh, a stamp."

Bernice Handley (Bern or Bernie to friends) sighed. Even patriotism had limits on nights like this one, and one could only get so far on knitting socks on shift - or filling in clues for your puzzle-mad co-worker. "Why do you bother asking?"

"Because I'm trying to be sociable, Bern, and it's helping keep me awake."

"You should have joined the intelligence service," Bern suggested. "Brain like yours. Why ever didn't you?"

Phyl contemplated the crossword (Eleven across, Hawaii floral welcome, three letters - lei.) "Air Aux sounded like more fun. Learn range-finding and all that. What's the name of the strait between Denmark and Sweden?"

"Who knows?" Bern frowned, realized she was being asked for the answer, and turned again in her chair to glance at the large chart on the wall, sighing when she realized reading the thing would involve actually getting out of her seat. She laid down her headphones and went to go look. "Kattegat - two ts, starts with K, spelled like it sounds." Phyl smiled and made the appropriate notation on her page. "Do you know what's for breakfast?" Bernie asked, checking her watch, her notes, and the wall clock in slow succession as she made her way back to her chair. "I'm starving."

"Probably porridge again," Phyl said, unconcerned, her mind moved on to fifteen across, city in western Canada, and the now present K. How did one spell Saskatchewan? It didn't do to worry on food - they would get what they would get and be grateful for it. It was a lesson Phyl had learned long ago at her family's crowded table, but Bernie, who was only six months into her National Service and had not yet shaken her middle-class tastes or posh London suburb roots, had not.

"God, at the rate we're going I'm going to turn into a oatcake. I know it's not patriotic but I'd kill for an egg. Or more sugar for this tea."

Phyl bit back any comment she’d thought about making regarding Bernie's complaints and continued with the puzzle. She would have liked to work in intelligence, finding patterns in radio traffic or some such, but they wanted people who sounded right for that sort of thing, women who came from families like Bernie's, who'd been to good schools. Not scholarship girls from up north who only sounded right when they tried hard enough to remember the dulcet tones of the announcer on the BBC.

Bernie had apparently moved back to her own magazine, flipping through the article without really reading anything. "Have you met them yet?"

"Mmm?"

"The Americans," Bernie supplied. "There's a whole crew over near Aldbourne, up at the big house. Mary was in Swindon last week, with Ralph, she said they were everywhere. Swanning around like movie stars, apparently."

Phyl nodded, running through possibilities for a five letter showy garden perennial. Trust Bernie to always want what she couldn't have. She was young. She would learn. They all did, eventually.

The purpose of the exercise was to see if I could create and introduce a brand new character in a way that might provoke you to read more. How'd I do?

#i have written a thing #1940s girl gang #gets her own tag because that's how we roll around here #phyl mccray #mercurygraypresents

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