Today I’m sharing a character study of Rachel Hart, the mother of Natalie, the main female character in my current WIP – Captive in Turkey (title pending). I’m asked a lot about my writing process so I hope this explains some of the way I create character’s within my novels.

As a writer, it helps to ‘know’ a secondary character and how their influence effects the main character. More often than not this information is never included in a novel, it is just for an author’s creative process. I hope you enjoy the internal monologue that is Rachel. I wrote it as a ‘stream of consciousness’ at a writer’s retreat last Sunday.

As you read you will realize that Natalie’s mother’s fierce encouragement for her younger daughter was as much a reflection on how her life turned out, than seeing her daughter succeed. She is living vicariously through her daughter.

I am a mother of two daughters, a wife to a man I met and married too young, before I discovered myself, my possibilities. At the time I did not know I was giving up on me to be with someone else. I conformed to society’s expectations without really considering what that meant for me and my life.

I am angry with sally, my oldest, for making the same mistake, but also because I failed her. I should have been more vocal, more of a guiding hand, given her insight and wisdom from my own experience.

I will not make the same mistake with Natalie, she needs to have experiences, find her interests, her passion. I won’t let her settle for a doldrum life of housework chores and the constant worry of motherhood.

As my mother told me ‘I made my bed’ and now I lie in it. I wanted more deep down, but was too afraid to ask, challenge, or take another path. I have no-one else to blame, but myself.

In my deepest darkest nights lying beside my husband looking at the moon’s glow making shadows through the bedroom curtains, I rage against the unfairness of life, knowing it is too late for me. I cannot change anything now. I am tied to him, to the girls, the house, my few friends and my aging mother.

This is what is left of me, a shell of a person I could have been, hiding behind routine. All the opportunities, the fierceness are all gone.

Yes, of course, I daydream of what life could have been – what my life could possibly look like. It reminds me of the movie – Shirley Valentine – I don’t talk to a wall like her, although my internal dialogue is similar. All the ‘if only’s, the ‘what if’s’ missed chances, but when I look back I see a young girl too afraid to challenge the norm, too frightened to object, too pressured to marry a ‘nice boy – just like my mother.

I am a shadow of my possibilities – a husk, unfulfilled and sad. I traipse through life from day to day, month to month, year to year – my life passing me by and achieving little. I fear I will not be remembered further than my grandchildren – a ghost of unaccomplishment. A figure standing at the sink, or stove, only missed for the chores I do rather than any interest in me as a person. Rather just a mother, a wife, a local at the store.

Natalie has to live the life I envisioned for myself. Make a mark, have a legacy, achieve something, be seen.