Many meetings

Today I'm driving down to Bournemouth to the Dunford Novelists' weekend. It'll be a big reunion with lots of writing friends, some of whom I haven't seen for a year.

The weekend will be a series of meetings, both formal and social and it's got me thinking about the role that meetings play in our characters' lives.

Having a character meet someone unexpectedly can change their life. What if the person they meet tells them a long-buried family secret?  If your character suddenly finds out that his mother isn't his birth mother, that's going to really knock his self-identity sideways.  Or what about the meeting we all dream of, where we discover someone has left us a fortune? Having spent some time working in a probate department when I was training as a solicitor I've seen at first hand how vicious families can get when they're fighting over money.

Then there are the meetings we plan for, but are still stressful.  Will your character get her dream job and the chance to work in Australia?  Will the longed-for first date go well?

In Christopher Vogler's book The Writers's Journey he talks of The Meeting with the Herald. As Joseph Campbell explains in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the Herald is the person who shows up in a character's life, giving them unexpected news.  The Herald is often also the person who calls the character to take action.  Often the suggestion is unwanted, and the character resists the suggestion.

Unexpected meetings with people can provide missing pieces of a puzzle your characters are trying to solve.  I do this in both Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, when Nic and Bryn meet up with old work buddies and get information from them.

My meetings at Dunford will also give me vital information.  They'll tell me whether my first chapter works, or whether it's back to the drawing board next week.