I Lived in Castles to Bring My New Novel to Life
When the fictional characters in my head start speaking so loudly I have trouble sleeping, I know it’s time to go to my local Walgreens and buy some index cards. I lay the cards in front of me on a desk, motel bed, or airline tray table, and I start jotting down events. Although I have studied character development and what a writer is supposed to do to create fully formed fictional personas, I always seem to know my characters completely from the moment they appear. I know what they look like, what they want, what they fear, and why.
(5 Secrets to Writing a Great Setting.)
The part of my novels I need to think about consciously is how the characters will reveal themselves, what section of their life will be shown over the course of the novel, and where the action will take place: One Austin, Texas, summer, as in my thriller, The Lifeguards? The day a child goes missing and the 20 years afterward, which I wrote in How to Be Lost? A 10-day Mediterranean cruise, my timeline for The Jetsetters?
I have always started writing my novels with a stack of index cards. As I considered my new novel, Lovers and Liars, I saw three sisters—I knew that they had been almost like one person as children and had grown estranged as adults. But when would readers meet them…and in what space?
On one index card, I wrote “Sylvie in her library.”
On another: “Wedding day, looking out a window.”
I knew a sister named Emma would have a side hustle—I’d been obsessed with Multi-Level Marketing, so I gave Emma a sales job, and imagined a scene in her basement office. I gave the eldest sister a gleaming apartment in New York. I knew the sisters would gather at Sylvie’s wedding and try to stop it, and at first I randomly chose a Costa Rican jungle lodge as Sylvie’s wedding venue. But the more I listened to Sylvie and the second love of her life, Simon, the more I began to understand they belonged elsewhere.
While I was writing Lovers and Liars, Travel + Leisure magazine sent me on assignment to England to hike the final section of the U.K. coastal trail. The night before the hike, my husband and I stayed at a castle not far from the border of Scotland. And from the moment I saw a massive castle from the window of our weensy rental car, I knew that a castle was the place for Sylvie’s wedding. A crumbling castle…a castle with secrets…a castle where my three fictional sisters could meet and burn themselves down and rise again.
Writing about setting is not easy for me. Once I tossed out all my Walgreens index cards representing scenes set in Costa Rica, I had only blank cards and a few photographs of my one night in a castle. I felt lost and honestly: despairing. I couldn’t remember the smell of the castle once I’d returned home. And what did the private rooms look like? What kind of a family owns a castle, anyway? Who built these massive buildings and why?
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And so I pitched a travel story about castles. On assignment, I returned to England and wrote, letting the characters take over my imagination. In the afternoons, I walked around knot gardens, peered into the dungeons, investigated hidden passageways, and took notes about the sounds and smells of castle gathering spaces, dining rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens.
I conjured castle bedrooms for all my characters. Cleo, the eldest sister, is given “a ten-foot-wide bed with velvet curtains.” She notes that “A lush gold carpet stretched from wall to wall. The furniture was dark mahogany, intricately carved and upholstered in gold-and-rust-colored velvet.” Emma describes her room: “The room—a bedroom suite—was incredible. The walls were made of hand-laced stones except the far one, which was lined with dark wooden panels. An ivory ceiling with a hexagonal pattern made of wood was lined with deep blue paint, a glittering chandelier hanging at its center.” I loved describing the Tudor kitchen, the secret staircases, and Sylvie’s fictional “Honeymoon Cottage,” located in a historic building that once housed the castle gatekeeper.
I visited a castle with an aviary and spent time with the falconers. I hiked and spent time in the local pubs. At night, I watched movies set in castles. And when I had a manuscript ready, I sent it to one of my best friends, Wendy Wrangham, who is British, and was able to help me ensure the book was not too American.
I hope that readers enjoy Lovers and Liars as much as I enjoyed my time in castles writing the novel.
Check out Amanda Eyre Ward’s Lovers and Liars here:
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