Re-discovering Your Characters (and Plot Bunny Invasions)

ait Nolan's been plagued by plot bunnies recently, and I must say, so have I.

I haven't touched Ayten's story in a couple of weeks now, poor girl, and I haven't even returned to my actual plot bunny story featuring Rosa and Baha (and, okay, Ayten and Devran are in that one too).

But I have been plugging along with my shiny new idea, which is why I'm glad I made that part of my ROW80 goals. This one's set in England, possibly Wales or Scotland (I've got to decide on a definite location soon, if nothing else for the accents of my local secondary characters (I need a seaside location with a network of caves and lots of local legends (well, that part's not hard in the British Isles))).

One of my other shiny sparks involves the Earl of Rochester; it'll be a long time before I get around to delving deeper into that idea, but meanwhile I've got a history crush on him.

However, I discovered something interesting: all I've known about Rochester visually are copies of portraits available online. And he looks gorgeous in those portraits.

While we were in London, though, I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, and saw my favourite portrait of Rochester, by Sir Peter Lely, in colour and in person. And you know what?

I'm not sure if you can tell from my photos, but...

Rochester from a distance

Rochester close-up 1

Rochester's plaque

Rochester close-up 2

...he looks young!

I got so used to thinking of him as this worldly-wise poet, having affairs, duelling, getting into scrapes, disguising himself in all kinds of ways, that I forgot how young he was when living through all that. He's at least five years younger than me in this portrait, if not more.

I think if I ever do come around to writing that story, I'll have a slightly different perspective of him now.

What sorts of revelations have you had concerning your characters?

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