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brasideios · 1 year

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My boy Charlie

So, tentatively, I really want to start posting more about my original writing, since that's what I do full time; what I'm working on, the things I'm writing about, and just generally more writerly stuff, including talking about my OCs.

I feel rather shy about it, but I'm doing it anyway. If y'all hate it, I'm sorry in advance.

I've started with an OC because of a conversation I had in passing with @ainulindaelynn last week. As I said there, a lot of my OCs are based on kind of 'archetypes' I've developed (if that's not too grand a name for it) who I write and rewrite in various guises. I usually call them after the name I gave them the first time I really dug into their character.

Which brings me to my boy Charlie.

He's been my muse for a really long time - and I had this weird experience where I found a picture of him the other day so you can even see him without my having to attempt to draw his ass:

[This image is from a fashion catalogue; the absurdly expensive brand is Connolly.]

Something about the unsmiling face, the way he's looking away into the distance - just the whole vibe. The model from other angles doesn’t look like him, just this image... and the vibes.

Original Charlie

The first time I wrote Charlie was in 2004 in a short story called The Pioneer; that short story was re-written heavily in 2014 and was eventually polished up and included in my published (2018) book Stories from Wiacubbin.

It was called - can you guess? - Charlie 😆 I've never enjoyed coming up with titles!

The whole book was written as an extension of that short, to expand on the characters in it so - what a journey this guy has taken me on.

Anyway. This is (the polished version of) how he's first introduced:

~~~

The sky was the barely blue of a long dry summer, even though it was only early December. Sun-bleached wheat fields lay across the flats, blonde on red clay.

Charlie was surrounded by familiar sounds: the shush of the breeze in the wheat; the snort of the horse’s breath and the muffled thump of its hooves on compacted dirt; the clink of the harness. He was a man used to being in the saddle - his mother had liked to say he was born into it.

He squinted out from beneath his hat, pulled low over blue eyes, at the crop as he passed. It was an assessing glance which told him harvest wasn’t far off.

The Young’s homestead lay ahead. Granite dry walls, sun-baked mud brick, corrugated iron; the outbuildings of canvas, tree trunks, stone; and beyond, the granite outcrop, Wiacubbin Hill - a dark looming mass in the bright day.

The cattle dogs heard the horse and rider approaching and began to bark. Two men walked out from the stables curiously, shielding their eyes from the sun.

As Charlie dismounted, the elder of the two asked, ‘You the new man?’

Charlie nodded curtly, and introduced himself.

‘I’m Ed, this is John.’ John nodded in greeting.

‘The boss about?’ Charlie asked after shaking hands with them both.

‘Down the south paddock. He’ll be back shortly. Head into the house and the girl’ll get you a drink while you wait.’

The house faced the outcrop. There was a dry gully which ran from the dam in the orchard at the south end of the house, along the front of the veranda and into oblivion, thus dividing the house from the driveway. Two rough-hewn tree trunks had been placed across the gully, and Charlie walked over these and then up the couple of steps to the veranda and the front door.

The door stood open. He knocked politely against the door frame before stepping across the threshold.

The dining room was unexpectedly cool. With whitewashed walls, it was dominated by a large, scrubbed table; its only nod to decoration was a sideboard on which several old-fashioned photographs stood. He was looking at these when a girl in her late teens came into the room.

‘My father’s out. He’ll be back soon.’ Her voice was very soft. For a moment, their eyes met. She looked away. ‘Please sit. I’ll bring tea.’

He watched her go, then did as she’d instructed. He took a seat which gave him a clear view of the outcrop and the dam humped beneath it. The landscape was blurred and moving in the heat haze, a wash of gold, ochre and brown.

His eyes wandered back to the photographs on the sideboard. The family ancestors, he assumed. None of the girl, he noted; only matriarchal women in tight-laced dresses and huge hats, and men in dark suits and full moustaches, all of them looking very serious.

He heard the clink of the teapot lid and teaspoons against the china as the girl came back. She set the tray down on the table, then handed him a cup and saucer, and set another at the head of the table.

She turned to leave, but stopped when he said, ‘I’m Charlie, by the way.’

She looked at him from under her brows, as if she couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly. Her face was as serious as the ancestors on the sideboard beside her.

‘I’m Rebekah.’ She was gone again before he could say anything further. He poured the tea into his own cup, frowning momentarily.

~~~

New Charlie (Joel).

I've been working on a new story, set nearly ~80 years later, and was digging into a new character via dialogue, Joel. I got a-ways in and was like, oh no. This is Charlie.

So new Charlie has just dropped (or has started to drop, anyway 😆)

(This is a WIP so forgive unpolished bits):

~~~

It was a perfect golden afternoon – the sparkling ocean beneath a high clear sky; a cargo ship even then was slipping towards the hazy horizon.

There was a golden quality to it all that tugged at my heart strings. The strange sense I sometimes have of the perfection of the world – or at the least, of a moment of perfection.

That feeling was powered by intense gratitude. I was still haunted by the person I’d been, and perhaps still partly was. The darkness that’d been in me – but I didn’t want to think about that. There was too much pain in it.

The guy who was sitting with Rowan came over to where I was looking out at the sunset, dragging a chair behind him, clumsy and shy. The sun caught his sandy brown hair, turning it vividly gold. His face was pleasant, wide-browed, but there was something vaguely brooding about him; something stern could be glimpsed lurking beneath the friendly surface. His eyes were very blue.

‘Since your friend and my friend are talking, I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Joel.’

He offered a hand, and I shook it. His hand was so calloused, I almost recoiled.

‘Arity,’ I said.

‘So, what brings you ladies here this arvo?’

‘It’s my birthday actually.’

‘Let me guess,’ he said, squinting at me. ‘You’re… twenty-five?’

He was right. ‘Good guess.’

He smiled in one corner of his mouth.

I pondered a moment, looking at the pint of beer he’d placed on the table. The drops of condensation on the glass caught the sunlight like jewels.

After a minute, I said, ‘Well, I guess one of us has to do it.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do what?’

‘Ask the obligatory, boring question – what do you do for a crust?’

He half-smiled again. ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.’

I laughed, though I wasn’t entirely sure he was joking.

I suggested, ‘So… you’re a secret assassin, here to take out innocent women quietly drinking their cocktails?’

He smiled properly. It transformed his face in an astonishing way, softening the hard lines, crinkling his eyes at the corners charmingly.

‘Not at all,’ he said, though I could see him choosing his words. ‘I’m in public service. What about you?’

‘I work in hotels.’

‘Anywhere good?’ he asked, then clarified, ‘I mean here, in Perth, or somewhere exotic?’

‘Here,’ I said. ‘But I want to go up north eventually, after I finish my degree.’

‘Your degree?’

He’d visibly recoiled a little. I wondered what he was thinking.

‘I’m going to be a writer.’ I said it boldly, as if finishing the degree would automatically eject into the world someone who would write a novel. As if authors were somehow produced via a reliable process. ‘That’s part of why I want to travel. I can’t write about this shithole, can I?’

He half smiled at that; whatever thought the degree had provoked had passed, apparently. Maybe I’d misunderstood his body language.

‘I dunno.’ He looked around us pointedly, eyes sparkling. ‘I’ve been to worse pubs.’

It took me a second, then I caught up. I laughed.

‘You know what I mean!’

He took a drink before he said, ‘I sure do. Perth sucks.’

I agreed with him, but there was something about the way he said it that made me perk up my ears. To me, it sucked, but I meant it in an affectionate way; his dislike was different.

‘You’re not from here originally.’ It wasn’t a question.

He shook his head. ‘Brisbane.’

‘Been here long?’

‘Seven months. Another five to go.’

‘Then what?’

He shrugged, looking out at the ocean. ‘Not sure yet.’

Something clicked then. I’d grown up in Langarrin with new Navy kids always turning up for classes, then leaving again a year later. One of my high school friends had joined up when he was old enough, and he’d seemed to move at least every year, sometimes more, until we eventually lost touch.

And, of course, there’d been my Dad.

‘Are you in Defence?’ I asked, unintentionally pitching my voice low, as if I was asking him to disclose a state secret. Maybe it was his earlier evasiveness which made me vaguely nervous about asking.

The swiftest flicker of surprise crossed his face, as though I’d caught him out; but it was gone as he tilted his head and asked very coolly, ‘What makes you ask that?’

I sat back. I knew I was right. I wondered why he hadn’t just told me outright – I’d never met a sailor who’d been that evasive.

I shrugged. ‘I’ve known sailors all my life.’

He scoffed. ‘Navy.’ He shifted then, sitting up straighter. He met my eye with an almost defiant expression. ‘I’m Army.’

I wasn’t sure what he expected me to say about that. I said, ‘Fair enough,’ but I felt compelled to add, ‘I don’t judge.’

He visibly relaxed. I didn’t understand his reactions at all.

‘Do you want another drink?’ he asked. Why did I feel like I’d passed a test?

‘Yes, please,’ I said, waving my now-empty glass at him. ‘Tom Collins.’

He asked Rowan if he wanted another, and Suzie took the moment to glance over at me then.

She tilted her head, as if to ask if everything was good. I smiled back, reassuringly. I wasn’t sure if I liked Joel, but I’d definitely been around worse people.

I returned the favour, and she smiled in this way she had that said she liked him. I smiled back.

~~~

So that's Charlie. He's one of the easiest to pin down.

Where I can identify the source of his character, he's based very loosely on a close friend I had at one time, mixed with a collection of ideas gleaned from the books of Cormac McCarthy, all things Western, and a brief spell of being really into mid-century history.

If anyone cares to ask anything about him or OCs in general, or anything about writing, I'm open to talk about anything pretty much. AND I would love to see/hear about everyone else's OCs. It's so interesting to see what other people people are making 😆

If you read this far, thank you 🤍

#writeblr #own characters #oc charlie #my oc #oc joel #writing #stories from wiacubbin #arity #original fiction #jpdoingwords

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