Kate Quinn’s Mabel “Queen Mab” Churt is a dynamic, complex character. Even a year or so on from reading about her adventures at Bletchley Park, she lives in my mind as a living, breathing woman with hopes and dreams and heartache of her own. I can see her very clearly in my mind’s eye. I feel like I have as good a sense of her personal history as any one of my own friends. However, on returning to The Rose Code, and my first introduction to Mab, I realised that despite my clear vision of her, the reader is not actually provided with a full physical description of her or her internal struggles. Instead, Kate Quinn makes use of synecdoche, using small details to signal Mab’s larger character to the reader.
“‘I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six, dressed in black satin with a string of pearls’” Mab Churt read aloud. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said, you silly twit.”
“What are you reading?” Her mother asked, flipping through an old magazine.
“Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier,” Mab turned a page. She was taking a break from her dog-eared list of “100 Classic Literary Works for the Well-Read Lady” - not that Mab was a lady, or particularly well-read, but she intended to be both…
“The heroine’s a drip and the hero’s one of those broody men who bullies you and it’s supposed to be appealing. But I can’t put it down somehow.” Maybe just the fact that when Mab envisioned herself at thirty-six, she was definitely wearing black satin and pearls.
- The Rose Code, Kate Quinn
This short exchange projects a detailed portrait of Mab without leaning on the more lengthy descriptive passages so often found in novels from the literary canon. That “dog-eared” list of 100 Classic Literary Works speaks of Mab’s ambition to educate herself and her dedication to the project. It points too to her strong sense of her own self-worth as she knows she is as capable and deserving of experiencing these masterworks as any upper-class “lady”.
The fact that she identifies Du Maurier’s heroine as a “drip” and Mr De Winter as a bully likewise hints at her own experience of toxic relationships and her rejection of lady-like passivity despite her own desire for a rich husband, black satin and pearls.
In The Art Of Fiction, David Lodge praises Christopher Ishwerwood’s use of synecdoche to introduce the now legendary character of Sally Bowles in his 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. “Those fingernails on grubby hands are what I first think of when her name is mentioned,” Lodge writes, arguing that this small detail conveys both Sally’s penchant for exhibitionism and her child-like naïveté. This combination has proven to be unstoppable, with Isherwood’s leading lady going on to appear in I Am A Camera and the cult-status musical turned-movie Cabaret. (You can take a look at Liza Minnelli’s 1973 performance of Sally in the following clip.)
The exercise below will give you a chance to try out this technique yourself and with any luck will help you to get a better sense of your own characters and their foibles.
Creative Writing Exercise:
Choose one of the following objects or physical details from which to build a new character:
A silver locket with the clasp sellotaped shut.
A heavily pencilled eyebrow interrupted by a pasty white scar.
A shiny red watch set three hours behind.
The scent of wet grass and expensive perfume.
A rough, husky voice.
Freckled ears.
Write a 500-word introduction to your character using one of these details to hint at the physical appearance and/or personality of the character.
If you like, you can also have a go at finding a similar detail from which to identify something significant about a character from your own work.
I hope you have enjoyed this edition of Nudge. I would love to hear how your writing is progressing on Notes or Twitter, so do say “hello” and feel free to ask questions!
Really like these prompts and just ordered the Isherwood book. Thanks for this.