The setting established and the bones of a story line already in my head, I began to think about the characters with whom my protagonist, Ben, would interact with. As I have already stated I originally meant for this plot line and setting to be an introduction to the novel which I planned to write. Instead both the location and the characters, which are largely drawn from my childhood experiences, became the basis for a completely different story.
Ben needed a family. He needed school friends. He needed neighbours and he needed the social acquaintances we all had in our younger days. The people with whom we had daily, or weekly, interactions with such as our school friends and their families, our neighbours and the local business people. As an adult these people hardly register, but as a youth they are the people who you have lasting memories of. The people who impacted upon your life whether it be in a big or a small way and the people who helped shape your perceptions of the world.
As with my desire to have the setting descriptions sound credible, so too was my desire that the characters also came across as real and believable. Having set the location in my own childhood neighbourhood it seemed only natural to base many of the characters on the people who I remembered from that time too. It was this decision, and the thought process which went into the character selection, which ultimately changed the direction of the story which I had initially set out to write.
Growing up in 'boring outer suburbia' one hardly expects that the neighbours you knew could actually form the basis of a good story, let alone one in which the main theme is about homosexuality. I was so keen to escape that prison of normality and conservatism as a teenager, yet years later I looked back into my childhood world and found not only a plethora of interesting characters, but also a wealth of human experiences which I was able to weave into my own story.
The characters in the story are based largely upon the people I met in my early years. Some are direct takes on individuals, while others are a mixture of personalities of people I knew as a child. As with the characters, so too the plot line. A mixture of both fact and folklore. Many of my own experiences interwoven with recounts of incidents from people who impacted upon my early life and a small amount of fictionalized drama thrown in for impact.
The 'gang of four' were a real group of boys with whom I had the misfortune to spend the first three years of high school with. The characters of Eddy, Sean and Mark are very much a direct reflection of the boys I knew at high school, from their appearances to their mannerism and to their actions. Eddy Smithers is the Eddy who used tease and bash me at school. With his short, stocky body, his greasy, shoulder length hair and his hooked nose, Eddy always reminded me of the 'Penguin' character from Batman. Just as in the story,
Eddy never acted on his own but always waited until his gang was around him before he became the tough guy. Except on one occasion where he tried to bully my at the train station one Saturday morning as I was going to the shopping center. Without his mates to back him up, I suddenly realized how small and weak he really was. His comments about me being a poofter had been heard by a dozen or more people and I was both humiliated and angry. I struck out at him before I had even thought about it. Just as Ben hits Eddy outside Gateway, I too hit the real Eddy and knocked him to the ground. It was the last time that he ever harassed me again.
Mr and Mrs T are the neighbours who lived behind us on the highway. For years we had been allowed to cut through our rear neighbours land to reach the highway and the relatively level walk to the local shops and school. It saved us a long and steep walk via the normal road route going down our steep hill, then along the valley floor before again tackling a long and steep hill to reach the highway. As I grew older and my world became more hostile I spent many hours isolating myself in their extensive and very private gardens. I got to know not only them but also the people who lived near them, all on house plots originally owned by my rear neighbours.
Mr and Mrs T were almost identical to the couple in the story. Both warm and generous, both devoted to each other and both typical, old fashioned, dinky-die Australians. Mrs T (or Mrs G as my real neighbour was called) actually did start almost all of her sentences with the phrase 'I say', much to my amusement at the time. Their sandstone and timber house is the house I have used in the story.
Lesley James is also real and largely based upon one of my childhood school friends. As in the story, the real 'Lesley' was the prettiest and most sort after girl in both my primary school and high school. We had been boyfriend and girlfriend in our last year of primary school and although our high schools were separated (Boys High and Girls High), they were both in the same suburb and we all met up at the train station to go home each afternoon. I can clearly remember the 'gang of four' always bristling when I stopped to talk or have a cigarette with the real Lesley.
Her role in the story, although small, was rather vital. A constant reminder to Ben that his feelings were not 'normal'. Here was a beautiful and hormonal teenage girl virtually throwing herself at Ben and he was aware of it but couldn't act upon it. This replicates my own experiences as a teenage boy at the train station everyday. It also reminded me of my own confusion about my sexuality at that time. I was very aware of the girls attractiveness and their willingness to 'go further with me' but I was also very aware of my attraction to boys.
Micheal's father and brothers are based on a family of one of my school friends. My friend lived with his father and older brothers in a run down fibro house on the highway a few suburbs away from me. His father was an alcoholic and his two older brothers were constantly smoking marijuana. As a 15 year old, coming from a very conservative and conforming family, I remember being both shocked and excited when seeing this. It was a whole world away from my own family, more like something out of 'To Sir With Love' or 'The Fenn St Gang' - it was really cool! At times though I found it rather scary and sad.
The Gianapolouses and the Pratts are also based on people from my childhood neighbourhood. Mrs Pratt and John are both direct takes on a family who lived near us. The real Mrs Pratt was involved in all the local clubs and activities and always imagined herself to be a cut above everyone else, both because of her leading roles in the school and area activities and because of her husbands position on the local council. She was also the source for most of the local gossip. Her son was exactly as the character in is the book. A kid I always felt sorry for him but kind of liked him because he was never anything but friendly.
The Gianopolouses (or there counterparts) really did run a take-away shop in my suburb. They arrived in the mid 70's and were immediately viewed with suspicion by most of the neighbourhood. We were still very much in the 'white Australia' mode of our predecessors where being foreign was okay, as long as you were predominately white and tried to fit in. It still wasn't as good as being Australian - this was a time when English immigrants were colloquially referred to as 'pommy bastards', but it was acceptable. Our neighbourhood boasted a number of European immigrants. German, Dutch, Czech and even Italians (from the north of Italy).
When the 'Greeks' arrived it was the talking point for the community. Regardless of the fact that the family was friendly. hardworking and did their utmost to assimilate, they were always regarded as outsiders. It was a good thing that their take-away shop was located on the highway where passing trucks would stop for a fuel and food before continuing the next relatively uninhabited 100km, the local community avoided them like the plague. It was only us kids who spent our money in the 'wog shop' - our parents refused to step foot inside the shop.
Miss Henderson is based upon my own art teacher from my last three years at high school. Like the Miss Henderson is the story she was young, single and very liberal minded. In my final years of high school, hers was the only class which I enjoyed. Not only because I enjoyed art, but because her classes were always on a level of equality. She allowed us to smoke in class and always treated us as adults. It was in her classes that I had my first introduction to punk rock and new wave music in the late 70's. In a very conservative catholic school, which I hated, my Miss Henderson was a wonderful breath or normality.
These are just the minor characters in the story. In the next blog I will reveal the inspirations behind the main characters. They were all real people who were a major part of my early life.
To preview the book, or purchase a copy for only US $2.50, please click the below link....
https://www.fastpencil.com/products/TEZ1KTUFE5LF
The burning desire to write a book has been with me for as long as I can remember. As a child I was an avid consumer of books and by the time I reached high school had read all the classics. Dickens, Swift, the Bronte sisters, Tolkien, as well as a plethora of children's authors popular at the time. My imagination was fired with the exploits of exotic characters in far off lands who did things I could only dream of.
I excelled in story writing at school and often wrote stories purely for my own enjoyment. I had numerous works published in various school magazines and always achieved top marks in English classes. The only time I failed an English exam was when I once spent the whole allotted 2 hours writing a story based on Edvard Munch's painting, 'The Scream'. I earned top marks for the story but because I ran out of time and didn't even start on the grammar section of the exam I was given a 'fail'. I was devastated.
Over the years I have been motivated to pick up my pen and write. So many stories have drifted in and out of my mind that I wanted to write but never did. There was no 'writers block' to blame for my reluctance to write. Rather it was always a fear of rejection which always stopped me. Not only a rejection of my talent, but also a rejection of my words and ideas. I seem to have always worried about people condemning my work because it wasn't credible. That the images, setting and even the characters would lack validity.
When I finally decided to write I was still haunted by this fear. The story was loosely formed, it was supposed to be the story I started writing when I was eighteen, and I only needed a setting to get started. This is where I stumbled. My story was always going to be set in Sydney. My original story was to be set in Sydney's red light district of Kings Cross. A place I was very well acquainted with from my time living on the streets as a teenager. However I needed a setting for the introduction. Kings Cross is not a place where people grow up. It is a place where people arrive at, for many reasons, and from many different places.
Deciding on a suburb where my character would originate from provided me with my first stumbling block. I came up with a number of locations, but with each of them, I worried that my intimate knowledge of these areas would not be sufficient enough to make them seem credible. That I wouldn't know every street, every park, every corner. This was enough to delay me in writing for a few more months while I agonized over where to set my introduction.
Finally I decided to 'write about what I know'. Or in this case, to write about where I know. The setting is based upon the neighbourhood where I grew up. This gave me the confidence to put pen to paper and commence my life dream. It was a decision that proved fruitful in more than one way. Not only did I feel confident in writing about the area, but I was also able to use many of my childhood impressions and experiences and incorporate them in the story.
More importantly, once I had the setting established, then the ideas just started flowing. Every aspect of the book, from the characters to their experiences is largely based upon my recollections of people, places and events from my childhood.
The setting is located in Sydney's northern suburbs, where I spent the first 17 years of my life. This is an area blessed with geographical beauty which is not found in many cities in the world. Of course as teenagers growing up there in the 1970's we thought it was the end of the world, which it pretty much was. The bushland valleys and ridges which had provided us with so much adventure as young children suddenly became a prison. We were trapped by distance from the happening world of Sydney City and the wonderful beaches which Sydney is also graced with.
My neighbourhood was an absolute wonderland to grow up in. The suburb itself is set on the edge of Kur-rin-gai Chase National Park on it's eastern fringe and on the western and northern edges by the endless bushland of Berowra Valley National Park. The roads and house mostly sit atop the sandstone ridges which form the valley tops and look out across unending vistas of bushland.
Our neighbourhood differed slightly in that it was one of the few streets which ran down partially into the valley. We were surrounded by steep sandstone ridges on all sides where houses clung precariously to the steep sides of the cliffs, or sat along the valley floor amid a sea of gum trees.
We had creeks to play in, bushland tracks to both create and explore, Tarzan swings set dangerously above sandstone boulders where we would swing back and forth for hours, caves to hide in ( and also where many of us experimented with sex at both an early, inquisitive age and also later when we began to feel the natural teenage urges). There were waterfalls to clamber down, sandstone river beds which provided wonderful natural water slides, and waterholes where we could fish for eels or yabbies (crayfish). The aboriginal carvings which Ben shows Michael in the story are real. They were carved into the sandstone river bed just above the waterfall and are just one of many I knew as a child.
It truly was a magical environment.
Further afield we had the spectacular Hawkesbury River Estuary at our feet. A magnificent drowned river valley which boasts some of the best bushwalking tracks and fishing spots in all of Sydney. It was only a 30 minute drive away, or about the same time on the train and only 5 stations away. A little closer was the recreational area of Bobbin Head. Still part of the Hawkesbury but on our suburb doorstep. We could actually walk here, Granted it was a long hour walk down the winding valley road and an even longer walk back up, but we often ventured down with our friends to spend the day swimming or fishing in this idyllic spot.
The High School which the boys attend is, of course, based upon my own school. Again the characters and events I write about are a largely based upon my own experiences and recollection of events from my time there. As is the 'Gateway Shopping Centre'. It was based upon the last of the shopping complexes to be built in our area at the end of the 1970's. One of my school friend's father was the architect who designed the centre.
Feeling confident in the credibility of my setting I commenced writing what was supposed to be the introduction to my original story. However from this start the story began to digress from my original plot as both the setting and the characters which emerged created whole new story lines which I began exploring. This took me down a path which I had intended to be only a brief background but which instead, became a wonderfully, creative and familiar topic to write about.
https://www.fastpencil.com/products/TEZ1KTUFE5LF
