CHARACTER BUILDING

A David Sands Competition story by Carol Malone

Jul 22, 2025

An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition

I know, I know, I really shouldn’t have done it, but it was like an earworm. Every time I switched on the computer, every time I checked my emails or trawled the internet for news there it was – a pop-up ad “BE PART OF THE STORY”. I ignored it for such a long time but in the end, I went down that rabbit-hole and l lived to regret it, except I didn’t live to regret it.

Be Part Of The Story: did you ever wonder what the minor characters in a story think, if they played a small but significant role in the hero’s journey?

Did you ever want to dance beside Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett at the Netherfield ball? Stand at Helm’s Deep? Try not to buy something from Cut My Own Throat Dibbler?

Now here is your chance complete the survey, and we will insert you into your favourite novel.

There were the obvious questions, name, age, location, favourite book/author/character and was I of sound mind and body. That last question gave me a moment’s hesitation, but only a moments, and so I filled in the questionnaire and pressed send. Nothing happened. I thought you idiot that was just a marketing ploy to get your details and now you’ll be inundated with offers to take out subscriptions for “book of the month” clubs and annoyed with myself I pushed it to the back of my mind and got on with my boring, stale life.

Months later I received an email, asking if I was interested in attending a presentation that weekend. Normally I would have said no, but my long-time boyfriend had dumped me the night before. Saying I was too staid, too set in my ways just because I didn’t want to be handcuffed to the bed. I thought stuff you (actually it wasn’t “stuff you” but I’m too polite to swear). I thought, I’ll show you and clicked yes. It also helped that the presentation was only a 5-minute drive away.

So early on the Saturday morning I presented myself at the posh hotel set in extensive ground. Well, that was reassuring, they had obviously spent a fair amount of money on this and so far I had not been asked to stump up any cash or to give my bank account details. I was met by a well-dressed woman, Anne, and was shown into the lounge for coffee and pastries. I was expecting a few other “punters” but no it was only me and Anne. When I queried the lack of others, she assured me that they were very exclusive and these meetings were always one on one, but of course I could leave at any time, no obligations. Reassured, I stayed, well I had nothing better to do that day. We stayed in the lounge, in a quiet alcove with a view over the lawns down to the lake and its serene swans.

Anne asked a few ice-breaker questions, work, life, travel goals etc. before she turned the conversation to my literary history. First book, The Secret Garden, the book I couldn’t finish, Oscar and Lucinda, which book I wish I’d written, Pride & Prejudice of course, or maybe Jane Eyre. Then she turned to the reason we were there, did I ever imagine myself as one of the characters in a book and if so which one. Well Lizzie Bennett of course, I mean who wouldn’t want to be Lizzie. I asked her what her choice would be, and her reply surprised me. A juror at the trial of Tom Robinson in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” When I asked why not a major character, she said the main characters are all fully formed, rounded whilst a minor one supported the narrative, seemingly unimportant but often crucial and they had potential.

She explained to me that they could offer me an insight into the core of a story by just being a bystander viewing the actions of the main protagonists and did I want a little tester session? Confused I said, “What do you mean?”. “Viewing the action?” She lent forward placed her hands over mine and there I was, stood at the back of the Maycomb courtroom watching Atticus Finch, oddly looking nothing like Gregory Peck. 10 seconds later I slumped back in my chair, stunned, speechless.

What the hell just happened?

She raised one eyebrow “Well I just took you to Maycomb courtroom”.

“No No you didn’t. You couldn’t have”.

Well, I did. I can take you into nearly any book you want. If a copy is held by the British Library, I can take you”.

“No No you can’t!! Can you?”

“Well, I can if you want. Do you want?”

“How”

“Well, it’s very technical, quantum physics. I don’t really understand it myself. To tell you the truth when it was explained to me, I just nodded my head and said AH! a lot”.

“But how”

“Well, I have a device, and I just pressed the button.”

“So, it’s random?”

“No, its pre-programmed but because you were a passenger it could only give us a few seconds. If, when, you get your own device you choose the book and how long you want to be there. The only constraint is the length of time you can stay. It’s limited to how long it would take to listen to the book, we call it “Audible Time.”

“We?”

“Yes, the group I work with. It was started by a group of literary critics and academics. They wanted the definite answers to their questions. Basically, a way to get into the head of the author, to understand the whys and wherefores. Why did that character do that then and not in the next chapter? You may have noticed over the last few years more and more TV programs and articles about authors, explaining their work and giving a new perspective. Some unfinished works have been completed and even sequels written”.

“So why me?”

“Well, you have a degree in Eng Lit, first class with honours from Oxford, your dissertation on the changing role of women in literature was well received and in fact one of your tutors is a founding member of our society and she recommended you. Also, to be honest you’ve a shit dead-end job, writing press releases for that multi-national tech company. Well paid but soul destroying. I’m right, aren’t I?”

I hung my head in shame. It was only supposed to be temporary until I could think what I really wanted to do and then I became bogged down with life and a few months turned into a few years and now I was too afraid to move. The phrase “always regret the things you have done not the things you haven’t” came to mind so I said yes.

The next few months were wonderful. After a period of training and some joint “novel” outings with Anne, I was a fully fledged book jumper. Every weekend I was exploring the world’s greatest novels. My role was to visit books, observe a particular event or series of events and then report back to the academic who had initiated the research. A new laptop was delivered for each jump and once the report was written it would be collected on a set date and exchanged for another new laptop along with the details of the new assignment. We had a week to accept or reject any assignment. I was offered 50 Shades of Grey, but I turned that one down straight away, if I wasn’t going to agree to being handcuffed to the bed, I certainly didn’t want to be involved in anything more weird or kinky. I spent some time visiting the strong women in Maeve Binchy books and did a long report on the interaction between the March sisters from Little Women with a compare and contrast with the Bennett sisters. I definitely thought that one was for some entitled rich kid cheating on their dissertation. As well as being paid for the reports, once a month I was allowed to visit any book I wanted. Not “Ulysses” far too unstructured for safe travel, but I did once spend a wonderful Christmas Eve in Narnia.

I much preferred the pure research jobs, as there was a definite objective and I loved writing the reports, but The Society was often asked to draw up a synopsis for a film or TV adaptation. I called these the “Match of the Day Highlights” jobs. Don’t get me wrong I still did an excellent job, if I say so myself, but my heart was always with the more academic work. I still had my real job as cover and book work was listed as a consultancy for tax purposes. I could tell no-one about the book jumping. We almost always worked alone but occasionally there would be a double header. When I would visit a book with another “jumper” for a deep observation of the two main characters, but we would never meet socially, and we would use the character names as aliases.

Anne was still my mentor/line manager, checking in every few weeks or so, passing on jobs, making suggestions and answering any questions I had. On one of these sessions she offered me a new role, a unique proposition. The Society, I never knew it’s full name, it was only ever referred to as “The Society” had started a new service for authors suffering from writer’s block, it would be called “Character Building”. We would be going into the part drafted book, work our way up to the stalled section and then make suggestions as to the way forward. At last, I’d found my niche, my perfect job and I was paid very handsomely for my input. I spent nearly 2 years doing this role, helping to craft stories and the occasional play. The work was not officially acknowledged but I’m often included in the thank you section at the end of a book, or have a character named after me.

Then I was asked if I would work with a well-known author who was struggling with the latest book in his long-running police procedural series featuring the feisty female DCI Ruth Griffiths. I’d not read the series, not my genre but the opportunity and the fee was too good to turn down. I was to stay with the author at his palatial mansion in the Cotswolds and we would work together from the very beginning of the book. I would become Ruth Griffiths. Initially, the job was wonderful, slow and painstaking, but wonderful. The author was a celeb and knew it, always name-dropping and bragging about the TV series they were going to make from their books. He had, what my mother would say, “a bob on his-sen”. He’d never use a simple word if he could find a more polysyllabic one. I think he had Roget’s Thesaurus downloaded into his brain. The story revolved around a mild-mannered teacher who had been abused by his parents and was now killing the parents of the children in his school whom he deemed unworthy. We made good progress, but the atmosphere subtly changed, I felt he had become resentful of my input. My suggestions were played down or rejected out of hand only for him to “come up “with the same idea a few days later. I couldn’t back out of the agreement, so I gritted my teeth and got on with the job. Slowly we inched towards the climax of the book.

Ruth would make the connection and confront the killer at the parents’ evening, and the killer would be captured after running through the school with Ruth and her team hard on his heels. Our last session would be the chase, starting in the sports hall and ending in the science lab, where he would threaten to blow the whole school up before Ruth’s plucky DS would risk his own life to save her. Imagine my surprise when I jumped not into a brightly lit hall full of students and their parents (of potential murder victims), but onto the rain-slicked pavement outside Ruth’s house. Before I could react, the killer leapt out of the bushes and stabbed Ruth multiple times. As I lay on the wet pavement, confused with blood pooling around me and confused as to what had just happened, it slowly dawned on me that, in this story, I was Ruth, so I had been the one to be stabbed. I tried to reach my bracelet device, but it wasn’t there. Panicking I looked around, the killer, now wearing the face of the author, stood over me smirking as he whirled the bracelet around his finger. “Thank you so much. This will be my greatest story yet, my Sherlock Holmes and the Reichenbach Falls moment.”

He walked away as the paramedics rushed to my side, yelling instructions, trying to stem the bleeding as I slowly lost consciousness.

So here I am in limbo, not yet dead but not alive. I can only hope the book is successful and Ruth Griffiths survives and appears in the next book, but I have no great hope of that.

My only hope is that Anne comes to my rescue.

CHARACTER BUILDING

A David Sands Competition story by Carol Malone

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