As we develop characters for the community novel we have been looking for a theme, a unifying idea to unite then all, from which we can weave threads of story.  We found it when we shared the results of a short writing exercise at the end of a long discussion about what might connect our characters, and how they each experience the community in which our story will be set.

This is what emerged:

A man drinks on a bench on the playing field. A woman walks her dog and sees him. Feeling alone and afraid she heads to the boatyard where there are people around. She alerts them. He may be the man spotted sleeping in the churchyard.

A woman walks beside the creek. She meets people coming the other way, walking their dogs. She has noticed that everyone seems to have a dog here. She is looking for a house to buy, does not know the area but wants to know what it would be like to live here.

A homeless man arrives as the Christmas lights are switched on. He has walked through fields of winter wheat and encountered a farmer.

A woman, Margaret, walks on a mizzly morning. Her mother-in-law with whom she does not get on has Great Danes, she has a dashchund, Wolfgang. John Greatwood has recently started working for her as a gardener. She is busy, involved in village fundraising events. ‘Glamour had always motivated Margaret’.

A meeting of the Parish Council takes place, held at the village school, a planning meeting about new housing with provision for homeless and local people who can’t afford local prices. Margaret becomes very vocal about preserving the beauty of local landscapes. She and her estranged daughter Jo have a public confrontation.

On May Fair Day children dance around the May pole and there is a bouncy castle, music and stalls: a scene in which all the characters can come together.

Hearing these glimpses we recognised that what holds them together is the theme of home; what it means to have a home, seek a home, lose a home, not be able to afford a home, find a new home, or not have a home.

We wrote more about this and made a single short piece:

Home means a safe haven

A loving dog to greet me when I return home

Home is a sense of belonging, an identifying with a place that formed our beginnings

Not feeling walled in against the world but an open door to the world

Living with beloved people, a landscape you understand,

Objects with memories, comfort, security, caring,

A place that I can call my own.

Finding yourself on the outside looking into other people’s sitting rooms,

You on the pavement in the cold

Home sounds, home echoes, reverberates, cuts and hurts

Home is central heating and a comfortable bed,

Home is where one lays one’s head,

A safe haven where you can be yourself.

Everyone’s voice in a unified set of lines, shared ‘Quaker style’ after a free write in response to the question ‘what does home mean.’

A set of words to anchor us to our theme, perhaps.