The Nurse's Story

The Engagement Party - Coach Your Characters

In this week’s fictional coaching session a nurse called Ruby is invited into the coaching room.

This is a light-hearted experiment to see if I can create a story concept by fictionally coaching newly-invented characters, and making notes using what I’ve learnt. Through the conversation with the coach we will learn what the character wants from a recent situation or their life. Hopefully, some interesting challenges and secrets will be uncovered.

This experiment may prove valuable. It may fail. I wonder if I’ll find it challenging to get under the skin of characters I’ve only just met. Whatever happens, I’m interested to find out.

The Coaching Session

A nurse called Ruby is invited into the fictional coaching room. This session is after Carrie goes missing. 

The coaching session has already started.

RUBY: I’m a nurse, and in my job I see all kinds of patients come and go. There’s something different about one who came in lately though. She came in last week. She’d been in a car accident and says she has no memory of who she is. She’s about my age, and I keep thinking about how I would feel if I couldn’t remember. What if I couldn’t remember my kids or that I was married?

COACH: And this has had an effect on you.

RUBY: Yes. I probably shouldn’t admit this but I’ve been imagining who the patient might be. I’ve made up a name for her - I mean I haven’t told anyone; I’ve just imagined this all in my head.

COACH: What did you name her?

RUBY: Claudette. She’s from Normandy and has two children Rose and Jean-Paul. They are six and four, and they’re back at home in France with their father. I think about Claudette and the life she lives in France, and how worried her husband and kids must be that she has disappeared.

COACH: What’s important about this for you?

RUBY: I would love to try on a different life - even if it’s just for a day. I’m probably also hoping that if something ever happens to me that I will be missed. What if I’m not?

COACH: If you could try on a different life for a day, who would you be?

RUBY: I’d be someone with a really important job who people listen to.

COACH: What job?

RUBY: I don’t know. Nurses get pushed aside. Maybe I’d be a doctor - just for one day, mind. I wouldn’t want to be stuck as a doctor forever. But for one day I could be a doctor and people could listen to me for once.

COACH: What impact would people listening to you have?

RUBY: It would feel like I was making a difference. I make a difference as a nurse but I don’t feel that’s the way the patients see it. If I was a doctor I would feel the impact I was having on people.

COACH: And what difference would that make?

RUBY: I would be more confident and take more risks.

COACH: And what difference would that make?

RUBY: Well, for a start, it might change things for the patient who says she’s lost her memory - Claudette. The thing I didn’t mention earlier is that I don’t think she’s telling the truth. I think she can remember. But if I shared this with the doctors they would tell me I was imagining things. A few days ago a man came into the ward, and before he said who he was visiting, Claudette reacted to him as if she was remembering. He said he was the one who phoned for the ambulance and waited with her until it came. She thanked him for his flowers and said she was sorry she didn’t recognise him. But she did recognise him. I saw her reaction. Who is she and why would she lie?

Coaching session continues.

Coach Your Characters

Is there a character in your story you would like to ask the following questions to?

1. If you felt you would always be listened to, what would you say?

2. What difference would this make?

Writer’s Notes: 

Thoughts

• Ruby’s personality interests me. The fact that she lives so much in her imagination may be interesting to the story. It might work well to see through her eyes as people come to the patient’s bedside. We could hear Ruby’s thoughts about what relationship she thinks each person has to the patient, and her thoughts about what is really going on.

• If Ruby has guessed that Carrie can remember then she can start to act like a detective, trying to piece together why Carrie is lying. She says she wants to feel impactful so ‘solving the case’ may be her way to prove herself.

The Story

Working title: The Engagement Party

Basic storyline: Bobby’s fiancée Carrie disappears. He spends the novel looking for her. In the process he uncovers secrets from Carrie’s past. This is a story about finding out who Carrie is. We find this out via stories told from people who knew her. But which ones are true and which ones are false?

Status quo / Beginning: Bobby lives with his girlfriend Carrie. They are both in their thirties. They’ve been in a relationship for about ten years. At the start of the novel Bobby proposes to Carrie and she says yes.

Inciting incident: Carrie goes missing at her engagement party. Directly before she goes missing she is seen talking to her ex-boyfriend (Liam). We need to understand why they are still in contact/friends. No strong reason for them staying in touch seems likely currently.

Developments: To include:

• Guests at the engagement party are Liam, Tasha, other friends and family, including Carrie’s mum and dad, and Bobby’s dad, Carrie’s sister. There is conflict around some of the family secrets and tense relationships.

• During party, Carrie and Bobby argue about kids - Carrie says Bobby is lying and he doesn’t want kids. She says her mum didn’t want kids and she doesn’t want that situation for their children. Carrie’s father overhears the argument.

• Bobby’s mum is estranged and isn’t invited to the party. (Added this because Bobby didn’t mention his mum during his session, so this seems like a good way to add some conflict.)

• At a stressful point in the search, have Bobby’s mum show up wanting to build a relationship with her son. Bobby initially rejects her.

• After Carrie’s disappearance, start with a scene in which we first think Carrie has voluntarily left - we first think she’s having an affair with Liam and has changed her mind about the engagement to Bobby. We hear a conversation between Carrie’s mum (Maggie) and Carrie’s sister (Nina) which leads us to think Carrie has left Bobby and gone into hiding.

• PC Walker interviews Liam (Carrie’s ex boyfriend) who tells them running away is usual for Carrie, that Carrie loved to run off and spent time with ex-boyfriends.

• Jade (police officer) interviews Carrie’s mum, Maggie, and it becomes clear that the police are not taking the disappearance seriously.

• Then have scenes which make us think Carrie has been taken. I wonder where the clues for her being taken will come from?

• Include scenes with the group chat messages - conflicting conspiracy theories that get more silly and dramatic. Also have messages that show the different sides to Carrie in a deeper way. Include Mandy (school friend), Jacob (school friend), neighbours.

• As Carrie is coming across as someone who has a lot playing on her mind, she may work well as the narrator - 1st person narrative - to show her thoughts. Have the first half of the novel as a 1st person narrative narrated by Bobby or Jade (the police officer), and the second half of narrative narrated by Carrie.

• The first time we see Carrie (and narrated by Carrie) she is in a hospital bed and has lost her memory after being in a car accident. We believe she doesn’t know anything about herself, including not knowing her own name. WE see her trying to understand who she is and how she came to be in hospital.

• Within the second half of the story, we see the nurse not believing Carrie’s story. She believes that Carrie is lying, that Carrie can remember. We see her acting as a detective and trying to piece together why Carrie is lying.

• Towards the end of the second half of narrative (narrated by Carrie), have Carrie finally remembering who she is. Have flashbacks to Carrie’s past which show her as a manipulator. Include the softer side that Jacob talked about too - Carrie wanting to persuade people to do things that will help them in their lives. Has one of these interventions got her into trouble?

• Perhaps have a scene in the later part of book between Carrie and Tasha. Tasha knew where Carrie was all along. But why? And why are they in contact? Or at some point, hint that Tasha may have done something bad to Carrie and Tasha is involved in her disappearance.

• Perhaps there could be conflict between Bobby and Nina (Carrie’s sister) with Bobby thinking Liam (ex-boyfriend) has done something to Carrie and Nina trying to persuade Bobby that Liam is a good guy.

• Perhaps Nina (Carrie’s sister) gets the job at the radio station. She could deliver a message on the radio to try to track down Carrie. Or perhaps Nina has a show that includes a callers slot. Someone calls in and says something about her sister Carrie that uncovers a mystery.

• We see scenes in which there are lots of suspicious comings and goings to and from what looks like an abandoned house. The postman delivers a letter and thinks he hears a woman calling for help from inside. A neighbour gets a ladder and they rescue her. We ask, ‘Is this or isn’t this Carrie?’

• Jade (police officer) interviews the woman who has been locked up was found in number 16. She establishes that the woman isn’t Carrie. She suspects Carrie was in the house with her in the past few weeks. This is because the woman states that she heard a woman saying in her sleep, “I’m sorry, Bobby. I didn’t mean to.” We later find out that the woman wasn’t abducted and that Adam was helping her to disappear from her life. But we don’t know that at this point.

• The abductors send Jane and Tommy (from number 16) threats, saying if they speak to the police they will kill them. Tommy has already spoken to the police. But doesn’t speak to them again.

• Jane (from number 16) goes to meet Adam, one of the alleged abductors, and the father of her son. Jane quizzes Adam, wanting to find out if he is essentially a good or bad person. She wants to rid herself of concerns that her son may have ‘bad genes’. Adam eventually tells her that he has been helping women disappear.

• Adam helps Carrie get a new identity and leave the area. We perhaps find this out after the fact - much later in the story.

If you would like to try coaching your own fictional characters from work in progress, you may use this post as inspiration. I also offer a journal to subscribers with ideas of how to coach your fictional characters. When you subscribe, you’ll find a link to the journal in the welcome email.  

I offer coaching to writers who want to get back on track. Sessions may include conversations to help you focus, work through blocks and create a supportive writing routine. You can find out more about the coaching I offer here.  

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