Creating a background, the stuff readers may never realise or cotton onto, but it’s the details that give the world space and depth.
For example there’s a ‘cat alphabet’ and Giles being the 9th Heavenly Cat is named with its ninth letter.
Giles often ruminates on how his brother took a chunk out of his ear, but the details and circumstances are never reported, but I could tell you when and where.
In one story Giles is ‘rescued’ by a young couple who take him to a vet. The couple although never named are Ted Hughes and Silvia Plath.
The wonderful folk song created by Helen, https://helenlindleymusic.com places Giles in the English folk tradition of dangerous, mythic beasts, such as Black Shuck, a story of great age but murky, and probably multiple origins. Which is exactly how Giles presence in the world would be experienced, ubiquitous but almost transparent, he’s a cat in the shadows, there but out of site. Helen’s song echoes with the exact ancient depth I was looking for, a song for group singing, that you feel could be expanded and altered by many a pub singer – a favoured song by Old Frank who drinks pints of mild, and smiles broadly with his one tooth.
Another detail that gave me a lot of fun, was the question, how would Giles feel about birds? What if he didn’t see them as prey but an enemy. What if birds, who science tells us are evolutionarily linked to birds, still thought and spoke like dinosaurs? What if the birds are threatening to eat us if their songs? How would Giles react to this?
Having these ideas in the background, hinted at but never stated, creating strands of thread for the reader to bind together, aids to the experience of writing and more importantly that of the reader. I may know what my reader wants, but I can make sure the food on offer has complex and satisfying flavours.
in the writing shed 