I’ve written a couple stories about the past haunting us or about figures from another plane making themselves known. Most of the stuff is inspired by the strange things that have happened in my own life, but I also love to play with all the questions we have that can’t possibly be answered.
I just finished my most recent book, Ashes and Other Inheritances, and one of the most interesting characters in there is one who never actually takes shape on the page. The reader finds out bits and pieces about Mattie’s story, but until much later in the book, we don’t even get to see a scene that we know is from her own life.
I introduce Mattie with a diary entry and a couple newspaper clippings. Through much of the book, Morgan is reading about her, learning about her life, but little things start to cross over.
One of the most common elements that I decided to use as a crossover was a scent: the smell of cigarette smoke. On occasion, we get overlays of a perfume, but for the most part, that irritating odor is how Mattie directs Morgan throughout the book.
I chose this because I could start out with it just being a nuisance, possibly something that makes her think something is wrong. But by the end of the book at it turns into something more.
Oddly enough, I’m not someone who can smell things very well. I could always pick up on stinky diapers, but I practically have to have my nose touching the wax in a candle to smell it if it’s not lit. But I have scent memories too. A parallel in my own life, I’ve never liked the smell of cigarette smoke, but under just the right conditions, when I smell it, it reminds me of beach vacations when I was little. There was always somebody smoking in a stairwell or off in a corner somewhere when we would return to the hotel. It would provide a weird combo of salty sea air and tobacco, and on occasion now, when I smell something similar, it takes me right back.
Memory is also huge in this book. Everything that Mattie shares his memory, as she’s outlining it in her diary. But we do have a couple times when that line is blurred too. A couple of Mattie‘s really important memories are actually transferred to Morgan in strange moments where Morgan gets to sit with her through them. One in particular is one of my favorite scenes that I’ve written, and it’s near the end of the book. It’s incredibly sweet, but you’ll just have to read the book to find out about it!
For a woman who’s not actually there, Mattie is absolutely a main character in this book. And her diary helps give her shape and leave a legacy well after her death, a hundred years later when her diary is discovered.
If you were a ghost signaling someone with a scent, what would you pick? What memory would you share?