When it came to creating the characters in A Flight of Saints, I knew what I didn’t want—a cast of stock medieval archetypes. I wanted them to be 12th-century young women struggling with the same issues we do today (body weight, body hair, being popular, binge drinking, periods and PMS). Our ancestors weren’t so different than we are today. They were real and complicated, and often forced into a blinkered lifestyle. They had their flaky side, but they were also thoughtful souls navigating a dangerous world while juggling all the fear and doubt it threw at them.
I don’t want to spoil my readers’ imaginations—after all, one of the joys of reading about fictional characters is conjuring them in our mind’s eye—but I know some of you might be interested in knowing about the physicality, personalities, and quirky tics of people I know or who inhabit the entertainment sphere. If a movie were ever to be made about A Flight of Saints (hey, I can dream, right?), here’s how it might be peopled. Meet the cast!
Lucia: The star of the book—our narrator—has a lot on her shoulders. In personality, mood, and introspection she reminds me of someone dear to me. But I also channelled a bit of Bridgerton actress Claudia Jessie. Lucia dances to a slightly different drummer; and though a bit reckless and naïve, she considers herself smarter than the others until she rubs up against Mea. When they reach Botzen and Lucia stumbles everywhere, tripping over geese and people and baskets of fruit, her veneer of perfection falls away quickly. I felt sorry for her many times in the course of writing the novel; she really struggled and suffered. We all know what it’s like to have a dream or a goal and find ourselves thwarted at every turn.
Little Fey: She’s short, round, very blonde, pious, and a bit of a pest. You can practically see the halo on her were it not for the fact that she can be a relentless and annoying pain in the ass to Lucia. And then there’s that pretty damaging secret. From a physical and personality standpoint my go-to was actress Nicola Coughlan. In The Derry Girls, her character has an intense, busy-body attitude that fits Little Fey perfectly. Her tendency to the hysterical and fretting, and her craven desire to be seen as good/angelic is such a great mix.
Bartolomea: Mea arrived on my page almost fully formed. I absolutely adore her, probably because she’s everything I am not (I hope!): patrician, snarky, dramatic, scheming, and about as offensively imperious and haughty as they get. Totally intimidating! A cunning gal who plays things close to her chest. She has her vulnerabilities, of course, such as when she’s up against Lucia’s mistrust of her, but somehow Mea always manages to assert her authority, which, for a gal who claims she doesn’t like authority, is some trick. In developing her, I didn’t have to look further than Emily Blunt’s character in both The Devil Wears Prada and The English (if you’ve not yet seen The English, I highly recommend it). No one does aloof impatience better.
Valentina: Lumbering, frumpy Valentina was patterned on two people I know (never to be named!). The first never walks in a straight line, and frequently needs to be yanked out of the path of cars, cyclists, and the occasional lamp post. Walking with her is a nightmare. She’s also smart and frighteningly fearless. The second is a bit dishevelled as well as scatterbrained, but is also clever, watchful, and might possibility be light-fingered if given half a chance. I love that Valentina transforms in the story. Like the others, she is coming out the other side of puberty. In her case, her shabby exterior and apparent lack of confidence gives way to a beautiful, brave person. I tried to find a celebrity might match to at least throw in here but I failed. Maybe you can suggest who might fit the part?
Gretchen: It was more her personality than her physical appearance on which I wanted to focus. Someone who is a prankster, cheeky, but also abrasive and moody when she’s going through PMS. She is also single-minded, conniving and slightly dim in the sense that she doesn’t always think things through. She’s a red-head, which pegs her as a bit of an outlier. In medieval times, those with red hair were thought to be the spawn of the Devil (rosso malpelo, as the Italians called it). With her head in the clouds and her weirdly prodigious knowledge of the saints, she’s a dervish. When drawing her, I looked to actress Gemma Whelan in her role as the striving, impish Kate in the British Shakespearean sitcom Upstart Crow.
Clovis, the Templar: He’s a knight, so he has to be handsome, right? Step forward Chris Hemsworth. But Clovis is also not your typical knight. He struggles with his perceived failures and with his faith. He’s not a fan of the Templars after witnessing the atrocities committed by his brethren during the Crusade, and to some extent he uses Lucia and her fellow novices to buy time while figuring out his next move. But he’s a good guy, and he’s true to his word. I wanted to subvert the “saviour knight” trope by having the girls save him, rather than the usual way round. He seems reticent when it comes to killing, while the novices—despite the sixth Commandment—are the ones who come up with the plans to thwart the bounty hunters.
Mathilde the Hedgewitch: A conventional witch would never do. It had to be a person of more complexity, someone who signposted the life of a single woman. With a whiff of sadness and a dash of horror; the hedgewitch is someone who has been left on her own for a bit too long, like fruit on the cusp of over ripening. Hedgewitches were real people in medieval times. They were healers who practiced folk medicine, and who straddled the hedge (hence, hedgewitch) between good and evil. For my hedgewitch, I was drawn to Sophie Thompson, an actress I adored in her quiet, quirky role in the TV series The Detectorists. The subtle vulnerability clouding her eyes hints at some long-ago, never-spoken sorrow.
As for Mother Clothilde and Mother Elena, and the other folk who populate A Flight of Saints, I’ll leave them to your imagination.
It’s one thing to come up with characters and another to get them to play with one another. Will they gel? It’s more fun if they don’t do so easily. How will they face the circumstances into which you plunge them? In time, you not only get to know your characters well, but it seems they get to know you, the author, as well. Not infrequently does a character veer off piste; suddenly you’re trying to get them out of their predicaments, or leave them to it. “I can do this on my own,” character tells author. “Oh really?” replies the author. “We’ll see about that.” These are young women who start out trapped in a horrible situation, who don’t have access to cell phones, a car, or outside help. When you have to escape, how do you do it, medieval style? That depends on the quality of your characters. It bears reminding ourselves that even today, there are women right this moment without a mobile phone, car, or sympathetic help, pondering how to flee their tormentors.