Dramatis Personae - The White Sail's Shaking

Having had such fun doing this the first time with Wordcrafter, I decided to waste time and do it again with The White Sail's Shaking. Fortunately this one was, generally speaking, not so difficult. Again, I do not own these photos (and so on and so forth).

Tip Brighton

The youngest of four sons in a New England family, Tip Brighton had several great misfortunes at birth, the two greatest being that his older brothers obtained all the superlatives - the most genial, the most brilliant, the most dutiful - before he came around, and that he managed to be given the name "Edward." Only his parents, however, call him that, and he goes by Tip with all his acquaintances. The only thing that he has ever really excelled in is the use of his fists, but he is not a bully, for he would lose all self-respect if ever he fought anyone smaller than himself (except Charlie Bent). But even this useful knowledge is not enough to ensure his survival in the strange, brutal world of the Navy, especially with the fellows he finds himself among on the Enterprize. He has a great deal to learn, and that has never been something he does particularly well.

Marta Rais

Marta's father was a British officer and her mother was a Syracusan actress; the two married while he was stationed in the Mediterranean, but they were apart for most of their marriage and Marta rarely saw her father. She lived with her mother in Syracuse, Sicily, for the first sixteen years of her life, and when her mother dies, Marta expects to be taken back to England with her father. He, however, is killed in action and she is left friendless in Sicily, so she means to make it to England in search of relations.

In Gibraltar her life takes a turn after she witnesses a murder and accidentally stows away on the American brig Enterprize - the murderer being one of the Americans. Tip discovers her and, with no chance of getting her back to land and the prospect of battles to come, agrees to help her pose as a British deserter; but between maintaining this fake identity and trying to keep the murderer from discovering what she knows, she is quite out of her depth.

Charlie Bent

Charlie, a fellow midshipman on the Argus and then the Enterprize with Tip, is the youngest of the officers at the age of fourteen; he joined the Navy when he was ten. He hails from South Carolina and, at least in Tip's opinion, is the epitome of Southern culture. He is something of a dandy, extremely arrogant, and quick to snap if you rub him the wrong way, but he also has another side - a boyish, insecure side - and he carries a secret that he would rather not be let out. He and Tip, coming from completely different paradigms, clash on their first meeting, but trouble on the Enterprize throws them into a tenuous alliance.


Joseph Darkwood

Darkwood, who has a heavy strain of Native American blood in his veins, is the oldest of the midshipmen and by rights should be a lieutenant, but for his own reasons has never taken a promotion. He does, however, have something of a "right of seniority" among the four midshipmen on the Enterprize, which comes as much from his quiet, feline nature and reputation of being a crack shot as from his greater experience. He is not quick to like anyone and keeps his own council, but Tip respects him all the same. Despite his formidable character, he is so withdrawn as to prompt the belief that he would have been more at home in the clergy than at sea.

Lewis:

Tip's first encounter with Lewis was even less promising than his first encounter with Charlie; they crossed paths in Tip's Pennsylvanian hometown, where Tip gave Lewis a thrashing for being a bully. That was when Lewis was only a friend of Tip's older brother, however, and he is none too pleased when he finds that they are to be fellow officers on the Mediterranean cruise - especially since Tip is now on foreign territory, and it is Lewis who has the advantage.

But Tip is not the only one to earn Lewis' ill-will, and Lewis has a fine little plan of retaliation for each one of his messmates.

Stephen Decatur

Decatur is one of the few major players in The White Sail's Shaking to also be historical; most of the historical characters, while they play a part, are kept in the background. He commands the brig Enterprize as a lieutenant, but after the burning of the Philadelphia he is promoted to the rank of captain (bypassing that of "master and commander"). In The White Sail's Shaking he is sly, but good-natured and kind to his officers, including the lowly midshipmen. Like Darkwood, Decatur earns Tip's respect, which only serves to make Tip's life more difficult.


Scipio

Because there always has to be a pet. After this Barbary macaque's mother is shot by one of the American officers, Tip adopts it and is allowed to keep it on the Enterprize so long as it causes no trouble. Charlie, however, is the one who gets to name it, as he has a better knowledge of the history of the Mediterranean than does Tip, and the macaque is thus named after Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus (better known as Scipio Africanus the Younger), the Roman general responsible for defeating and destroying Carthage in the second century B.C. The macaque is extremely attached to Tip, and he insists that its hideous exterior hides a heart of gold.

[Note: All previous warnings apply. In case of forgetfulness, I will reiterate them: I own all of these characters and all things attached to said characters; any use of them is against the law. And remember the "part Sicilian" bit.]

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is one of the most interesting techniques to use in writing. It lends a story continuity, tying the beginning in with the middle and the end, and also serves to let the reader know that the author is conscious of where he or she is taking the story. In essence, it allows the writer to pull back the veil a little for the reader and give a glimpse of what is to come - even when the reader is unaware that this is being done until the event actually takes place. It can be a foreshadowing of something relatively small, or something grand and momentous; its fulfillment can be fairly obvious and only the circumstances be shrouded in mystery, or the hint may be so slight that the fulfillment comes with a shock. Either way, there is something about it (if well done) that gives a thrill of expectation to the reader.

Foreshadowing is used in many different ways, in many different stories. It is especially obvious in prequels, such as C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, a backstory for his The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which tells Professor Kirke's story and that of the birth of Narnia. The whole story could be referred to as a foreshadowing, really, as it sets the stage the arrival of the Pevensies and all that follows thereafter, but there are also specific elements that are more noticeable; for instance, the poignant scene in which Digory Kirke encounters Jadis at the gate of the Garden. On the gate inscribed in silver are the words,

"Come in by the gold gates or not at all,
take of my fruit for others or forbear,
for those who steal or those who climb my wall
shall find their heart's desire and find despair."

Naturally, Jadis climbed the wall and ate one of the apples of youth, establishing herself as a permanent evil in Narnia, and that looks forward to the time when she rules Narnia as the White Witch. Not only does The Magician's Nephew answer questions that arise in the other books of the series, but it adds depth to the world Lewis created and to the events in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is the same for any series in which the author ties the books together, especially those where the plots are only loosely bound together, yet have similar threads running through them. In Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth and its sequels, she links the novels together with the use of a family ring that passes down the generations of the Aquila family. (While this is not strictly foreshadowing, the principle is the same.) On the other hand, a series in which foreshadowing is not used would be Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet, in which the second book makes no mention of the events in the first and thus lacks continuity.

But one problem with this is that writers don't always know where they are heading with a story; after all, Tolkien had only fragments of ideas for The Lord of the Rings when he began The Fellowship of the Ring. When this is the case, it frequently shows in rough drafts as the writer's knowledge of the story increases. Thus comes the need for editing, and it is in this process that foreshadowing can be added as the writer weaves the two halves of the novel more tightly together (something that Jenny wrote an excellent post on a little while ago).

Another use for foreshadowing is to keep readers turning pages. It is not always the best option to drop the reader in the midst of an action scene on page one; sometimes a more "normal" setting is needed to paint a background for the rest of the novel and set up the plot, and so the beginning of a story often has a slower pace than the middle and climax. In such cases, hinting in the first chapters about what is to come later helps keep readers tantalized and waiting for the next twist in the plot.