MASTERCLASS

Helen Walters looks at the subtleties of conveying people and how they feel in your fiction, with an example story by Tessa Hadley

T his month I have chosen a story which explores the personalities and emotions of the characters in great depth. ‘The Maths Tutor’ by Tessa Hadley explores the marriage of Lorraine and her husband, Quent, and the impact on their relationship of the arrival in their lives of their son’s maths tutor, Greg. As always, you will get the most out of this masterclass if you read the story for yourself: www.newyorker. com/magazine/2023/07/24/afterlifefiction-tessa-hadley. The story is free to read unless a reader has exceeded their quota of articles, in which case it may be behind a paywall.

I could have chosen a number of interesting aspects of this story to focus on. From its skilled use of timescales and temporal details, to its clever illustration of the importance of place, there’s a lot to discuss. But space is limited, so I’ll concentrate on the ways in which personality and emotion are portrayed.

In the story we meet six characters, and I’m going to start by looking at the ways in which they are brought to life. The three main characters are intricately drawn and all jump off the page in different ways. Notice how Tessa

Hadley, throughout the story, gives us visual details so that we can picture the characters clearly, alongside telling details that reveal their personalities.

We’ll start with Lorraine, since most of the story is told from her point of view. We learn that she is a slight but striking figure with bleached blonde ‘punky’ hair and a straightforward demeanour liked by men. We also find out a little about her background; a motherless ‘forces child’ who feels rootless.