Transforming data into a thrilling character

SS Turner

In my novel The Connection Game, the Basilworth family become obsessed with discovering what’s really going on outside their minuscule window which only provides a view of the passing feet on the street above. They’re desperate to answer the question: are there bad people doing bad things outside their window? To answer that question, the Basilworths start compiling data about the passing feet from the limited gaze of their flat window. Data is hardly famous for being interesting. So it may surprise some to learn the data develops somewhat of a character of its own in the novel. The question some readers may ask is how? And why?

Let’s start with the how. The data is effectively the connection between the Basilworths and the passing feet on the street above. It’s their one and only means of making sense of the human world outside their window. That’s all good and well but data is boring, I hear you say. The good news for readers is that the data is only ever presented in simple terms which connects with the story. In fact, Belinda Basilworth discovers she’s a natural storyteller, so she ensures the data is fleshed out with story to ensure it’s useful, and of course thrilling. So it’s a far cry from your typical data which may send some readers to sleep. What’s really interesting is that as the tension inside the Basilworth’s flat grows, the data’s value to readers increases exponentially. This explains how over time the data evolves into a sort of character whose main role is to feed the Basilworths crumbs of understanding from the outside world.

So why give the data character attributes of sorts in the book? The heart of the answer lies in the importance of building suspense as the story progresses. When I was writing The Connection Game, I felt the story needed a high level of suspense to do the story’s main themes justice. So I’d go so far as to say that as the Basilworths try to pull information into the flat through their minuscule window, the suspense builds like water trying to force its way through a narrow hose. In essence, I wanted the reader to feel compelled to read each next chapter of the book.

That’s the how and why of transforming data into a character of sorts. The feedback I’ve received from most readers thus far is that The Connection Game is a uniquely suspenseful novel. I believe the data’s role in escalating the tension between the Basilworth’s world and the outside world is core to the novel’s suspenseful attributes.