Constructing The World of Poohsticks Bridge

The Birch Twins talk about construction the world and characters of Poohstick Bridge.

I prefer to create a world first. In a way I cheated because my world is simply the real one. Only with my people in it, and the rest of the world faded to the background.

But when you create a world first, you can have fun in it if you plan it out correctly. I have a timeline that is quite rigidly stuck to. I can plot where John and Melissa were when Reagan was shot for example and at that exact time can cross reference where Lol’s friend Groucho was. Key moments in history, and key dates.

It can be fun. For example, in The Life of Lol, a young Lol at the start of her book hot-wires a car from outside her restaurant. It’d be a bit cheesy to have John and Melissa from Poohsticks Bridge inside eating, and so no, they weren’t. But John was reading about it in the morning paper in a scene that I eventually had to cut from Poohsticks Bridge.

I like to get to know my characters long before I write their story. I dropped Melissa down in the middle of various situations just to see how she would respond, and wrote them out. Little character studies, just to get her inside my head and get to know her. Some of these things are in the “world”, but not in the book. Sometimes I dumped them down into another world to see how they would both react. One time I had the pretend director shout cut and the actors portraying them stopped reading my lines, just so I could see what happened.

I like to experiment with characters and play with them in this way. Just mainly to have fun, but also to help me write them realistically.

About Poohsticks Bridge

Poohsticks Bridge by The Birch Twins
Genre: Romantic Fiction

Synopsis

Beginning as a childhood game, Poohsticks Bridge tells the sweet story of a friendship between two children that, through the years, blossoms into adult love with an unbreakable bond and faith in one another. John and Melissa are tested throughout their lives by hardships, pain, and separation, yet their love and determination to live life together to its fullest never falters. In today’s culture of having everything, this couple shows us how a few, simple things can lead to a satisfying and fulfilling life.

Poignant in the extreme, you’ll want to keep the tissues nearby. These two will make you laugh, cry, and fall in love … with life and with them.

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About the Birch Twins

I write under the name “The Birch Twins.” Helen, my twin, didn’t live to see life, and so I write for her. I’m a full-time poverty stricken doll artist who took to writing as I seemed to spend more time writing out little back stories for the characters I created. My first book The Life of LOL was written in five weeks, and was about gangsters, grifters, and drifters. Lots of cartoon slapstick violence mixed with a serious message.

Poohsticks Bridge, the new novel, shows my twin’s voice at is strongest as it tells the story of a little boy who begins to grow up lonely and alone, until he meets a little girl. It’s a glimpse of a life that Helen and I could have had together. She writes through me, I can feel her presence and hear her voice. Her tone is often wistful, low on movement, mature and often quiet, while I am brash and loud and full of silly car chases and boyhood dreams of rockets to the moon. We have the perfect writing partnership.

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