Introducing Jake

Today, I thought I’d introduce the second protagonist in After the Siren - Jake Cunningham.

Illustration by Amalas Rosa.

Some writers talk about how their characters just appear in their brains. I personally always feel more like I’m excavating my characters — it can take me quite a while to get a feel for them. I start with a bit of dialogue, or a scene, and then I gradually work out all the other parts of the character.

After The Siren was supposed to be quite a different book, but at some point Jake took control and made me re-plot basically the whole book (at the cost of about 40K of writing). Jake showed up and told me in no uncertain terms that was wrong about a number of things.

Writing Jake is a lot of fun. He’s a pest, and he knows it. He gets away with things because he’s very charming and very good at football. He’s nothing like me, and I love writing him.

I wanted to write a character who wasn’t internally conflicted about his queerness, but who was struggling to work out how to live an authentic life while also playing professional sport. Jake has no problem with being gay —but he feels increasingly trapped by his decision to stay closeted.

I didn’t want to write a book that suggested coming out is the only right or courageous choice a person can make if they’re in the public eye. People come out — or don’t — for all sorts of reasons, and I think it’s important that we recognise in fiction that there are many ways to live a brave, queer life.

Jake, though, is not a person who likes to hide anything, and it might be that his relationship with Theo makes him start to think differently about coming out…