Picturing Tessa

I decided fairly early on to try and create a strong visual representation for the Blue Rose Series. The problem was that, while I know several artists who would be up to the requirements of the job, I was penniless.

I started fiddling around with free AI image creation platforms, just to rough things out and give myself something - or someone - to write to. And to write for. The results were scarily good even as first drafts, so when I did have a little bit of money to invest in AI that's what I did.

AI is, of course, the great big threat to all creatives. Writers, filmmakers, musicians and artists are all living under a cloud thanks to the presence of instant, intelligent and accessible platforms that can conjure whatever you want in a matter of seconds.

And yes, I am aware that by choosing to use AI to illustrate my books and populate my social media, I am preventing a real, live human artist from having their chance to shine. Painfully so.

One of my best friends is a musician who has been completely wiped out as a professional by AI. He produced instrumental pieces that were available to filmmakers at a minimal cost, but even that can be wiped off the budget now. Just ask the AI to produce something reminiscent of the theme to Game of Thrones and it does so.

Nick Cave wrote a predictably beautiful and impassioned piece about the evils of AI, begging fans to stop sending him lyrics that they had asked Chat GPT to produce in his style. But, like those penniless filmmakers who now use AI to concoct their soundtrack, this penniless author also went over to the dark side to create her imagery.

Tessa is, of course, central to the look and feel of the piece, and the way that I created her was repeated for all the characters. I know what she looks like to me and the influences on my mental picture of her.

To start with I asked the AI for a young Judi Dench lookalike, because as an actor I think that is who every young white girl should aspire to! A Shakespearean who can hold the audience in the palm of her hand - even if she lacks physical stature.

"Though she be but little, she is fierce..." as the Bard himself wrote of Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She had to be someone who could fit in if she was standing in a crowd of great British actresses. Dame Judi is at the top of the list, of course, but I wanted a whiff of Julie Christie, a soupçon of Suzannah York, a dollop of Kate Winslet and a healthy dose of Helena Bonham Carter. The best of the best.

In the book and in my mind she is short and athletic: the sort of physique that allows her to excel at gymnastics, sailing and other sports. She is pretty but not in an obvious way like the 'supermodels' - the tall, elegant and beautiful girls who have bullied her throughout her years at boarding school.

A lot of her came from photos of mine from my university days, but her face is composed of aspects of several of my favourite faces. Her eyes and those sumptuous eyebrows are from a very dear friend of mine called Isobel. Her nose and mouth were drawn from the actress Holliday Grainger, who was in a Philip K. Dick adaptation that I really enjoyed.

Little by little, the face and physique appeared in each iteration of the AI. Sometimes it got grumpy with me and put her head on back-to-front or gave her an extra leg but eventually, the figure appeared that now graces my work. And I will freely admit to being a little bit in love with her.

I suppose that she is a picture of myself as I wish I had been. As it is, when the definitive Tessa was conjured by the AI, I felt like Charlie Chaplin when he first added that silly little moustache to his tiny bowler had and gigantic trousers. She was exactly what I had hoped for.

Since my AI Tessa has been out in the world, a number of people have said that she looks like another very British actress: Florence Pugh.

Now, I'll admit that I had very little knowledge of Florence when I was writing the book and conjuring the AI. All I knew of her was that she had short, spiky hair and was prone to getting her nipples out on the red carpet, but I had never seen anything that she had acted in.

Since then, I have remedied the shortfall in my cinematic knowledge and been blown away by la Pugh. I started off with her breakthrough movie, Lady Macbeth, which is essentially a young woman in an empty house - and it was captivating.

So yes, I'll take that! I wanted to create a very talented, very desirable, very British FMC. And I think that she delivers in abundance. Hopefully, she is someone that readers will care about, want to see and engage with and will join on this odyssey.