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CHARACTER Three important quotes begin this discussion of character: Character cannot precede situation. — Sheila Schwartz In my class at UCLA, I give a writing exercise where everyone starts with the same first sentence: "The first time I saw him, Maxman was standing before a low open window — no screen, but air — five stories above the street and he was swaying, as if he couldn't decide whether to fall or sit down." Consider how character must evolve from what follows this sentence: A first person narrator observes a person named Maxman poised at a window, swaying, "as if he couldn't decide whether to fall or sit down." From this one sentence we have an incident, the beginning of a story and a relationship between the first person narrator and Maxman. This was "the first time" the narrator saw Maxman suggesting that they will go on from here. Apparently, some problem or conflict has led Maxman to his precarious position by the window and, already, in writing the action that ensues, each of us is called on to make character(s) from what we're given, to imagine a context — a structure — for what has led us to this moment, to postulate character attributes which will manifest themselves in action, behavior and speech. The ideas embodied in all three of the quotes above are activated as each writer makes their decision on where to go with this story. The process is clearly not limited to my classroom story start. Every time we begin a story, situation, incident and structure are at work on a given character. Let's now take a brief look at some of the historical notions of character: E M. Forster postulated two types of characters: flat and round. Flat characters are sometimes called types or caricatures. In their purest form, they are constructed around a single idea or quality. They're easily recognized and easily remembered. They don't change from circumstance. Like their moniker, though, they lack depth and complexity. As soon as a character's construction brings in more than a single idea or quality, the character moves toward roundness. The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. Forster's model is a classic conception of character, with emphasis on the word concept. The game is to vivify (that is, to make come alive) the character. The underlying assumption is that a character have some correspondence with reality, that characters are like real people. In literature we have a certain finite information given to us about characters and it's presented in an organized way. Even if the intention is not to be logical in the presentation, our way of reading organizes information. We hold various facts, compare them to new in coming information, fill in gaps, form opinions, modify those opinions with new information. It's a dynamic process. Characters may then have the appearance of unity and coherence. In a short story there is often not the time for development of a character. We read them from the information given and they deal with their current situation. Often, they may change by the end of the piece but there isn't the sort of arc — to borrow a screenplay expression — that you might find in a novel. Also, we respond to characters as we're trained to respond to people in real life. A character in a book about to explode in a shouting fit isn't going to shout at us from the page. But we understand the signs of anger in the character as we might understand them in our spouse. Bear in mind, too, that characters may be warped for the sake or the needs of plot. Janet Burroway suggests that characters must be credible within the fictive world of your invention. It's unlikely that a grandmother of 80 can sprint the 100 in under ten seconds — unless it's a science fiction world of low gravity. However, the brother, who is a marine, may fall for a drag queen on worlds of low gravity or not. Another aspect of character is the role of names. David Lodge writes that "names are never neutral." They can be used for comic effect, such as Mr. Gradgrind in Dickens's Hard Times, where the sound of the name seems also to underscore certain behavior or attitudinal traits. Names can have allegorical effect. In allegorical naming, the literal characters also represent abstract concepts. Calling a character "Judge" or "Pilgrim" is an example. We might assume that the function of a character called "Judge" is to be evaluative or critical of others. Lodge suggests that until a character is properly named it's impossible to get him or her to completely inhabit the fictive universe. You can certainly try this with your own work. Rename a character in mid-story and see if things change. Once named, a character takes on certain attributes unique to them. Changing names in mid-story may disrupt the creative process, may send the piece off in a new perhaps unwelcome direction. In a postmodern or metafictional piece, where one of the purposes of the piece is to self-consciously point to the story as written, a deliberate change of name will further expose this writtenness. A deliberate change of name will also demonstrate the arbitrary nature of signs, that is, there's no intrinsic or structural reason why someone should be named "Steve" or "Marvin" or "Ed" or even "cow". The sign itself is just a group of black marks. The sign has no meaning or value until we assign it one. I'd like to suggest that the best way of looking at character is as an individual with a worldview. Worldview might include background, belief system, philosophy, behavioral code, ethical and moral framework. Worldview is a filter through which a character interacts with the world around him or her, with other people, with nature, with technology. Worldview determines how a character speaks, how a character dresses, what a character finds funny or sad. You can see that this is more than just a collection of facts about a character. It's important to know that a character's favorite color is blue, but you're attempting to imagine and create a psychology for a character which goes beyond externals. This task is a more difficult and complex one than just assigning a character mannerisms. Your character smokes a pipe and always punctuates his speech with a raise of the right index finger. Your character won't wear dresses, only pants. By themselves, these characteristics are little more than gestures, a nod toward the idiosyncratic, a peculiarity, an affectation, perhaps a pretension. But if you can get at the underlying psychology, then you have a character. As you figure out a character's worldview, the underlying psychology, this is not to say that your story needs to include an explanation for your character's peculiarities. Unless you have a very good story reason, I counsel against any explanation. But you, as a writer, need to know. There are extensions of worldview that manifest themselves in the text. A character's worldview determines how a character sees the world. This is important when selecting details for description. You can never just put in a detail or image because you think it sounds good or it's pretty or it's slick writing. Such an image or a detail says nothing about your character but everything about the presence behind your narrator. Images of particularity and specificity are associated with a unique worldview and those images should permeate your fiction. Extending T S. Eliot's idea of the objective correlative: The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked. The objective correlative can be used to delimit character. Your selections begin to form a constellation of imagery that saturates your text. This constellation can produce thematic considerations as well. For example, if water imagery is particularly associated with your character, not only is your character's worldview expressed through the imagery but the deep symbolism of water imagery also becomes apparent with reverberations throughout the text. Something else to bear in mind is that characters have agendas. Characters are trying to accomplish something whether it's as simple as getting from point A to point B or a more complicated set of psychological manipulations in order to gain power, control or dominance over a situation, a person, group of people, or organization. A character's agenda puts a character in motion (broadly defined motion and sometimes a metaphoric motion). Your character's agenda becomes of particular importance when considering plot and dialogue. As a mechanical means of working on your character's worldview, on getting to know the particulars of your character, a profile in the form of a fairly elaborate questionnaire ends this section. You can use it to work out many aspects of character. Burroway suggests that after you answer a profile of this sort, you'll know a good deal about your character none of which you need use in your story. What this knowledge should give you is a worldview and a possible behavior in any situation. Burroway also suggests that writers can steal from real life in forming characters. A journal is a good tool to use in observing people. It's handy, compact, and nothing you write in it is fixed. The journal is a like a bank of raw material. You can go through your journal and cull observations that might be of use in a story. Note what kind of gestures people make in various situations. Note how people move around a room at a party: their body language, their facial expressions, how they drink. I particularly like this last one because I hate parties; I can station myself in a corner and "work" secure in the knowledge that my loss of socializing is my fiction's gain. Character:
© Ian Randall Wilson 2001 © Ian Randall Wilson Bonfire contributor |