C. Aubrey Hall's Blog, page 28

Spelunking Adaptations

Back in the long, long ago when I was a child, VCRs and DVDs hadn’t been invented, and network TV had only three channels, I used to watch the credits of old movies for the book titles and authors that so many old films were adapted from.

Then I’d race to the public library and seek the books on the shelves. Probably 65% of the time, I’d find the title and off I’d go with it to enjoy the story all over again. Since I couldn’t rewatch the film until the next time it cycled around on some late-night movie hour, this was my only chance to saturate myself in the characters and plots that captured my imagination.

It’s how I discovered authors like Raphael Sabatini and Daphne du Maurier. And then I could explore all the books they’d written until the next film discovery sent me down a new path.

Not all the books were the same as the films made from them. From time to time, I’d encounter a real clanker. From this, I learned that some films transcend the novel that inspired them. An example would be THE NATURAL by Bernard Malamud. Robert Redford transformed that story into something far more special than Malamud’s effort. The 1947 film MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET is far more charming and delightful than the novella by Valentine Davies. And let’s just say that 1965′s THE DIRTY DOZEN by E.M. Nathanson was far more gritty and graphic than the film it inspired–not a novel to be read by a naive 13-year-old girl, no matter how rugged and heroic Charles Bronson and Clint Walker appeared on the big screen.

Still, I learn something every time. Is the film’s dialogue tighter and crisper than the novel’s? Are they about the same? Wouldn’t the novel have been better if it had been paced as fast as the film? How, exactly DO you set about condensing Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE (1956 film) into a mere three hours and 29 minutes? There’s so much value in learning to turn stories over and over, like an antique watch in your hands, examining how they’re put together, what their little intricacies are, whether they stand up to scrutiny or crumble like dried butterfly wings.

One of my favorite books in my personal library is a bound script of Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning screenplay adaptation of Jane Austen’s SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. I’ve read the novel. I’ve read the screenplay. I’ve watched the film. All are different in what they feature and what they edit away, yet the essential story remains for us to love in any version.

A few nights ago, I watched an obscure Jeanne Crain film called TAKE CARE OF MY LITTLE GIRL that was based on a novel of the same title by Peggy Goodin. A phone call interrupted the film about halfway through although I did manage to catch the ending. Used copies of the book are available online, and I believe it might have been originally marketed as a young adult novel because it deals with college sorority life in the 1950s. Am I going to order the book? I keep telling myself no. I keep feeling the itch to click on that order button.

Seems like I’m never going to outgrow my fascination with adaptations.

Adversary Versus Adversity

I think my last couple of posts on scenes managed to confuse a few folks, so let’s look at things from a slightly different angle.

A novel isn’t split totally between scenes and their sequels. Other types of material are utilized as well. So there might be segments devoted to description of a setting or a character. There might be sections centered around providing information or background. There can be condensed portions where the author skims over a huge event–such as the WWII invasion of Normandy–without supplying a lot of detail.

Let’s focus for now on story action:

Dynamic story action can be presented in two ways.

One way is through a scene. The protagonist is pitted against a sentient, reasoning, foe or one that’s intelligently directed.

The other option is known as narrative summary. This is where the protagonist is pursuing a goal and encountering obstacles, but–despite harrowing danger–the story action is not actually a scene.

Now, let’s define and differentiate these two forms of action a little better.

A scene pits the protagonist against an adversary, right here, right now, and right in the protagonist’s face. The scene focuses on that encounter without summary. Every moment, every line of dialogue, and every move/countermove between the two characters is depicted.

So, for example, if James Bond is standing handcuffed in front of Dr. No and they are sparring verbally as one demands information and the other refuses to supply it, we have a scene.

Narrative summary pits the protagonist against adversity or obstacles or random bad luck. The event is summarized, supplying the gist of the action that’s happening without depicting every moment. Dialogue may be indirect or omitted entirely.

An example of this would be when James Bond is crawling through Dr. No’s horrific tunnel and meets dangerous obstacle after dangerous obstacle. With each new danger, Bond’s predicament grows worse. The suspense level increases, and audience sympathy for Bond rises. But he’s not in a scene.

Each form serves a purpose. Each can be quite effective. Mixing them up varies the pace within the story and keeps things from becoming monotonous and predictable.

If there’s no antagonist present, then utilize narrative summary.

If the antagonist steps out through a hidden door and blocks the passageway, then you’re in a scene and should slow things down fractionally to present the give-and-take conflict occurring between your protagonist and his adversary.

Scene Planning: Part II

BEWARE: the following information can lead to endless rewriting. Extreme caution is advised.

Although Hemmingway recommended that a writer stop in the middle of a sentence at the close of a day’s work, I’ve never found that to work for me.

When I resume writing the next day, often I can’t remember the rest of the sentence or I’ve lost the mood of the scene.

So what works better for me is to finish the scene before I stop. I have a complete dramatic unit, however rough and shaky, and after a break where I go swim or run errands, I like to mull over the scene and decide if I want to change anything before I roll forward.

There’s danger in doing this, the danger that you’ll rewrite the scene, hate it, rewrite the scene, hate that, rewrite the scene, give up in despair and jettison the whole project.

However, here are a few salient questions to ask yourself in thinking over a scene:

1) Did the scene come out where I wanted it to?

The outcome is the most important element in what you’re trying to accomplish in a progressive plot. And until you gain skill and experience, very often the first or second draft fails to accomplish the resolution you want.

Example: Let’s say that Ermilio goes to his grandfather to ask for the secret family recipe for pizza dough. It’s the key ingredient that will make Ermilio’s pizzas stand out, and give his new little restaurant a chance of success.

But old Guiseppe is senile and forgetful. He confuses Ermilio with another grandson, the unscrupulous one that cheated Guiseppe years ago.

The argument strays from crust to personal family issues. At the end of the scene Ermilio has convinced Guiseppe that he’s the good kid in the family and he agrees to go talk to his cousin Gianni to get Guiseppe’s gold watch back.

HUH?

Now, Calvin Clueless, the newbie writer, may defend this scene by pointing out it begins with a clear, specific goal and it has lots and lots of conflict. (The old man rants a lot.) And then it’s going to lead to lots of other scenes because Ermilio has to find his cousin, talk to his cousin, etc.

But was a quest to regain the stolen/borrowed/pawned gold watch the intended consequence of this scene?

What happened to Ermilio’s goal of getting the recipe?

It was sidetracked by Guiseppe’s goal of recovering his watch.

These goals are NOT in direct opposition. They split the scene’s focus, and Ermilio is sidetracked into an issue that has nothing to do with his desire to succeed with his restaurant.

If you have written a scene that sidetracks the protagonist, you do need a rewrite. To continue onward means your entire plot is heading off-road. You’re going to have a bumpy ride across rough terrain until you end up in the ditch of no more plot or you break an axle at the corner of dead end and what am I doing.

Go back through your scene and find the paragraph where the antagonist pulled things awry. Don’t delete what the antagonist attempts!

It’s the antagonist’s job to maneuver and evade and confuse and pull things off course.

But it’s the protagonist’s job to weather such ploys and force the argument back to what he wants.

So … “Grandpa, I’m sorry Gianni wronged you. I don’t like him either, but that has nothing to do with why I’m here today. I’m asking for your best recipe to make my pizzas the tastiest in town. Will you help me?”

2) Do I need to plant something in this scene that will support a later story development?

You may have planned the scene initially to plant a clue or support a plot twist that will make the climax work in the third act. But somehow, during the quick give and take of the dialogue, your character never spoke the key phrase. Or, the conflict grew so heated, so darned good that you omitted that passage of description you intended.

Well, go back and stick it in!

Except, it’s not always that easy, is it?

When I was first learning to write cohesive dramatic scenes, I frequently omitted something important. But since I’d also learned to write dialogue that was tightly linked, I found it a challenge to try to insert material later without messing up the snappy rhythm that I’d achieved.

Insertions always felt clunky and awkward.

Sometimes, I could manage it. Sometimes, I had to rewrite portions of the dialogue. I learned to jot down a checklist of key points my characters needed to say and keep it beside me as I wrote. Gradually, I improved at keeping my concentration and no longer needed the crib sheet.

And where do you stop verbal conflict to describe the heavy brass fern pot that will later prove to be the murder weapon?

You don’t.

You can include a sentence of description at the start of the scene, when its setup is occurring and you’re getting your two adversaries in position.

Or you can have your angry, frustrated, flustered protagonist storm out of the conservatory at the scene’s conclusion and fail to completely duck the low-hanging fern. Let him bump his head and shove the heavy pot aside so that it swings slowly and ponderously behind him as he leaves.

3) Have I established the following in my scene?

*High stakes

*Setting

*Limited number of characters

*Dominant impression for characters

We’ll deal with these one at a time:

High stakes.

I mentioned this element in my previous post and why scenes should be reserved for what’s important to the story.

Low or trivial stakes can be dealt with in narrative summary. No need to wrap a full-blown scene around burning the toast.

Perhaps it’s more useful to consider how a high stake is differentiated from a low stake.

Calvin Clueless sits in his writing class and day after day hears the mantra … the stakes must be high.

Calvin thinks about space invaders hovering over Chicago, causing panic in the streets. He thinks about King Kong crushing high rise buildings in New York. He thinks about a meteor crashing into the Earth and knocking it off its orbit, thereby obliterating life as we know it.

Yeah, those are high stakes all right. But as stupendous and colossal as they are, they mean nothing without character perspective.

What does the situation mean to your character? How important is it to him or her?

In the classic film THE BISHOP’S WIFE, starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven, Niven plays a young, ambitious bishop who’s trying to raise millions of dollars to build a new cathedral. He’s stressed and cranky, and when his wife hands over an old Roman coin donated by an elderly impoverished man they used to be close friends with, the bishop tosses the coin aside, saying, “What good is a worthless old coin like this?”

In his zeal to accomplish his goal, he’s forgotten all the essential values of kindness, charity, faith, and compassion. He’s completely missing the Biblical point of the “widow’s mite.” His wife sees it, of course, and she’s heartbroken at how he dismisses this gesture of affection and support from the old professor.

Setting:

Stories have settings, of course. But scenes do as well. When establishing a scene, take a few words to inform readers of where the scene is happening, whether it’s night or day and the presence of any critical props.

You don’t need a huge, stalled information dump, but sketch in what’s key. Remember that your readers don’t have a camera lens to show them what you see. And depict for them only the setting details that are germane to the scene itself.

In other words, if the tall Victorian vase full of dusty, faded peacock feathers standing beside the fireplace isn’t necessary either to convey mood or information about the house’s owner or hides the murder weapon that will be discovered later, don’t mention it.

The classic film GASLIGHT is heavily focused on its setting because the house itself contains all the clues that will solve the mystery. Even the title conveys the most important clue of all.

Limited characters:

Last time, I explained why a scene should be limited to two characters whenever possible. This keeps the focus on the scene combatants–the protagonist and antagonist. It helps mitigate interruptions and makes it less likely to split the focus.

So when you think over the scene you’ve just written, have you followed my suggestion or have you allowed Sidekick to remain present?

Has Sidekick stayed in the background like a good little character or has Sidekick butted in at some point? And if the latter, did that comment steal focus away from the protagonist? Did that comment pull the scene away from where you wanted it to go? Did that comment cause you to forget the important remark you wanted to include?

Dominant character impression:

What are each of the two primary characters doing as they enter the scene? Have you given that any thought?

If you haven’t, then consider it now.

Actions convey impressions much more vividly to readers than mere description.

Compare the following:

Robert stood by the desk, waiting. He was a tall, well-built young man with broad shoulders. He wore a tailored navy blazer and a striped tie. His face displayed an expression of impatience. He held a letter in his hands.

Robert paced back and forth by the desk, glancing at his watch with every other step. He paused, glaring at the door, then grabbed the envelope off the desk and ripped it open. He read it fast, then read it a second time before crumpling it in his fist. “Erica!” he shouted.

I think you can see the difference between the static depiction and the active one.

If you confine your examination of a scene’s draft to technical areas such as these, you should be able to fix problems and then continue forward with your story.

But if you’re just going to rely on whether the scene “feels right” then it’s best not to look back. Keep going with your draft or you’ll be mired forever in revision quicksand.

Scene Planning: Part I

Whether you’re a writer who works strictly from an outline or you’re a “pantser,” each scene of your story needs thinking over both before and after you write it.

The before stuff:

1) From whose viewpoint will the scene be written?

Maybe the scene needs to be from the villain’s perspective instead of the hero’s. Maybe it will be most effective from a side character. Just remember that a scene unfolds best if it’s confined to one viewpoint.

Choose wisely for valid reasons of plot.

The character you choose will become this scene’s protagonist.

2) What single character will be in strongest opposition to the scene’s viewpoint character?

You may have the entire army of Ruritania opposed to your scene’s protagonist, but someone must step forward and represent this antagonism.

What you should aim for is one character who drives the scene and is central to it and one character who tries to thwart whatever the scene protagonist is doing.

The oppositional character will become this scene’s antagonist.

3) What are these two individuals going to argue about?

You need to know this clearly ahead of time because it’s what your scene will be about. Their disagreement is why this particular scene exists.

So what has them upset? Are their intentions diametrically opposed or do they just dislike each other?

If you choose the first option, give yourself a star! Your scene’s going to have conflict, excitement, and unpredictability.

If you choose the second option, we need to talk. If the characters have nothing going for them other than that they’re cranky, then your story’s in trouble.

Fractious bickering does not a scene of conflict make. You won’t be able to get it to go anywhere substantive enough to carry the plot forward.

Diametrically opposed goals mean a focused conflict.

Examples:

*John wants to marry Suzie.

*Suzie does NOT want to marry John.

*Beryl says she wants to spend her $1,000 gift certificate on new draperies for the house.

*Her husband Beauregard disagrees, saying it should be spent on new golf clubs.

*Harry attempts to murder his Uncle Orlando.

*Orlando’s bodyguard intervenes, fighting Harry.

*Veronica swims hard and fast to get away from a Great White shark.

*The shark swims faster.

See how these examples work? Each one is tightly focused on an immediate problem. Each character is in action–physical or verbal. The setup is such that conflict is unavoidable. Exactly what we–as writers–want!

4) Why have your two characters taken this position?

Why, of course, speaks to motivation. Motivation is why a character doesn’t give up in the first round of conflict.

Back to my examples:

*John wants to marry Suzie because he’s deeply in love with her. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He knows that without her he’ll always be incomplete.

*Suzie doesn’t want to marry John because she doesn’t love him back.

*Beryl wants new draperies because what they have are some cheap mini-blinds that the cat has climbed. She grew up in a nice home and she wants her house to be attractive enough to impress guests. Without better décor, she feels her home is saying, “My husband can’t provide for us.”

*Beauregard hasn’t even noticed the broken mini-blinds. His best wood driver is being held together with duct tape. His boss has told him to take their company’s CEO out to play golf next weekend. Beauregard knows his future with the company is riding on that golf game. It could mean the difference between promotion or being fired. Who cares about new curtains?

*After five years of searching, Harry finally has conclusive proof that Uncle Orlando was behind the extortion that bankrupted Harry’s father. When he confronts Orlando, his uncle grabs the document and burns it, thus obliterating any chance that justice will be done.

*The bodyguard respects and admires Orlando. He looks up to Orlando like a father. He’s proud to be trusted enough to guard Orlando’s safety. No one except Orlando saw potential in the bodyguard when he was just a scrawny kid, but Orlando gave him a chance, gave him a job. And now, the bodyguard would gladly take a bullet to save his hero.

*After the shark bites off Larry’s leg during a dive to collect marine specimens for their study, Veronica swims for her life. She doesn’t want to be eaten, too.

*The shark liked its taste of Larry and is attracted by Veronica’s movements as she swims away. The shark is still hungry.

5) Do the actions or comments I’ve planned for my characters plausibly fit or connect with the objectives and motivations?

In other words, stay focused.

Don’t throw in random comments because you think they’re clever or you want to display your character’s rapier wit.

Keep the actions and dialogue centered on the disagreement. Eliminate other characters and distractions such as phone call interruptions or fiddling with setting props.

6) What’s at stake in this scene?

This speaks to motivation as well. A man in love believes his future happiness depends on marrying the girl he adores. A new job and higher salary could be jeopardized because of home décor. The burning need for justice turns into revenge. Survival is a powerful instinct so strong it needs no explanation.

Low stakes, however, equal low excitement.

Low stakes equal reader boredom or disappointment.

Low stakes don’t deserve a scene of their own. Petty, banal problems aren’t suitable for dramatic scenes.

When you encounter a powerful scene–whether in reading or watching a film–and it seems to be about something insubstantial, chances are there’s subtext at work. A much larger issue is actually going on.

Watch or read it again. See if you can determine what’s really at stake.

7) Do you know what the scene’s outcome will be?

Where is this scene going? What’s the point of it? How will its outcome make the situation more dire for the protagonist?

If the stakes are too low, the scene’s outcome will fall flat.

Keep in mind that trivial issues don’t deserve to be scenes. They can be raised or even discussed in other story structures such as dialogue or narrative, without a dramatic scene being built around them.

Also keep in mind that scenes should work to move the story forward. That means, the scene protagonist fails–either completely or partially–and has to try again. That next attempt will lead to the next event in your plot. And the next. And the next.

If you allow the scene protagonist to succeed, where is your story going next? What is left for your characters to do?

Not much!

Success and happiness means the story is over.

As for thinking over the scene after you write it, I’ll address that in my next post.

Schlock & Horror!

Over the summer, I’ve been involved in a writing project called SCHLOCK ZONE spearheaded by author Mel Odom. About a half-dozen or more writers have banded together to write individual horror novellas that will be published in e-reader format.

The first story in the group is now live. It’s called STRIPPER POLE AT THE END OF THE WORLD and was written by Eric Beetner.

My entry will be available soon. It’s called AMERICAN SLAYERS, and I’ve put it under the revived pseudonym of Sean Dalton.

For more information, go to http://schlockzone.blogspot.com/p/now-showing.html

Why, you may ask, am I writing horror?

Why, you may cry, am I writing schlocky horror?

My reply is …why not?

I’ve never written horror before. Oh, sure, I’ve crafted some scenes containing horrific elements, but I’ve never before officially entered the genre.

It’s not a favorite area of mine. As a child, I was terrified of spooky things. As a teen, I shuddered away from films like THE EXORCIST (and have yet to see it to this day). As an adult, I forced myself to sit through one–and only one–episode of WALKING DEAD before I declared, “Never again!”

But schlock isn’t serious, and it’s not supposed to be taken seriously. No one made me write about zombies, and our editorial edict was to fill the pages with action.

I can do that. In fact, action scenes are what I love best. Under the pen name Sean Dalton, I spent some time writing three novels a year–action-adventure space opera tales that moved quickly. When you write three books a year for a few years, you learn to be efficient. I would use one month to outline the plot, which left me three months to write 75,000 words for each of those dozen books. There’s not a lot of room in such stories for deep character development or intense–and lengthy–sequels that explore motivation and internal conflict. It’s … keep moving, and hit the mark the first time. The tight deadline meant next-to-no leeway for cutting and polishing later.

Since the Dalton days, I’ve shifted my focus more to fantasy. For a while, I plowed through immense tomes of traditional fantasy peopled by large casts of characters and epic struggles of good versus evil. I wrote one book a year and filled notebooks with world-building details.

But that gets old, too. And so when I heard about the SCHLOCK ZONE project, I thought it would be fun to bring the old approach down from the attic and see if I could still write “Sean-style.”

So I cooked up a couple of characters who hunt and kill demons for bounty. I call them Slayers. I made them ex-Marines and made them patriotic. They feel it’s their personal mission to hold back the onslaught of paranormals who are taking over America.

The protagonist is John Slade. His grandmother owns an antiques shop, and she’s not only taught Slade what she knows about the business but she’s also passed along her sixth sense when it comes to feeling the presence of a demon. Slade’s best friend is Mike Pick–part Sioux and built like a brick wall. Pick hates paranormals, loves to stake vampires, and enjoys spending his spare time tinkering with the old motorcycles that he and his teenage daughter are restoring.

Their nemesis is a by-the-book Internal Paranormal Service (IPS) agent named Annis Rikker. She hounds them constantly for violating federal protection laws on behalf of paranormals and does her best to foul up the jobs they take on.

All Slade and Pick want to do is earn a living doing what they enjoy most: ridding old buildings and houses of demonic infestation. With ectoplasmic disruptors, silver-plated swords (for beheadings), and demon traps made of alloy and martyr’s blood–they’re up for any challenge.

Who knows? I had fun writing the story. In a small way, I made it a parody-homage to my favorite reality television show, AMERICAN PICKERS. I thought, what if I “cross the lines” by combining elements of GHOSTBUSTERS and AMERICAN PICKERS? This is the result.

If people like it, I’m willing to make a series of it. And if this should prove to be the one and only, it was worth the time and trouble because I had a blast. After all, if you can’t have fun writing, why do it?

Each of the SCHLOCK ZONE stories will be going live about every two-three weeks.

Believable Little Details

When devising characters, of course you build the framework of personality, appearance, and background, but once all of that’s worked out, you’re faced with making the character come to life.

One way to do that is through small but vivid details or actions that truly show the character’s heart, conscience, personality, or hidden nature.

For example, from time to time TCM spotlights the actress Ingrid Bergman as a filler, talking about her and showing clips from her famous films. In one of these clips, as the narrator describes her natural, effortless talent, Bergman is shown in a man’s embrace. She’s smiling at him and caresses his cheek with the back of her knuckles.

That tiny action conveys love, affection, delight in someone, and being comfortable enough for little intimacies. It’s far more romantic a gesture than a more “staged” onscreen clinch would have been.

Another film example comes from the movie, THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (the 1952 version, starring Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr). While our hero is being prepped to impersonate his cousin in the coronation, he’s smiling and showing a lot of bravado. Colonel Zapt simply stands beside him and takes his pulse before saying, “A little fast, but you’ll do.”

There’s no need for fevered brows or a page of forced dialogue in which the hero is asked how he feels and he either replies or denies. The colonel has shown us exactly what we need to know to believe that Rassendyl is beyond nervous as he takes the biggest risk of his life.

Years ago, I wrote a historical romance for Harlequin called CAPTURED HEARTS. Early on, the hero and heroine survive shipwreck and take refuge in a barn for the night. In one passage, the heroine is watching Max move about as he builds a fire. He’s wrapped in a blanket, and beyond the usual description, the heroine focuses on the shifting bones in his bare ankle. It seems pretty dry as I clumsily describe it here out of context, but my editors thought that detail very sexy.

So as you put your characters through conflict and danger, think about what you can convey through an action, or a gesture, or a descriptive detail instead of long narrative or dialogue.

The little details shouldn’t replace the big ones. They are simply to enhance. And therein, they can sparkle.

Finding Motivation

Writing fiction isn’t just about blowing up zombie nests, comforting weeping widows, or tracking down Hannibal Lector.

Creating fiction is all about the discovery of what makes people tick. Why do they do the things they do? What drives them? Where do they come from, physically and psychologically? How do they find enough courage to go forward after tremendous setbacks? When do they dig in and when do they retreat? Who are they at the most basic and instinctive level?

Can you answer the above questions for your protagonist? Your antagonist? What about your secondary characters?

Develop this sort of information in your individual character dossiers because it’s going to be the soil from which your plot grows. And it’s far more important than whether your character has deepset eyes and a unibrow.

Let’s create an example:

I like to start character design with a name. Names carry connotations and help prod my imagination.

So this guy will be Solly Sample. Solly is short for Solomon.

He grew up Jewish in a small Louisiana town without a synagogue. All Solly knows about being Jewish is a childhood without Christmas like other kids and an elderly uncle with numbers tattooed on his arm. His mother died years ago, and his father owns a hardware store that’s struggled since a Lowe’s was built ten miles away. Dad supplements his income by rewiring old lamps for customers.

Solly wants to impress his father. As a kid, he resented the time his parents spent working in their store. Solly wanted more attention and approval than he ever got. He was also picked on at school for being Jewish, and that’s fueled his desire to make a big splash, to be someone important.

So instead of hard work–because what did hard work ever do for the old man except make him tired–Solly is always seeking short cuts. He dropped out of junior college when his mom got sick. Now he thinks he can’t get a good job because he doesn’t have a degree. He turns down a steady job at his brother-in-law’s concrete business because it’s hard, dirty work and too blue-collar to fit Solly’s dreams. He chases get-rich-quick schemes and blames everyone but himself when they fail. He wants a fancy car, but he can only afford it used. When it breaks down, he’s angry at the dealer who sold him a hurricane-rotted piece of junk.

Solly is approaching middle-age with nothing to show for it but a beer gut, fading dreams, and desperation. His marriage is rocky. He never has time to spend with his young son, always brushing the kid aside with promises he doesn’t keep. They need his wife’s income, but Solly hates her working because it makes him look like a poor provider. So he criticizes her for not keeping a better house. If she’s too tired to cook and brings home fast-food takeout, he gripes about that, too.

So when Solly hears that a local meth dealer needs a new runner, is he going to apply for the job? Or is he going to be too afraid to seize the opportunity? It’s easy money, maybe big money, but the risks are high. Solly is afraid of jail. He’s never used drugs and doesn’t want to.

Will he convince himself that he can work such a job and stay clean? Will he back away, too afraid, yet despising himself for his cowardice? What incentive or event might push him over the threshold into a life of crime?

Okay, I’ve built an unpleasant character here. I don’t like him, do you? Currently he’s at secondary-character level. If I decided to make him a protagonist, I would have to raise the stakes and do more with his psychological profile. He would need enough positive personality traits to give him redemptive potential.

Now, with this little exercise in mind, where would my story start? In all the character design, where’s the plot?

Exactly! When he finds out there’s a job running meth. That’s when he has choices of action.

When you’re building characters, take care that you don’t mistake characterization for a plot line. While the unfolding of character and the testing of character infuse the plot, they don’t stand alone. You need conflict, action, and dilemma–all ways in which to push at your character’s flaws and move him forward to something better than he has initially or move him backward into a much worse person.

Casting Characters

Writing references offer all sorts of strategies for devising characters, describing characters, and deepening characters, but it’s easy to get so caught up in creating individual dossiers that we may neglect thinking about the whole cast and whether it works effectively.

Let’s say you have a strong, vivid protagonist and a sly, snide, creepy antagonist. But will they work together? Or rather, I should say, will their personalities clash? Not because you’ve read that they should be in conflict but because their essential natures are like magnets repelling each other.

Or, you may have a strong, vivid heroine who’s to be the lead player in your romance story. You’ve concocted a hero who’s broad-shouldered, handsome, and possesses smoldering eyes. But is the chemistry right between them?

Is this pair going to ignite the pages or fizzle? Do you have Humphrey Bogart paired with Lauren Bacall or Humphrey Bogart paired with Audrey Hepburn? (If, by chance, this example makes no sense to you, compare the film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with SABRINA. You’ll see what I mean. SABRINA is a Billy Wilder gem that sparkles in all directions except for no spark between Bogart and Hepburn. It’s a baffling casting of those two actors.)

If you’re creating two characters who are best friends, do they have rapport? Let’s hope so, but if they do, why?

Ask yourself, how did they become friends? When did they meet? What happened then to create a bond between them? Why are they friends now? That isn’t to say you’ll be inserting all those answers into the story. But you need to know such information and keep it in the back of your mind so you can write the interaction of your characters from that foundation.

In the Dashiell Hammett story, THE GLASS KEY, Paul and Ed are lifelong friends who work together until they both fall in love with the same girl. Paul becomes a primary suspect in a murder. Ed wants to help him until he finds out Paul is lying to him. The men quarrel, but Ed’s belief in Paul’s innocence is never shaken. Achieving that kind of closeness–even between two tough guys in a noir novel–requires the creation of background. Hammett knew what it was, even if he didn’t share much of it in the story.

Presently, I’m working on a novel that involves a triangle. It’s hard enough working out the relationship of a couple, making sure they have the right traits to create sparks while being “right” for each other where it matters. A triangle complicates that task even more. I don’t want an obviously uneven group, where Mr. Wrong is so totally, obviously WRONG that only a blind, deaf, and senile bat would be attracted to him. I want Mr. Wrong to have good qualities and I want Mr. Right to be troublesome and unsettling to Miss Protagonist. Yet I must avoid going so far out on the unsettling scale that when she eventually chooses him it screams AUTHOR CONTRIVANCE.

While there are many variants of love triangles, I prefer to divide them into two basic categories: simple and complicated. These are only labels for author convenience. Don’t judge the merits of a story by them because either type can be effective.

SIMPLE: Let’s consider the Tolstoy novel, ANNA KARENINA. It’s been adapted into at least two films–one starring Vivian Leigh and a recent one starring Keira Knightley. Tolstoy is convoluted and enamored of many entwined subplots, but basically the triangle consists of the beautiful Anna, her elderly and distant husband, and the dashing young officer she falls in love with. Anna is torn between love and obligation. If she follows her heart, she will destroy her marriage, her social standing, her financial security. She will be denied access to her only child. She will be ostracized by society.

Simple? Yes, in that it’s clearcut and direct. We understand it immediately. That detracts in no way from its powerful effect. The very simplicity allows the emotional costs facing these characters to be potent indeed.

The modern novelist Danielle Steel can’t be likened to Tolstoy, but she has used the simple triangle numerous times, with a great deal of success.

COMPLICATED: Consider an old romantic comedy film called THE TALK OF THE TOWN, starring Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, and Ronald Colman. Grant’s character has been framed for a crime he didn’t commit and is on the lam, hiding from authorities. Colman’s character is a pillar of the law, under consideration as a Supreme Court judge. Jean Arthur is attracted to both men, and the audience is kept guessing which one she’ll choose right up to the very end. If you watch the film inattentively, you’ll miss the turning point and what factor decides her. Each man is very different from the other, yet they have a great deal in common. Both are equally intelligent, rational thinkers. Both are handsome and appealing. Both men need Miss Arthur’s help.

But perhaps you aren’t writing a triangle. Instead, you’ve got an ensemble cast of characters. Let’s examine the group in the science-fiction film, GALAXY QUEST. The characters play actors who once were on a hit television show and now they survive through residuals and paid appearances at conventions. We have the following basic types:

*The big ego

*The sexy babe

*The jealous neurotic

*The grown-up child

*The stoner

*The clown

All of them, except the clown, have issues with the big ego. Those issues fuel the personal conflict crisscrossing the storyline. Such conflict keeps the story advancing quickly because it either fills points in the main plot that would otherwise sag or it adds complications to the trouble the group is in. Who in the group are allies? Who in the group is the most exasperating to the others? Who nurtures? Who goads? Who whines and complains?

If at least some of the group can serve as foil characters to the others, this can be useful to keep conflict and chemistry going. Foils, as I’m sure you know, are opposites in personality and behavior. Besides the human actors, GALAXY QUEST serves up additional ensemble groups in secondary roles–the alien group and the kids who are devoted fans. The script pulls on these secondary groups as needed to serve as comedic contrasts to the actors.

What you don’t want, in an ensemble cast, is a row of similar types–for example, all shy introverts–who are going to sit still in perfect agreement. BORING!

Other film examples of lively ensemble casts would include STEEL MAGNOLIAS, I REMEMBER MAMA, and TWELVE ANGRY MEN. The latter is focused on twelve jurors locked in a non-air-conditioned room on a hot summer’s day, forced to work together in order to reach a verdict in a murder trial. They’re all quite different and distinctive from each other. Their roles clash terrifically as they attempt to sift through contradictory evidence.

Don’t let these considerations overwhelm you. Create your lead characters–your protagonist and antagonist–first. Build their personalities and check their chemistry of antagonism to be sure it works. Then build their ring of friends or cohorts, one at a time. Minimize the number of characters as much as you can. You’ll find it easier to handle.

Ask yourself, if I were a casting director in a movie, would I hire these characters? Do they have chemistry enough to carry their roles?

If you’re inexperienced at writing, especially long fiction, you may not be able to judge in advance the potential chemistry combinations between your characters. At least, not until you’ve written a big chunk of rough draft. That’s okay. As the characters speak and take action in scenes, they’ll grow more definitive–or some of them will crumble from weak design.

You’ll discover as you go who needs to be reworked. Just keep the sparks flying.

A New Word

I learned a new word today, one I don’t recall having encountered before. According to the dictionary, it dates back to the Middle Ages.

Here it is: gallimaufry.

It means a hodgepodge or jumble.

I read it in this sentence by magazine columnist Marc Allum: “…I find antiques fairs a wonderful gallimaufry of characters, dogs and desperate-looking eccentrics.” (PERIOD LIVING magazine, June 2013)

What a delightful discovery, proof yet again that our language is rich with treasure if we will only mine it.

As American magazines continue to decline into thin, meager ghosts of their former selves, limping along on thumbnail-sized photos, running more white space and less text, and promising readers additional information if they will only visit the publication’s Web site, I say “phooey!”

They have fallen into the loop of destruction, adopting a pictorial blog format in an attempt to emulate the creature that’s supposedly killing them, dumbing down their content to captions (and atrocities such as clutter-less), and thereby ensuring their almost certain demise.

I’m defecting to British magazines. Yeah, they cost more, about $2-3 on average. And they offer more. They’re still thick with plenty of monthly content. They offer full-sized articles–aka SOMETHING TO READ–along with huge photos and plenty of ‘em, and erudite writers who use words like gallimaufry.

What a treat!

Now I just have to learn how to pronounce it properly.

Grumble, Snarl, and Gnash

I’m wearing my curmudgeon coat right now. Today, I’m grumbling about language and the general decline of American literacy. Now, I’m not a trained grammarian. I can’t quote all the grammar rules, and I use sentence fragments when it suits me to achieve a certain informal tone. What I know about vocabulary and grammar I learned from voracious reading instead of formal training. Nevertheless, I wish to rant and therefore I shall.

The French language is lovely, precise, and protected. Consider a culture and an academy of letters that gets upset when the word “weekend” is allowed to creep into the language. “Le weekend” created quite a scandal a few decades ago. Zut alors! An English word being adopted wholesale? C’est incroyable, n’est-ce pas?

It’s probably safe to say that Americans are generally indifferent to such matters. Despite the steady bloat of government administration in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, most of us dislike bureaucracy and red tape. We take a native pride in dodging rules. Our culture is built on independence and doing things our way. We’ve made a mythology of it.

However, when it comes to our language, I think we might benefit from taking a page from the French and tightening our standards. After all, the English language is an intricate, complex, and fascinating tongue. English is filled with quirks, idioms, and inconsistencies. We enjoy a parterre of regular and irregular verbs. We possess an enormous vocabulary from which to draw. American English is constantly borrowing words and terms from other languages, and it flirts with British English without ever fully committing. (Post Revolutionary War, Daniel Webster was hired to alter American spelling from the English version. Therefore, gray is American; grey is British; pronunciation is the same.)

Okay, so given the richness of our linguistic heritage, why don’t we cherish it? Why don’t we preserve it? Why isn’t our educational system fighting tooth and nail to see that every jot and tittle is correctly learned by American youth? And why aren’t we bothering to protest as grubby, semi-literate gobbledygook crawls into our texts, emails, reports, letters, articles, and books?

Here’s the offending sentence and “word” that set me off on this diatribe: “Once the room is clutter-less, arrange the furniture for better flow.”

Clutter-less! I ask you, who in the world thought that one up? What writer, producing copy to be published in a national magazine, is so inept as to utilize such a ghastly term? Hyphenated, no less. (Undoubtedly because if you type “clutterless” without the hyphen, Word codes it in red to indicate a misspelling. And we wouldn’t want to misspell a word that doesn’t exist, would we?)

Quick, boys and girls! What’s the correct term?

That’s right. “Uncluttered.”

Let’s move beyond the hapless writer who stumped her toe and fell splat on this one. Let’s stamp indignantly on her editor, who let it go through. Let’s bellow at the magazine which published it. No, wait. They don’t have a letters-to-the-editor section. I could track down their email address on the Internet and send in a protest, but I doubt it would gain their attention.

After all, who cares? Uncluttered vs. clutter-less. What difference does it make?

A lot.

I could draw on the parable of the tiny leak in the big dike, but I’m sure you get the idea. An illiterate population is a population that can be–and will be–controlled. Just give it time.

After wincing through novels whose authors don’t know the correct usage of “may” and “might,” and whose copyeditors obviously don’t either, I try to console myself by thinking of the past–say, Shakespeare’s era, when spelling wasn’t standardized and even the bard himself was wont to vary the appearance of his own name. Alas, such consolation fails to soothe me because American spelling has been standardized since the establishment of national public education. At least it was until the combined onslaughts of advertising slogans and phone texting. Now I understand that some language arts teachers allow students to spell as they please, as long as the teacher can guess the intended word.

Is that progress? Looks like regression to me.

Another peeve of mine is usage of the verb “shine.” It’s irregular, which means that the past tense should be “shone,” yet more and more frequently it appears as “shined.”

Maybe that doesn’t bother you, but when I read it, the experience is akin to watching a scorpion scuttle across my foot.

Then there’s the misspelling of the term, “all right.” It’s been clipped and smashed together into “alright.” Am I the only individual who finds that visually offensive?

When I hammer students into spelling all right correctly, they blunder forward and alter the spelling of “altogether” into the incorrect “all together.”

I see the logic of what they’re doing–poor dears. But it’s wrong, wrong, wrong! The English language isn’t about logic. It’s about flavor and spunk and vivacity. It’s contradictory and odd. It’s a hodge-podge of all that it’s borrowed and adapted. Without the peculiar spellings that make no sense unless you burrow deep into Anglo-Saxon history and Norman conquest and the Louisiana Purchase, Manifest Destiny, and Ellis Island, we are bland, featureless drones tapping out acronyms and calling it good.

It is not good. It is pap, when we could be eating steak. And not just steak, mind you, but filet mignon.

Clutter-less … phooey!