On Friday Night Lights, Reading Memoir, & Why We Connect with Characters
Every night this week, I’ve watched an episode or two from Season 1 of Friday Night Lights. Yes, I know—I’m a bit behind the rest of the country. But I don’t watch much television. We don’t have cable or satellite. What we do have is Amazon Prime, plus a terrific selection of current DVDs from the Corrales Community Library (thanks, Cynthia!).
Daughter Kaitlin and I watched the first episode of Friday Night Lights when I was in San Francisco last fall. Then we immediately watched the second. That’s how good it was—we wanted to binge all six lengthy seasons right then. Instead, I returned to New Mexico, and we each began watching separately, whenever we had time. Which meant not very often.
But as I read and reread memoir manuscripts in preparation for teaching a master class this weekend, I scrolled through my Amazon Prime watchlist. I craved narrative. I craved reversals. And I craved character arcs. When Friday Night Lights popped up, I knew it was what I was after.
Now that I’m halfway through Season 1, I know which characters I favor, and which I don’t much care about. I’ve always been fascinated with why readers and viewers connect with certain characters. Of course it has to do with how three-dimensional a character is—neither all-good, nor all-bad. But why one character resonates for me while another resonates for you happens for an entirely different reason. I call it emotional bravery.
The acting on Friday Night Lights is terrific, but then, so is the writing. Among my favorite characters are all the Taylors—Eric, Tami, and Julie—and when Eric and Tami disagree, they speak over each other, interrupt, don’t listen, willfully misunderstand, and all those other things people who live together do when they want different things. What I like about these three characters—and the other character who resonates for me, Tyra Collette—is that they’re emotionally true to themselves. By that I mean that they know their own likes and dislikes, their boundaries, their code, their ethics, and they’ll fight for those things, even when they know they oughta give.
Good writing challenges characters’ emotional cornerstones. Some characters cave (Smash Williams does). Some characters (like Lyla Garrity) make mistakes. Some (Tim Riggins) grow and change. But the characters with whom I connect won’t back down. There’s too much at stake.
The same is true in memoirs I love. In my favorites, tough cookies are challenged in all sorts of ways (Pacific Crest Trail. Eccentric parents. AIDS.), and despite (or because of?) those challenges, find the internal strength to surmount them. Yes, they’ll sometimes compromise. But those compromises never contradict their personal codes. Yeah. They’re a lot like me.
I’ll be blogging about reading as a writer the fourth week of every month. I hope you’ll join me.
