Crash Course: Characters – The Writer/Reader Edition

1. Crash Course: Characters – The Writer/Reader Edition 49 Writers Instructor: Deb Vanasse

2. Objectives • Explore ways writers get to know their own characters • Discover what it means to be generous with characters • Consider how characters surprise both writers and readers • Discover which character qualities engage readers • Examine why character growth matters • Gain new perspective on familiar character terms and processes

3. A memorable character • What do you like about him/her? • What don’t you like about him/her? • What makes him/her memorable?

4. We remember people who act in ways that are: • Unusual • Unexpected • Dramatic • Decisive • Full of consequence • Irreversible Donald Maass, literary agent

5. She’s a strong woman: Write this character.

6. Cunning Stamina Insight Intuition Wisdom Compassion Courtesy Discipline Self-denial Courage Outspokenness Pride Open-mindedness Loyalty Humor Humility Strength can mean: Adapted from Donald Maass

7. A great character is one that not only deepens our understanding of ourselves but that opens us to ranges of potential, a riot of passionate response to the problems of existence.Donald Maass

8. Self-regard • For a moment, be that memorable character at the end of the story: • How have you changed? • What do you think caused that change? • Do you wish you could go back to the way you were, or are you determined never to be that way again?

9. Points about self-regard • People aren’t steeped in self-knowledge; they arrive at it. • Characters may exist in a mental bubble, where they think they know themselves (and others) but readers see that they don’t.

10. The mental bubble “The further irony of all this was that in spite of her, he had turned out so well. In spite of going to only a third-rate college, he had, on his own initiative, come out with a first-rate education; in spite of growing up dominated by a small mind, he had ended up with a large one; in spite of all her foolish views, he was free of prejudice and unafraid to face facts. Most miraculous of all, instead of being blinded by love for her as she was for him, he had cut himself emotionally free of her and could see her with complete objectivity. He was not dominated by his mother.” Flannery O’Connor, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”

11. He’s conflicted: Consider a character within a mental bubble, a character who thinks he knows himself but doesn’t.

12. Writing is a recursive process that involves both discovery and analysis.

13. Which comes first? • Story • Character

14. The character manifesto “Every one, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life.” Grace Paley

15. Where do characters come from? • People we’ve known • Deep, unexplored conflicts • Our emotional core

16. How do characters define themselves? • Gestures • Dialogue

17. Much can be said with a little… I handed Karen my cup, still half-full. Watch this, I said. I ran my fingers along the bottom hems of my shorts. I locked eyes on Rick. He was fixed on the girl. She’d pulled out from under his arm to flirt with one of his friends. She laughed, wide and pretty. Rick leaned into his truck like he didn’t know where else to look. Deb’s WIP

18. What others say about them When I married Dick Greene back in 1927 I thought I was getting a strong husband. He was straight-backed, his shirts tucked neatly into his slacks, his shoes glossy. The man played tennis. He was for Indiana Varsity. His face was tanned and finely shaped, and I used to adore watching the way his mouth sometimes sagged open when he was listening to someone speak. That slackness of jaw held me for years in a rich, alert, concentrating innocence. He had a fastidious almost humbling way of shifting his broad shoulders, as though he had them on loan, as though they were breakable. Carole Shields, The Stone Diaries

19. Characters must be • Palpable • Credible • Motivated

20. Palpability Old Azureus’s manner of welcoming people was a silent rhapsody. Ecstatically beaming, slowly, tenderly, he would take your hand between his soft palms, hold it thus as if it were a long sought treasure or a sparrow all fluff and heart, in moist silence, peering at you the while with his beaming wrinkles rather than with his eyes, and then, very slowly, the silvery smile would start to dissolve, the tender old hands would gradually release their hold, a blank expression replace the fervent light of his pale fragile face…

21. The memorable moment …and he would leave you as if he had made a mistake, as if after all you were not the loved one – the loved one whom, the next moment, he would espy in another corner and again the smile would dawn, again the hands would enfold the sparrow, again it would all dissolve. Vladimir Nabokov, Bent Sinister

22. Credibility Her isolation at school was based on knowledge and experience, which, as she half knew, could look like innocence and priggishness. The things that were wicked mysteries to others were not so to her and she did not know how to pretend about them. And that was what separated her, just as much as knowing how to pronounce L’Anse aux Meadows and having read Lord of the Rings. She had drunk half a bottle of beer when she was five and puffed on a joint when she was six, though she had not liked either one. Alice Munro, “Trespasses”

23. Motivation: We want desire • Desire connects to the deeper struggle of how we live with others • We want both desire and the satisfaction of desire (though we don’t always get it). • Is there a place where we know whether the characters got what they wanted or not? Adapted from John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story

24. Types • Name something a person could be • Five traits that go with that type

25. And one trait… …that goes against type.

26. For and against type She had been in the family for several years and, as conventionally happens in such cases, was pleasantly plump, middle-aged, and sensitive. There she stood staring at him with dark liquid eyes, her mouth slightly opened showing a gold spotted tooth, her coral earrings staring too and one hand pressed to her formless gray-worsted bosom. Vladimir Nabokov, Bent Sinister

27. Types that can work • Moral compass • Comic relief

28. Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible.  Leo Tolstoy

29. The character interview • Pretend you are a reporter, interviewing your character. • Write one short paragraph of setting, describing where the interview happens • Write one short paragraph of conditions: day, weather, subject’s attire • Write three warm-up questions. Let the character answer in his/her voice.

30. As the interview progresses, the questions get tough: • What defines love, in your way of thinking? • What does your creator not know about you? • What secret are you keeping from your creator? • In what ways is your creator not fair to you? • If you wrote the story, what would be different? Adapted from Tim Tomlinson, “Fiction”

31. Who tells the story? • Who’ll learn the most from the story? • Who’ll be most changed by what happens?

32. The protagonist • Stirs emotions in readers • Will be flawed • Won’t be a wimp

33. Great protagonists • Fascinate • We identify with them, but not too much • We understand but don’t necessarily like what they do • Have moral and psychological needs Adatped from John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

34. The divided protagonist After my father’s suicide, I inherited all his guns. Everything except the pistol. My uncle wanted to get rid of that, sold it right away. But I was given my father’s .300 Magnum rifle, and though I had stopped hunting, I began using that rifle…I’d ditch my bike, find a spot hidden in trees, and reassemble that rifle. I sat in the braced sitting position, elbows on my knees, that my father had taught me, calmed my breath, and eased slowly back on the trigger. The recoil was so powerful it literally knocked me flat. But nothing was more beautiful to me than the blue-white explosion of a streetlight seen through crosshairs. David Vann, My Father’s Guns

35. The antagonist • Not the bad guy, but the opponent • Works well if everything about the antagonist annoys the protagonist • Necessary • Human • Strong but flawed moral argument • Certain similarities with protagonist Adapted from John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

36. Antagonists threaten… Now she could see his face more clearly. She could see how he was enjoying himself. “My wife Carla is home in bed. Asleep in bed. Where she belongs.” He was both a handsome man and a silly-looking man. Tall, lean, well built, but with a slouch that seemed artificial. A contrived, self-conscious air of menace. A lock of dark hair falling over his forehead, a vain little moustache, eyes that appeared both hopeful and mocking, a boyish smile perpetually on the verge of a sulk. Alice Munro, “Runaway”

37. As in real life, relationships define characters • What’s the deepest conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist? • The protagonist and the antagonist may want the same thing. • A minor character may track close to the protagonist, but with different results.

38. Four corners: Web of opposition • Engaged in conflicts over what matters to each • Characters moves to the corners, differentiating from others

39. Wild swings = intensity Nathan Bransford, literary agent

40. Dynamic v. static • Writers may start at the end, with the self-revelation, working back to the need and desire • Change doesn’t happen at the end; it’s set up from the beginning • A protagonist is a range of change: the bigger the range, the riskier the story Adapted from John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

41. Character shifts; character arcs Brody paced the bank. You gotta help me, he said. Set it back on the wheels. I didn’t want him to need me, for that or for anything else. I wanted the river to tumble and turn me like one of its rocks. The shock of the cold. The rush of the thick grinding water. It would smooth the hard jagged places and I would be new. Deb, “Distraction”

42. To ponder… • Referential mania • The objective correlative

43. Gatherings: 49 Writers • In Sitka: Thursday, Nov. 18 at9 am Smith Street Cafe (215 Smith Street -- formerly the Grind Cafe) • In Juneau: Saturday, Nov. 20 at2 pm, Silverbow Café, 2nd St.