Shelley Lowenkopf: "When I'm stuck, I look at the hidden agenda of the major characters, what they really want. Discovering the hidden agenda helps me understand the character again."
Kurt Luedtke: "If you're stuck on a character, get somebody else to read the pages. They'll say, 'I don't understand why he or she does such and such,' which can jar your vision. It can knock you out of what you're thinking about.
"If you continue to have problems, 'What if it for a while. 'What if this guy has no left foot?' 'What if something happened to this character when he or she was fifteen?'
"If you have a primary character that's not working, you've really got a problem. If you have a secondary character problem, you can more easily fix it. You might research it, or look for another character that can do the same sort of story things.
"If I had to pick one single thing to do, with primary characters or secondary characters, look at gender switch. It is incredible the number of things that will open up if you say, 'Well, if Dwayne is Susie . . ,' There is a different set of attitudes and a new excitement to the characters because of the stereotypical and two-dimensional way in which we inevitably treat men and women."
Karin Howard: "Sometimes you have a name and nothing happens with it. I think names are very important. Many names have associations with them. Getting the right name and the right association can make your character come alive."
James Dearden: "If I were stuck, I'd just talk to my wife. It's a question of airing the problem and hitting the ball back and forth, and trying to talk through it. That's why there's such a thing as great editors in the lives of great writers. They send their manuscripts off to their editors and they come back with notes and hints and suggestions. Which doesn't mean the writer didn't know his job. It just means that he couldn't see the wood for the trees."
Getting perspective on a character problem helps the writer see that it need not be overwhelming. Character problems are a natural part of the creative process and are part of both character and writer finding their way.
A CASE STUDY: DENYS FINCH-HATTON IN OUT OF AFRICA
Occasionally, there are character problems that are never solved by the writer. This can happen with the best of writers. It is, perhaps, more difficult when one is writing a character based on a real-life person. Sometimes there is insufficient research material about the person. Sometimes there is not sufficient conflict or clear enough desires and goals to make the person a workable dramatic character. The solution to certain character problems will continue to elude the writer, no matter how skilled he or she is.
In 1985, Out of Africa won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay Adaptation, for Best Director, and for Best Picture.
Yet many critics felt that there was a flaw in the character realization of Denys Finch-Hatton. Kurt Luedtke, the writer, would agree.
I decided to use Finch-Hatton as a case study because the thinking that Kurt went through to resolve the problems that arose has much to say about the process of working through a character.
Kurt Luedtke: "Denys we never solved. The research was no help. He was a truly, deliberately elusive person who did not want to be known and took real steps not to be known. He tried to cover his tracks by telling all of his friends to read his letters and burn them. People have described him as similar to one of the African cats—like a leopard who moved only when there was a very specific reason. Even the natives didn't understand him. So I was never able to get anything very dramatic about him. Everything I knew about him tended to be negatives and I never found terrific ways to turn them into positives. It's an odd kind of writing problem. I think the truth about him is that he wanted very little and didn't want any appetite to control him. He was real rigorous about not wanting things. I never thought of terrifically interesting ways to dramatize "not wanting.'
"I think if I had loosened up a bit, discarded some of what I knew about the real Finch-Hatton, I could have written a character that could say, 'I don't care about your mind or about any of this, we're a little short of women in this country and what I love about you is your mighty fine skin and that's all I want.' I could have written a character with a very specific set of attitudes that at least would give an actor a set of things to do that would be a bit more active.
"But, as a writer, I think it would have been very difficult to deal with a real character and have him say things that I knew were not true. I would have had some ethical problems with it. I would have felt a real encumbrance because I was working with true material and a literary figure that I happen to care a lot about. If I had to cheat like that, I just wouldn't make the picture. If we're going to do that, we may as well not call it Out of Africa and let's name her Shirley and name him Bill. I just don't think we should do Out of Africa if we aren't staying within the boundaries. If you're going to make it up, let's really make it up."
There are a number of qualities that a character must have to be intrinsically dramatic. One of these is intentionality. "What does the character want?" is a question asked by many producers and executives. For Denys, the answer seemed to be "Nothing."
Kurt continues, "I never knew the real Finch-Hatton, but from what little I know about him, I suspect and believe that he was a very contained man who didn't really want very much, who had what he wanted. He is an intrinsically undramatic character. You could do a movie just about his external acts, since he did have filmic adventures, but the inner qualities are unknown. To the extent that Finch-Hatton is interesting, it's Karen that makes him interesting. It's her appetite and her needs and her motivation and her situation. The fact of the matter is, if we were really willing to fictionalize Finch-Hatton, this Finch-Hatton character is not the man you would have made up with Karen Blixen. If you stayed with the truth, Bror is a lot more interesting. I could have written the whole movie about their marriage."
But the film focused on the love story. So Kurt tried to define Denys in other ways.
"We tried a little bit to suggest that by being so self-contained, he has a problem. There was a scene that was made up but not inconsistent with what may have been the case, when his good friend Berkeley Cole is dying. It's discovered that Berkeley Cole for a good number of years has maintained a relationship with a Somali woman. Denys is startled to discover this and he says, 'Why didn't you tell me?' and Berkeley says, 'I suppose I thought I didn't know you well enough.' We were trying to make character out of what was our problem. We felt that if it was true that we didn't think we knew Denys
well enough, maybe what was true of us was also true of Berkeley."
In retrospect, Kurt considered changing some of the dialogue. Originally, it was written for a British accent. "I do think that some of those scenes play a little better with an accent. If I had known that we were not going to do an accent, I would have welcomed the chance to write through some of the dialogue, but that still wouldn't have solved the problem. It would still be a problem of a character that no one understood very well."
I asked Kurt what he would do differently. What can be learned from this situation? What would he tell another writer, facing the same problem?
"I think I would say, on a practical level, be careful of nonfiction, and understand how far you are or are not prepared to go to fictionalize someone. I don't think that there ought to be any rules about that. I have a great regard for the person who says, 'My job isn't history, my job is to deliver the best possible dramatic movie and that is what I'm going to do.' If somebody says, 'What do you think about Patton?' I would say, 'I think Patton is a mighty fine film, but it doesn't square with my understanding of Patton the man, from reading the history. But it's a great movie and I have no quarrel with it,' But believe me, the next time, if ever I'm involved with a situation where I'm being asked to utilize biographical nonfictional material, I'll be real careful about understanding whether I feel the facts are there and good enough as they are or whether or not I'm going to wind up being disappointed by the truth.
"And, as I thi
nk back on this situation, I'd say, Some of the problems we licked and some of them we didn't.
APPLICATION
When you encounter a character problem, first think through the central concepts in the preceding chapters of this book. If
you can pinpoint where the problem is (character isn't consistent, lacks dimensionality, no emotional life, values unclear, etc.), many of the exercises given up to this point can be helpful for breaking through the problem.
If that doesn't work, ask yourself the following questions:
■ Have I made my characters specific people, or are they too generalized?
■ Do I like them and understand them?
■ Are my supporting characters taking over the story? Is this takeover detrimental to the story, or is something interesting developing? Am I willing to follow my characters for a while, just to see what will happen?
■ Have I asked "What if" of my characters? Have I tried changing gender? Changing backstory? Changing physicality?
■ Am I so overworked that my mind has stopped functioning? Does my life consist only of writing? Have I taken time to experience life, so that I have more to write about?
SUMMARY
Writing good characters is a complicated process. Along the way, it's not unusual to encounter some problems. Getting stuck is a natural part of the process. It happens to even the best of writers. Turning to some of these problem-solving techniques can help ease your frustration, and lead to breakthroughs that can help make your characters work.
The writing of this book has been an adventure. Talking to these accomplished fiction writers has expanded my own awareness of the knowledge and subtle skills it takes to create great characters. Whereas I began each interview with a respect for the writer s work, I ended up with enormous respect for the individual as well. It is obvious from their insights, observations, and eloquence that these were very special people.
So many of the writers emphasized these same points: the importance of observing the life around them and of reflecting on their own experiences in order to better understand their characters. However, what impressed me most of all, perhaps, was that each of these writers seems to have found his or her own inner voice. They all had something of value to say, a certain perspective about life that they communicate through their work. Whether it is about the necessity of breaking down the barriers that separate people, or about redemption, or about people confronting moral choices—there is some individual point of view that threads itself through their writing.
Through my work as a script consultant, I know that writers can learn to believe in, and nurture, this personal voice. Although talent certainly is an important part of writing, it rarely comes to someone all at once. Talent usually includes hard work, some training, much practice, and learning to believe in and to articulate one's special point of view.
I hope that this book will help to empower you to find your own inner voice and to recognize that your own self-knowledge is a strong beginning point for any character creation. I hope, too, that it will encourage your creative process and in so doing will help to bring your characters to life and make them unforgettable.
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