Contrast Hammett’s detailed description with the spare—but fully adequate—offering presented by Rex Stout in “Bullet for One”:
It was her complexion that made it hard to believe she was as scared as she said she was.
In Houston Attack, Carl Ramm pays more attention to the damsel in distress:
She had one of those ageless Mayan faces. High cheek-bones. Nut-colored skin. Onyx-black hair that hung down over the surprisingly ripe bosom swell. Hawker guessed her to be about eighteen, though she could have been thirty just as easily. But Indio women tend to get chubby and domestic when they hit their mid-twenties, and there was nothing chubby about this one. She was long and lithe, and Hawker could see that she had been crying.
For those who like a taste of metaphysics with their pulchritude, Dean Koontz offers this passage from Twilight Eyes:
She was wearing brown corduroy jeans and a brown-and-red- checkered blouse, and I vaguely noticed that her body was lean and excitingly proportioned, but truthfully I did not pay much attention to the way she was built—not then, later—for initially my attention was entirely captured by her hair and face. Thick, soft, silky, shimmering hair, too blond to be called auburn, too auburn to be blond, was combed across one side of her face, half obscuring one eye, reminding me of Veronica Lake, that movie star of an earlier era. If there was any fault at all in her exquisite face, it was that the very perfection of her features also gave her a slightly cool, distant, and unattainable look. Her eyes were large, blue, and limpid. The hot August sun streamed over her as if she were on a stage instead of perched on a battered wooden stool, and it didn’t illuminate her the same way it did everyone else on the midway; the sun seemed to favor her, beaming upon her the way a father might look upon a favorite daughter, accenting the natural luster of her hair, proudly revealing the porcelain smoothness of her complexion, lovingly molding itself to her sculpted cheekbones and artfully chiseled nose, suggesting but not fully illuminating great depth and many mysteries in her entrancing eyes.
I think you get the drift. A bad description usually fails in one of two directions, either offering the reader so much useless detail that the mind clicks off, or shooting for the opposite approach with characters who come out vague and two dimensional. A cumbersome description stalls your readers in the middle of a story, while the other, nonexistent kind may leave them wondering who your people are, and why they act the way they do. (The worst I ever read, bar none, described two Puerto Rican terrorists as “small brown men full of hair.” And what the hell does that mean?)
Imitating Life
Certain authors like to pattern major characters on real-life people, and they often choose celebrities. Don Pendleton once told me that he visualized Mack Bolan as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Clint Walker, but he also had the good sense not to say so in his novels. Mark Roberts, on the other hand, prefers to plumb the depths of propaganda in his Soldier for Hire series, using “Senator Ned Flannery” as an obvious stand-in for Ted Kennedy, branding his target an “idiot,” “king of the sewer rats,” and so forth.
There are certain perils to employing real-life models for your characters. If you become too obvious, you run the risk of libel suits from individuals who may resent depiction in your writing as a liberal-leftist-commie-scumbag. Such lawsuits are not common, but they happen, and the same risks may apply for authors who habitually plant the names of real-life friends (or enemies) within their work. More, later, on the name game. For the moment, let’s just say that while “John Smith” is fairly safe, your next-door neighbor, Hubert Finkleheimer, may not wish to turn up in the bookstore as a child-molesting lunatic. (I can’t imagine why he’d mind, but there you have it.)
A more common problem, in the use of obvious celebrity descriptions, is the risk of characters becoming “obsolete” with time. A classic case is that of Ian Fleming, who compared James Bond to Hoagy Carmichael in early novels of the series. That was fine in 1954, but it was wearing thin a decade later, when Sean Connery became James Bond for countless moviegoers. I suspect the general reaction from a crop of younger readers, picking up a Fleming novel in the nineties, will be “Hoagy Who?”
Above all else, celebrity descriptions carved in stone—or etched on paper—may deprive your readers of the major kick they get from reading action novels: namely, using the imagination to identify themselves with favorite characters. Suppose your fans don’t care for Charlie Branson’s mustache, Ernest Borgnine’s ample gut—whatever? If you absolutely must relate your character descriptions to celebrities, be circumspect. Don’t do it all the time, and try your best to ditch this shopworn crutch as soon as possible. Remember that you’re writing fiction here, not casting for the silver screen.
A Question of Motive
With all of that in mind, you’ll find the physical description of your characters to be the easy part. Determining their motivations is a far more complicated task—and one you must not neglect, if you intend to deal with memorable, lifelike characters.
Each voluntary move we make, throughout the day, is executed for a reason. That is not to say our motives are invariably rational, or even conscious, but they still exist. There is a world of difference between the motives of, let’s say, an Albert Schweitzer and a Jack the Ripper, but they both had reasons for behaving in the ways that made them famous. Altruistic, generous, or sick and twisted; motivations come in every color of the psychic rainbow, and you ought to be on speaking terms with all of them. Your characters may not be fully conscious of their motivation all the time, but you, as their creator, must be. If you don’t know what they’re doing, there’s no way on earth to make them do it well.
The motivation of a character may be revealed in several ways. Most common of the lot is simple exposition, in which you, the narrator, sit down and tell the reader how your people think and feel. A fair example is my introduction to Mack Bolan, incorporated by Don Pendleton in The Executioner’s War Book (Pinnacle, 1977):
Bolan’s ability to kill in cold blood indicated no lack of emotion or commitment in the man himself. If anything, Mack Bolan might be described as a purist, even an idealist, with deeply held convictions concerning the nature of good and evil. Unwilling to compromise the basic principles learned in childhood, Bolan found no need to feign embarrassment over the fundamental concepts of morality and patriotism. His choice of the military as a career was therefore natural, and his selfless dedication to the opposition of Communist aggression in Asia personally unavoidable. It was not for Bolan to delegate the defense of basic freedom to others.
In Paramilitary Plot (Gold Eagle, 1982), we get a look inside a different kind of soldier:
The memory of his Asian wars stirred mixed feelings in the colonel. It was like they said: the best and worst of times. Nam had been a new awakening for Rosky, the peak—and demise—of his career as a regular soldier. He had taken to the jungle like a duck to water, knowing that this war was what he had spent his youth in preparation for. Vietnam provided Rosky with a sense of purpose, a focus. It made him whole.
And he was good at what he did—maybe the best. His success had caused embarrassment to other less aggressive field commanders. Some of them were jealous of him, and he knew that they had plotted toward his downfall. They did so because he did his job too well. His company brought in the highest body counts, got the choicest information out of captives. They kept the gooks in line, when other companies were being overrun, kicked around like so much rabble. When the generals needed someone to salvage a snafu, they called on Rosky. In the end, when a gang of deskbound pencil-pushers pulled the plug on him to satisfy the liberal press, there was nothing left to do but kiss off eleven years of faithful service and put his skills on the open market.
In The Bone Yard (Gold Eagle, 1985), one of the protagonists is an elderly Jewish mobster whose Las Vegas territory has been gobbled up by Mafia youngbloods. By the time we meet him, he’s fed up and anxious for revenge against his enemies:
Abe B
ernstein was about to realize a dream he had been cherishing for thirty years and more. Revenge required precision planning and the father of Las Vegas had devoted three decades to winning back the empire that was rightly his. Spinoza and his kind had ruled the roost for too damn long already. It was time for them to settle up their debts.
In blood.
Another method of revealing motivation is by letting readers watch a character, observing his or her reactions and responses to a given situation. Examine Thomas Bishop, in By Reason of Insanity, as he prepares for his escape from the asylum:
Late at night in the privacy of his bed, alone in the bathroom or on the grounds, whenever he had a moment to himself, he smiled and laughed and raised his eyebrows and puckered his lips and widened his eyes and made all the gestures of friendliness and innocence and sincerity as he observed them in the attendants and on his obsession, TV. Whatever brought reward he adopted, whatever brought disapproval he discarded. In time he was thought to be improving, at least in his adaptability and social performance.
For all that he gained, however, there was an equivalent loss. He had no spontaneity, no feeling for the moment. His emotions were not tied to his body. He could smile while raging inside, he could laugh while in great pain. Sudden shifts in attitude or meaning always perplexed him and he had to be constantly on guard, ever watchful of others. He was a human robot who reacted to the emotions of others but could never act on his own feelings. In truth, he had no feelings and felt nothing. Except hatred. His hatred was monumental and encompassed virtually everything and everybody. But most of all, he hated where he was.
Description via Dialogue
Eavesdropping goes hand-in-hand with covert observation, and another way of picking a character’s brain is through dialogue. Consider the delegation of Mafia authority as portrayed by Don Pendleton in Chicago Wipeout:
“Why do you think I’m telling you all this, Turk?” the Capo asked. “And with these other two boys sitting right here listening in. Why do you think?”
Turk didn’t have to think. He knew. The thing was almost ceremonial—something pretty great was being conferred here tonight. He hesitated slightly, then replied, “I guess you’re showing us your love for this thing of ours, Gio.”
“That’s right, that’s part of it. I don’t love it this much, though, just because I’m the boss. It’s the other way around. I’m the boss because I love our thing this much. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yessir, and I appreciate the lesson, I really do.”
“Okay, don’t mention it. But think about it. You think about it, and when you’re done thinking you tell me what all this means to you.”
“I guess I can tell you right now, Gio.”
“So?”
“So it’s a damn shame you have to he a part of this dirt that’s going on, and I don’t like you being a part of it. By your leave, Don Gio, I’m taking full charge of things out here tonight. I don’t want your mind bothered with such trash. With these two boys sitting here as witnesses, I’m saying that I take full responsibility for what goes on here at this place—and all over town, for that matter. However it comes out, I’m the one made the decisions.”
In Child of Blood, I bring out a protagonist’s naiveté in his conversation with a future victim:
“How long have you been out?”
Tony thought about the question, saw no need to lie. “Since six o’clock.”
Vince giggled, leaning closer, placing one hand on his captured thigh. His touch made Tony’s flesh crawl, reminding him of Esquivel.
“No, silly. I mean how long have you been out of the closet!”
Tony hoped that his bewilderment was not too readily apparent. “I was never in the closet.”
Vince seemed impressed. “My God, I wish I’d had the courage of the youngsters coming out today. I mean, you can’t imagine what it’s like to hide your light beneath a bushel all through school. I didn’t come out of the closet until I was twenty-three.”
Convinced that he was in the presence of a madman, Tony thought it best to smile and hold his tongue.
It isn’t necessary for a character to join in dialogue, however, for the spoken words of others to illuminate his character. Let’s listen in as Dr. Frederick Chilton briefs Will Graham on the progress of an old nemesis, Hannibal (“The Cannibal”) Lecter, in Red Dragon:
“It may seem gratuitous to warn you, of all people, about Lecter. But he’s very disarming. For a year after he was brought here, he behaved perfectly and gave the appearance of cooperating with attempts at therapy. As a result—this was under the previous administrator—security around him was slightly relaxed.
“On the afternoon of July 8, 1976, he complained of chest pain. His restraints were removed in the examining room to make it easier to give him an electrocardiogram. One of his attendants left the room to smoke, and the other turned away for a second. The nurse was very quick and strong. She managed to save one of her eyes.
‘You may find this curious,” Chilton took a strip of EKG tape from a drawer and unrolled it on his desk. He traced the spiky line with his forefinger. “Here, he’s resting on the examining table. Pulse seventy-two. Here, he grabs the nurse’s head and pulls her down to him. Here, he is subdued by the attendant. He didn’t resist, by the way, though the attendant dislocated his shoulder. Do you notice the strange thing’1. His pulse never got over eighty-five. Even when he tore out her tongue.”
Interiors
If your characters aren’t speaking, chances are they’re thinking, and those thoughts can be extremely helpful in illuminating motives. Use of mental monologues, the “stream-of-consciousness” approach, can take your readers right inside the brains of heroes, heavies—anyone you choose to open up.
In Cover (Warner, 1987), author Jack Ketcham takes a look inside a veteran of Vietnam whose mind is slipping out of touch with those he loves, deserting hard-and-fast reality:
He looked at her, the wide blue eyes cast down, the mouth tight, the small thick hands busy breaking branches, snapping twigs.
She’s getting old, he thought. The brow furrows easily now.
I’m making her old.
He felt a familiar sudden access of rage and tenderness, fury and tears. He turned away.
I cry so easily these days.
Interiors can tell us more about a character than he or she is willing to confess aloud. Consider the haunting conclusion to Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring”:
This morning’s paper says a girl was killed on the New Sharon campus near the Civil War cannons. She was killed last night and found in a melting snowbank. She was not … she was not all there.
My wife is upset. She wants to know where I was last night. I can’t tell her because I don’t remember. I remember starting home from work, and I remember putting my headlights on to search my way through the lovely creeping fog, but that’s all I remember.
I’ve been thinking about that foggy night when I had a headache and walked for air and passed all the lovely shadows without shape or substance. And I’ve been thinking about the trunk of my car—such an ugly word, trunk—and wondering why in the world I should be afraid to open it.
I can hear my wife as I write this, in the next room, crying. She thinks I was with another woman last night.
And oh dear God, I think so too.
A variation on the stream-of-consciousness technique involves quotation from the diaries or correspondence of specific characters. Occasionally, as in Dracula or Stephen King’s “Survivor Type,” a story may consist of nothing else. More often, journal entries and the like are placed strategically to offer shifting points of view and new perspectives on a character—her motivation, his behavior. Good examples can be found in works like Carrie, Silent Terror, and early novels in the Executioner series.
Whatever motivations you decide on, your characters must be credible in thought, action, and ability. Unless you’re writing fantasy, your people must conform
to all the laws of nature—and of human nature—in response to daily life or extraordinary challenges. A character need not be rational, per se, but neither should he change from nerd to Rambo in the twinkling of an eye. Your basic 98-pound weakling won’t climb mountains, beat up on karate experts, or become a hero under fire, unless you’ve laid the necessary groundwork for the turn-around. A killer who despises women will need reasons for becoming suddenly infatuated with your heroine. Think twice before you have your people take a sex break in the middle of a life-and-death pursuit. Forget about those cartoon leaps from upper-story windows that have awnings down below.
I grant you, all these shoddy tricks have found their way to publication through the years, and some will doubtless be repeated in the future, by the lazy hacks who can’t be bothered with a decent story line. Your readers won’t appreciate cheap shots, believe me, and unless you’ve found yourself a publisher who gloats on trash—and pays accordingly—your editors won’t like it, either. I assume that if you’ve come this far, you have an interest in producing works of quality. ’Nuff said.
Clichés and Propaganda
A common pitfall for beginners—and for many veteran authors—is reliance on a cast of characters who are, in fact, clichés. You know the type, from shiftless blacks to red-necked southern sheriffs, virginal librarians and whores with hearts of gold. We’re talking stereotypes here, and if you’re wise, you will avoid them like the plague.
Okay. Some real-life people are clichés, but in the realm of fiction they’ve been done to death. As a beginning writer—or beginning genre writer—you are out to make your mark with something new and different. You’re also writing fiction, so you have a license to avoid the tired monotony of daily life and spice things up with some variety. Feel free to improvise. Surprise your audience, whenever possible, by putting new, unusual twists on old familiar characters. (Readers of It, by Stephen King, are 600 pages into the story before they learn a major character is black!)
How to Write Action Adventure Novels Page 10