THE BIT-PLAYERS
Often known as “incidental characters,” these are the relatively minor actors in your fictional worlds. They’re the passing suspects in mysteries, the incidental friends and co-workers and neighbors of Hero and Heroine, the waitresses and clerks and maintenance people who flesh out the cast.
You develop these to varying degrees, in accordance to their importance to your story. The more important ones should have some quirk, some bit of color or two that lift them above the dull gray level. Thus, a snuff-dipping man who repeatedly spits tobacco juice into a paper cup will be remembered, and so will a woman who wears black lipstick, or a child with a tendency to turn up in the wrong place at the wrong time in particularly irritating fashion. And that’s fine.
Do bear in mind, though, that it’s easy to become so intrigued with these bit-players that they come to dominate your story. A philosophical garbage man or a little old lady who fixes a beady eye through a cracked door on all visitors may mesh so perfectly with a clever line of dialogue that’s popped into your head that you develop them further and so find them overshadowing your more important story people. For if you devote a lot of words to a character, that character automatically becomes important, simply because your readers assume that the fact that you gave him so much attention means you saw him as important to the tale you’re telling.
What to do about it? The answer, of course, is to ask yourself, “Does this character advance the story with his cleverness or color enough to warrant inclusion of all these lines or bits of business?” If he doesn’t, cut him back!
The same principle applies to your more important story people—Hero’s or Heroine’s intimates, Villain’s henchmen, victims on one level or another. Your story, ever and always, concerns one primary figure: a protagonist whose happiness is threatened by a change. All else is incidental and must be held to proper proportion. And if you need an example, consider that great movie, Casablanca, where the love story of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman is played out against a background of action and danger and a milling host of colorful passing players. But the key word remains passing, for those characters come and go and fall by the wayside, fascinating us while they hold the stage but never taking over to the point that we lose sight of the heart of the story. Rick and his love for Ilsa remain the core.
THE CHARACTER-IN-DEPTH
A high proportion of the time, story people tend to exist on one level. Hero lives only to save Heroine from the clutches of a villain—the Batman syndrome, as it were. Hence, Hero is portrayed only in terms of the brawn and brains necessary to fulfill that function, play that role.
People really aren’t like that, of course. We each have a past, a future, family, friends, job, reputation, beliefs, interests, prejudices, and so on.
Too much of the time fictional characters are caricatures, creatures that rise little or not at all above first—that is, dominant—impressions. Which is like our relationship with many people in life. We never get above that level with them—after all, how intimately do you know your postal carrier or taxi driver? When you refer to a person as a “red-neck” or “yuppie” or “egghead,” you’re setting him up as a caricature, a stereotype.
Building a character in depth means that you go beyond this. Instead of limiting your picture of an offbeat high school boy to such punk items as his purple mohawk haircut and the safety pin through his left earlobe, you can introduce his unvoiced passion for Jean Michel Jarre’s New Age music and his tenderness towards a crippled sister and his nightmares of his drunken father vomiting on his dying mother and his secret fears that one day he’ll kill himself. You give him background, dreams, doubts, inner conflicts, and the like, until the first impression/caricature with which you started becomes an excruciatingly detailed portrait. If you do it well, you may come up with a tremendously satisfying individual.
The danger is that if you go too far with this process you may create a being of such complexity and with so many facets that you lose your story. Goal orientation may submerge in soul searching, and life’s trivia overwhelm dynamics. When that happens, a handful of intellectuals and academics may ponder and analyze your work, but it’s unlikely to attract any mass readership.
I can give you no answer to this problem. You must decide for yourself to what degree you want realism to balance against situation-oriented tension, insight against excitement. For the issue is a matter of degree. Neither extreme is going to satisfy too many readers.
THE NON-HUMAN CHARACTER
Consider the amoeba as a character. The simplest of one-celled life forms, irregular and constantly changing in shape, it has direction in the sense that it’s programmed to survive by projecting pseudo-pods to engulf its food. As an implacable, though non-malicious villain, it could do very well in a science fiction story, if only you could give it more meaningful emotion.
A number of writers have taken advantage of this kind of thinking to use animals as characters (Jack London with Call of the Wild), extraterrestrials (remember E.T.?), automata (Lester del Rey’s classic “Helen O’Loy”), and so on.
The secret to writing about these creatures beyond the human pale really involves no skills beyond those you’ve already learned. In dealing with them, the key point to remember is that, precisely because humans can understand only humans, you must somehow endow your non-humans with human attributes, human traits.
Three questions will help you build such non-human beings both effectively and with minimum waste motion:
1. What are Alien’s unique characteristics?
2. What does Alien have in common with your readers?
3. What is Alien’s purpose?
Where Question 1 is concerned, it should be obvious enough that Alien should somehow register as . . . well, alien; that is, nonhuman, as a ghost or a horse or a computer is non-human. And that is in no way a call for cliched bug-eyed monsters, either. It may be enough that your other-worldly creature can read minds or walk through walls or reproduce via parthenogenesis or spontaneous generation or breaking off segments as do some kinds of starfish.
Question 2 zeroes in on the fact that it’s essential for you to provide your alien with tags your audience can understand. Because that’s how Godzilla, and the primitive in that delightful film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and Hal the Computer from 2001, and Black Beauty, and A. E. Van Vogt’s Ptath successfully captured readers.
Or, as a science fiction artist once commented to me, “the simple way to make an alien monster acceptable to humans is to give it cocker spaniel eyes.”
Which brings us to Question 3, and the fact that sad or warmly adoring cocker spaniel eyes simply aren’t enough when you’re building an alien in fiction. In addition, it’s vital that you know Alien’s purpose, what he/she/it is trying to do. He may not be able to voice it, you understand, so long as we lack a universe of discourse between species. But when snails invade your garden or cockroaches your kitchen, you have a pretty good idea of what they’re after. Same for Greyfriars Bobby at his master’s grave, and the billion little green men who invaded Earth in Fredric Brown’s Martians, Go Home! On its own level and in its own way, each feels, and so, whether we love or hate them, we understand them.
Beyond which, projection, extrapolation, inference from established components—in a word, our old reliable rationalization—will provide you with the answer.
What’s more to the point is to make sure you frame your nonhuman character in a story world that makes his goal-striving and emotion both human and logical. Thus, E.T. is understandable, makes sense to us, because he’s stranded far from home. We know nothing about that home—nor do we need to. Homesickness is all we need. We understand it because we ourselves have felt it, so it gives us an emotional springboard from which to empathize with the little alien.
In the same way, the dog Buck in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild reacts to the harshly brutal world into which the story plunges him in a manner that fits our own emotional patte
rns. We can understand his return to the savagery of his forebears on the basis of the stimuli to which he’s subjected.
And so we end up back at the point from which we started: the importance, ever and always of emotion, feeling. It sparks well-nigh every story you read or write. Without it, your work is marked by happenstance and doomed to failure. With it, plus an understanding of basic story structure and character development, your chances for success are good.
So much for roles. But we’ve been serious about this writing business long enough. It’s time we took a break, looked at the lighter side of things, humor, and how you can create it and adapt it to your story.
We’ll explore it in the next chapter.
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THE LIGHT TOUCH
How do you make a character amusing?
You replace reader assumptions with offbeat alternatives.
How do you give a character or story a light touch? What’s the secret of “amusing”? Those are questions on which most of us have pondered at one time or another.
People do like to laugh, though. Ask Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, Bill Cosby, Art Buchwald, Daniel Pinkwater, Garrison Keillor, Anne Tyler, Roseanne Barr, or your friendly neighborhood TV gagman if you don’t believe me.
Where you as a writer are concerned, humor and its low-key cousin, the amusing, often are next to vital, and not just on account of their reader appeal. In addition, they’re useful tools for changing pace, reducing tension, adding proportion, neutralizing purple prose, and maybe even unscrewing the inscrutable.
Further, there’s a simple approach, once you understand the issues. But said understanding is important. Without it, you can grope and fumble endlessly.
The thing to remember is that the amusing character actually is a character whose roots lie in humor.
So, what is humor? How do you handle it?
Answer: Humor is first and foremost a state of mind, and said state varies drastically from individual to individual. Attitude is the issue—an attitude or character trait we call a sense of humor.
Before a character can have a sense of humor, you must. Do you view the world through slightly skewed, laugh-tinted glasses? Do you see people and events with which you come in contact as funny? Is it your habit to chuckle—perhaps involuntarily—at things others take at face value?
Fine! The fact that you react thus constitutes a good start when it comes to creating lighthearted story moods and ludicrous or pleasantly entertaining people and situations. Beyond that, once you learn humor’s underlying principles, applying them to your story people will soon be second nature.
So, forward, and forgive me if I seem to take the long way around, through cartoons and jokes and gag definitions and mirth-provoking verse en route to where we discuss the actual creation of humorous and amusing characters and situations. It’s necessary, believe me, if you’re to understand the issues.
WHAT HAPPENS IN HUMOR?
Laughter is the noise a person makes when he or she attains release from the tyranny of the “should.”
Humor is a device designed to do this releasing. It’s a trigger, a detonating cap, a mental tickle.
To make people laugh, you devise a plausible (and quite possibly ridiculous), yet unanticipated alternative for something that is or is supposed to be a certain way. Then, you call attention to this alternative in such a manner that the reader or auditor abruptly becomes aware of both its contrast with and its similarity to the norm.
In other words, implicitly or explicitly your reader anticipates one thing, then unexpectedly gets another. Yet what he gets makes sense, in its own warped way, and no damage is done, and so he laughs.
Exhibit A: A cartoon shows three ghosts in a spooky-looking attic. Two, garbed in white sheets, are talking. The third, silent and the obvious object of the discussion, wears a black sheet. Punchline: “This is Cousin Adolph, the black sheet of the family.”
Where’s the humor in it?
To find out, we need to consider four points:
1. The assumption which exists in the reader’s mind . . . the should, the expectation, the “This-is-the-way-things-like-this-are-supposed-to-be.”
2. The alternative to this assumption which the humorist offers . . . the unanticipated deviation from established pattern.
3. The applicability of the humorist’s use of the alternative . . . the element of warped plausibility which forces the reader to concede, “Yes, it might happen this way, if you grant the right premise.”
4. The abruptness with which the reader becomes aware of the alternative’s contrast to the assumed norm, the situation.
Now, applying this pattern of analysis to our ghost cartoon, what do we find?
1. Assumption: The world follows certain rules, even where ghosts are concerned. Specifically, ghosts should—are supposed to—wear white sheets.
2. Alternative: Here is a ghost who deviates from the established pattern. He wears a black sheet.
3. Applicability: The alternative is made rational, plausible, in a warped fashion by the play-on-words and play-on-ideas of the punchline.
a.) “Black sheet” is an obvious pun—a twisting of language that provides an applicable yet unanticipated alternative for the assumption that the words should add up to the familiar phrase, “black sheep.”
b.) Most of us also assume that ghosts are ghosts. That is, we take it for granted that (1.) ghosts are uniquely different from humans, and (2.) all ghosts are the same. Our cartoon, however, confronts us with a plausible yet unanticipated alternative for this idea, this stereotype: Ghosts, it in effect says, react like people; and, like people, they sit in judgment on each other.
4. Abruptness: Attention is called to the alternative approach suddenly and unexpectedly, with a punchline that brings out the point of the gag in a five-word phrase at the end of the sentence.
Exhibit B: Here we have a joke:
“Doctor, I’m worried,” says the patient to his psychiatrist. “I’m always talking to myself.”
“Is that really so bad?” the psychiatrist probes. “Lots of people do that.”
“Yes, Doctor, I know,” responds the patient. “But I’m such a bore.”
1. Assumption: That the act of talking is what’s bothering the patient.
2. Alternative: The content of the talking actually is the issue.
3. Applicability: Much as we may hate to admit it, all of us have been bored with ourselves, at one time or another. So the patient’s statement does make sense, even though it’s so far out as to reduce logic to absurdity.
4. Abruptness: The very last word in the story is the stinger!
Exhibit C: A gag definition:
“Sympathy is what one girl gives another in exchange for details.”
1. Assumption: Kindness and concern are supposed to be the key motives for sympathy.
2. Alternative: In actuality, avidity for scandal and a desire to gloat over the other fellow’s troubles frequently serve as our point of focus.
3. Applicability: The truth of the alternative, and the wry, cold-turkey frankness with which it is set against the politely platitudinous stereotype, are obvious.
4. Abruptness: Again, the arrangement of the line is such that the punch comes at the very end. And the word “details” captures the exact nuances of both connotation and denotation beautifully.
Exhibit D: Let’s look at a familiar fragment of humorous verse:
See the happy moron;
He doesn’t give a damn.
I wish I were a moron—
My God! Perhaps I am!
1. Assumption: Mental deficiency is something that afflicts somebody else.
2. Alternative: It just might be that we’re not as sharp as we think we are.
3. Applicability: Haven’t we all some time or other given lip service to how fortunate the stupid are, in their alleged freedom from responsibility and worry?
4. Abruptness: Rhyme and timing put the punch where it belongs—cleverly phrased,
at the end of the verse.
Now few writers deal with such rigidly structured forms as those set forth above. But we all may very well make use of the same principles in giving our copy an occasional light touch.
For example, consider this line from Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare:
“Mr. President,” said Susan Exbridge, “I would like to make a proposal. The Singing Society will present Handel’s Messiah at the Old Stone Church on November twenty-fourth, exactly as it was performed in period costume. We had planned a reception for the performers afterward, and this museum would be a marvelous place to have it, if Mr. Qwilleran would consent.”
“Okay with me,” said Qwilleran, “provided I don’t have to wear satin knee breeches.”
1. Assumption: A straight statement/question will get a straight answer.
2. Alternative: The person responding may take the statement/question lightly—as when Qwilleran tacks on the facetious bit, “provided I don’t have to wear satin knee breeches.”
3. Applicability: The satin knee breeches line is perfect counterpoint to Susan Exbridge’s statement “exactly as it was performed in period costume.”
4. Abruptness: The stinger phrase appears at the end of the sentence, where it will jolt the reader most.
Here’s another case in point, from Sharyn McCrumb’s Paying the Piper. Describing her boyfriend, the viewpoint character says:
“. . . Cameron’s heart is not in the Highlands; it is probably not attached to his brain; it may even be in a jar of formaldehyde in an Edinburgh University biology lab.”
The Robert Burns line about “My heart’s in the Highlands” is used as a jumping-off point for reversal, exaggeration, incongruity, and unanticipated manipulation of words. Yet the result is plausible enough, applicable enough, when viewed in the right light—which is to say, the proper mood of openness to fun via drollery.
Creating Characters: How to Build Story People Page 13