Immediate Fiction

by Jerry Cleaver

  Now, I've given you an extreme situation (gun in the ribs) to make sure you'd have an emotion. In this kind of experience, the emotions, thoughts, and physical responses happen so fast that they feel simultaneous. Nevertheless, the thought is first. Something has to register in the mind. You have to recognize what's happening and evaluate it

  before you get frightened. In fiction, we slow it down and take it step-by-step to capture the feel (the truth) of the experience.

  SOME THOUGHTS ON THOUGHT

  Before we get into the nature of emotional thoughts, I want to examine the role that thought, the internal workings of the characters mind, plays in story. Thought occupies an especially important place in the written story because the written story is the only story form that portrays the mind well. The written story can portray the mind exactly as it happens, word for word, moment by moment, in the character. That can't be done on the screen or on the stage. Those forms have their virtues, but the characters have to speak their minds if we're going to experience them at all. Stage plays used to use asides and soliloquies (the character addressing his thoughts to the audience). Movies use voice-over once in a while, but a little bit of it goes a long way, and it usually seems artificial or comic (often unintentionally) or melodramatic.

  In the movie Aljie it was done for comic effect. Alfie turned and addressed the audience directly. It was clever, charming, and funny and worked well. The old Bogart detective movies used it and got away with it in their day, but by today's standards it seems stilted. The classic movie Sunset Boulevard had a fair amount of voice-over narration, although a case might be made that it succeeded in spite of rather than because of it. More recently, the movie American Beauty used it well. Maybe moviemakers will find a way to use more of it and use it effectively. Whether they do or not, it won't change things for the written story.

  Since we can move freely about the landscape of the mind and since the mind is a major part of the experience, it's an expected and

  necessary part of the written story. The doorway to the mind is always open in the written story. Since we can go inside, we must go inside. If we don't, it will always feel as if something is missing.

  Without the mind, we don't get much from the following:

  "Hey, Uncle Harry. How are you?" I said.

  "Fine," Harry said.

  "You look great," I said.

  "Thanks. How are you?" Harry said, extending his hand.

  "I'm good," I said, shaking his hand. "Good to see you, Harry. Listen, I've got to make a call. Be back in a bit."

  Now let's try it with the mind:

  Good Lord, Uncle Harry's here. Why didn't someone tell me? Damn, here he comes. "Hey, Uncle Harry. How are you?" Look at that alcoholic flush and that booze nose.

  "Fine," Harry said.

  "You look great," I said. Wrinkled clothes. Matted hair. He doesn't look very clean either.

  "Thanks. How are you?" Harry said, extending his hand.

  Christ, now I have to touch him. "I'm good." His hand is mushy and slimy. Who knows where it's been? "Good to see you, Harry. Listen, I've got to make a call. Be back in a bit." Keep this hand away from everything until I can wash it. Where's the bathroom in this place?

  Could the reader possibly have any idea what was going on with the character without his thoughts? The character can be having wild, frantic thoughts while acting perfectly calm in the presence of someone else, and we have no problem portraying both happening together. Another reason the mind can reach a level of intimacy beyond that

  on film or stage lies in the nature of the mind itself. In the written story, we can explore what E. M. Forster called "the secret life" of the character. The secret life is the private thoughts the character will tell no one. Such thoughts can be enormously revealing, since we seldom speak exactly what's on our mind or in our hearts. What the character thinks as it relates to what he says and does is a critical part of who he is.

  He loved her, but at times she disgusted him—for no reason. And sometimes he disgusted himself. Was it him? Or was it just the way life was sometimes—disgusting? Familiarity bred contempt. But how much and how often? Maybe he should see a shrink. How did you pick a shrink? He wasn't asking his friends. They'd think he was nuts. Maybe he was, but he didn't want them knowing.

  That's one level of the mind. There's another. That level is the part of the character that the character doesn't want to reveal even to himself, the part of himself he tries to avoid, tries to keep secret even from himself and wishes he could forget.

  A character who trampled an old woman's prize rosebush to death might later in life feel the following:

  Oh, God. Why did I do that? No reason. Cruelty. Plain cruelty. What a bastard. What a lousy bastard I am. What was wrong with me? But I've made up for it. But not to her. Too late for that. Christ, forget it. Quit punishing yourself. How long do you have to atone for something?

  So, in the written story, we can go to this deepest level without any concerns about how to make it real. It exists as language, so we can portray it exactly as it occurs in reality.

  Our ability to reach such a level of intimacy in this way with the written story is why a good novel will always be lacking on the screen. The exception is when a weak book is translated into a strong screenplay. Midnight Cowboy is an example.

  All great stories involve the internal conflict of the character—the struggle in his mind with himself. This conflict is a way of expressing the relationship the character has with himself—how he feels about himself and how he manages himself. We're all of more than one mind. In a sense, we're more than one person, since different aspects of ourselves can be pulling against each other while we're trying to hold things together and function. That's part of what goes on whenever we're facing a crisis. And all stories are about crisis.

  But all stories and all writers aren't great. Writers use the mind to different degrees. There are some excellent writers/storytellers, not great, but damn good, who don't go into the mind so much. They never reach the complexity of character that's possible by getting into the mind, but they give us enough. Since his thoughts are not revealed, the character has to speak, or express in some other way, what he's feeling. We need to know what's going on with the character emotionally, or we can't relate or identify. Literary novels tend to be more internal. Action-adventure novels tend to be less internal. The literary mystery is one that is much more internal than the run-of-the-mill whodunit.

  Pay attention to this when you read. Almost always, you feel the strongest connection to the character when you're deeply into his thoughts. Creating the workings of the character's mind is the most difficult part of storytelling. It's the most demanding, but it's also the most rewarding. The more deeply you go into the character, the more deeply you must go into yourself. As in life, the most difficult part is often the most fulfilling.

  THE EMOTION-THOUGHT CONNECTION

  So, what's the nature of an emotional thought? What might be going on in your mind with that gun in your ribs? Anger? If you wrote, "He was angry," would that give you a real sense of the character and how he experienced anger? The word anger is a label, not an expression of an emotion. How about: This bastard. This rotten bastard. Just one chance. Give me one chance, and I'll take that gun and pistol-whip him to death. Those are angry thoughts, yet the word angry or anger isn't used once. Also, the character has no reason to tell himself he's angry. I'm angry, wouldn't help. That doesn't mean there might not be a case in which a character might think, This guy is making me angry. But that's a certain kind of self-consciousness that isn't there in most people. And even if the character has this thought, you still have to go on and give us his angry thoughts if we're going to experience the full extent of his anger.

  How about fear? How might it express itself? Well, let's try it. See what kind of fearful thoughts you can come up with. Before you read the next paragraph, make a list of all the fearful thoughts that a person might have in such a situation. If t
he complete thoughts come to you, put them down. If not, make a list of all the things a person could have fears about, then translate each one into an actual thought that could run through someone's mind.

  How did it go? It's tricky at first. It takes a while—a little time and practice, but remember: It's already there. It's in you already. It's just a matter of getting to it. The important thing at this point is that you know where to put your efforts so that you're progressing and not spinning your wheels or chasing your tail.

  So, what kind of fears might someone have in this situation? Someone with a new family might fear for his loved ones. There are

  an endless number of ways for that fear to express itself in thought. Here's one way: Oh, no, I'm going to die. Lord no. I'm not ready. I can't go yet. I barely got started. What about my -wife and baby ? Who'll take care of them? That's seven sentences, but it could pass through someone's mind in an instant. And it's a long way from saying, "He was scared," or "His heart started pounding." One of those statements is general, and one is physical and thus generic by nature. The thought is an actual expression of an individual person's specific fear.

  After the fear, something like this might follow: Calm down. Calm down. Get hold of yourself. You've got to get out of this. There has to be a way. Now that's the internal struggle I talked about earlier, and it's expressing another emotion, hope—the hope that you might get out of this alive.

  These thoughts are all pretty sensible and appropriate, but emotion, by definition, is not rational. In a desperate situation we're not usually sensible or logical. If he kills me, I'll miss ER tonight might pass through your mind. Your emotions have a mind of their own. In fact, we might say, your mind has a mind (or minds) of its own. So, My cat will starve if he kills me might pass through your mind even though it's not the most sensible thing to be concerned about at the moment.

  Or how about: Please, God, get me out of this alive, and I promise I'll never screw my secretary again. I'll be loyal to my wife till the day I die. Now we're into something else—praying, crying out for help (still in the mind). I myself am not particularly religious, but when I'm in a serious jam, I'm not above thinking, I don't know if there's anybody up there, but if there is, I'd really appreciate some help right now. And if you have even less religious belief than that, you might think, If I get out of this, I'm going to give a thousand dollars to help the homeless, hoping to enlist the aid of any power greater than yourself that might happen to be lurking in the area—or you might just make a kind of magical deal with yourself (promise to be a more decent person) in the hope it will

  affect the outcome of things. When we're desperate, we try anything. And fiction is about people who are desperate, driven, in crisis.

  I've put together a list of some kinds of emotional thoughts someone might have in this situation. It's by no means complete. You will become aware of more as you write. The character's thoughts and emotions are what you will spend the most time trying to figure out. I'll give you my list, then a simple technique to help you find the emotion in the character. Here's my list of the kinds of things we do in our heads when we're upset.

  Disassociate: Thinking of something totally unrelated in order to protect yourself from pain. If I die, I won't get to eat lobster ever again. We're all capable of this. Disassociation is what severely abused children do when they develop multiple personalities. They become another person in their mind to avoid feeling the torture.

  Deny: It's OK. He only wants my money. He doesn't want to hurt me.

  Face It: This is the opposite of denial. More like rubbing your nose in it. He only wants your money. Don't be stupid. You saw his face. You can identify him. Now he has to blow your brains out for sure.

  Negotiate: Beg, pray to, plead with God or other powers. Make deals with, promises to, yourself.

  Displace: Look at what the world's come to since the Republicans (or Democrats) took over.

  How about something like this: Ah, now you did it. You knew you shouldn't park here this morning. But you were in such a hurry to get your fancy coffee and too damn lazy to walk an extra block. See what it got you? He should shoot you. You deserve it. So, not only are you in a jam, but you PUNISH yourself for being there. This is the kind of thing I get into myself, since I'm from a strict Protestant background. My parents were not religious and never went to church, but their parents were strict Methodists and Baptists, guilt was the main ingredient in their brand of religion and their upbringing, and it was passed on to me. Everything that happens to you is your fault, they believed. I tell you this so you can see how your own personal traits or quirks can serve you in creating characters. John le Carre, author of many novels {The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, for one), said that every character he created was a dimension of himself. That has to be true in a sense for all of us, since all we have is ourselves and what's inside of us.

  Think Positively: This will be good for me. It'll make me stronger. This was the philosopher Nietzsche's creed: "That which does not destroy me makes me stronger."

  Question: Why is this happening? What does this mean? What am I going to do? How can I get out of this?

  What makes a thought emotional? It can be the words themselves, such as, Help! Save me. I'm too young to die. Or a thought can be emotional because of the situation. If I'm sitting in a theater at the end of a movie and I think, It's over, that's not an especially emotional statement. But if when the robber sticks the gun in my ribs, I think, It's over, that's an emotional thought. So, you're not necessarily looking for emotionally charged words; everyday objective words that express emotion in a particular situation can be enough. And often if you just concentrate on what the character would be thinking in such a situation, it will lead you where you need to go.

  Planning: A lot of thinking in crisis is about what to do to protect yourself and to escape without injury (psychological injury, most of

  ten) and what to do if you fail: What should I do if he raises the gun to my head? or What'll I do if my wife leaves me? Who'll get the house? Lord, I couldn't stand to date again, or What should I do to keep from getting fired? Who'll hire me at my age? The mind is a dramatic place. A lot of action (planning an attack or a defense) takes place before we act outwardly. I've given you a short list of some of the kinds of thoughts we have in emotional situations. Now that you're aware of them, you can work on your own list.

  Reaching the inner workings of your character, the secret life, is a lifetime process. It's important to realize that, just as in life, emotion is the hardest and trickiest part. So, if you're having trouble with it— and you will—don't panic. It's the part of your story that tends to come last, the part you will have the least of in early drafts. You will know that your character is having a big emotion at a particular moment, and you will have some sense of what it is, but you will not be able to pin it down. When that happens, when you can't reach it, don't fret. Just be aware of the kind of thing that's needed and move on. The next time around you'll get more of it. Each draft will give you more, and you'll piece it together bit by bit. It's the trickiest and most elusive ingredient of all, but it's the most rewarding. When you deepen the connection to your character, you deepen your connection to yourself.

  WORRIES, FEARS, HOPES

  I've devised a simple, direct method for helping you find out what's going on inside the character. With this technique, you go through your story and ask, every place it could possibly apply, "What are the character's worries, fears, and hopes?" There should be plenty of places where emotions are kicking up—on every page and in every

  scene. Stories are about conflict, about threat. If something of great value to you is truly threatened, you have to be worried and fearful that you will lose it while at the same time hopeful that you will be able to save it. These worries, fears, and hopes will be running through your mind until the problem is resolved.

  If your boss calls you in and says that if you don't improve your work, he'll have to let you go, yo
u're worried and afraid you'll get fired, but hoping that you can work overtime for a while and save your job. Romeo wants Juliet, but he is worried and frightened that their marriage will be discovered and he'll lose her before they can escape. He hopes, with all his heart, that they will succeed and be united. In the parking lot stickup, you would be afraid you'll be killed, but hoping that you'll come out of it alive. If the character isn't worried and afraid, you don't have a dramatic conflict, and your story will flop. If your character doesn't care, the reader won't care. The reader cannot care more than the character.

  Fantasies are a kind of hope and can be especially revealing of the character. Some characters have elaborate fantasies, while others have few. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber is a classic story of someone who lives in fantasy. It's a famous story. If you haven't read it, you should. We all indulge in fantasies. Thinking about what we'd do if we won the lottery is probably one of the most common. In the case of someone whose job is threatened by an abusive, fault-finding boss, the character could dream of what he'd do if his rotten boss worked for him.

  HOW MANY?

  Who's a more complicated character, Dan Quayle or Lyndon Johnson? The answer is obviously Johnson. What was it that made John-

  Bon complicated? Can you guess? It's related to emotion. Quayle is seen as rather shallow and bungling. He's pretty much a one-note personality. Johnson, on the other hand, was a symphony of contradiction. He was capable of enormous generosity and great viciousness at the same time. That's why we think of him as complicated. A complicated character is one who embodies many different, often opposing, qualities at one time. Which brings us to an important issue for creating character in story.