Part 4 (2/2)

”You look like a teacher,” Lenny said.

”I'm not just a teacher,” she told him. She was annoyed.

”Okay. You're a writer. And you're bad. You're one of those bad girls from Beverly Hills. I've had my eye on you,” Lenny said.

She didn't say anything. He was wearing blue jeans, a black leather jacket zipped to his throat, a long red wool scarf around his neck, and a Dodgers baseball cap. It was too hot a day for the leather jacket and scarf. She didn't find that detail significant. It caught her attention, she touched it briefly and then let it go. She looked but did not see. They were standing on a curb. The meeting was in a community room across the boulevard. She wasn't afraid yet.

”You do drugs? What do you do? Drink too much?” he asked.

The narrator and Lenny come from different worlds. We find out how different as the story goes on. Lenny is invading her world just as Henry Higgins invaded Eliza's and Blanche DuBois invaded Stanley's-with different intent, of course. The reader senses the difference early from the clothes they are wearing, from the woman's fear and need to be polite, and Lenny's impolite, aggressive questioning and a.s.sumptions.

The process of identifying different worlds for the reader can be accomplished quickly through markers, easily identified signals that to the majority of readers will reveal a character's cultural and social background. Clothing, as we've seen, is a useful marker. A woman in a tailored suit suggests formality. Would we expect to see that woman walking in the street with a man wearing a totally sleeveless ”muscle” s.h.i.+rt or a cap with a slogan on it? The reader a.s.sumes they are not together because they have the appurtenances of widely different backgrounds. But if they are walking arm in arm, what is the reader to think or feel?

Today, people of every background seem to wear jeans. But if a man wears designer jeans with a pressed crease do we a.s.sume he's just come off his job at a construction site? Suppose the reader sees someone on a construction site who is wearing designer jeans with a pressed crease, what does the reader think? He thinks phony. Phoniness can be useful to a writer.

While no marker is an absolute designation of background or cla.s.s (there are exceptions to almost all of them), the reader will feel a reaction to the markers. For instance, if we are in a courtroom where a young man is being charged with a criminal offense, what do we expect to see? We expect that his lawyer will have made him get dressed up, often with a suit and tie. If in that courtroom that same young man is dressed in his usual cut-off blue jeans, dirty sneakers, and a T-s.h.i.+rt with an obscene slogan, what would we think? That his lawyer had neglected to do his job? What would the judge think? Surely the judge knows that lawyers dress up their clients. Will the judge think that the lawyer or client is showing contempt for the dignity of the court? The reaction to clothing is often a reaction to the surroundings in which the clothing is worn. Keep that in mind when you're describing a character in a specific scene.

When in fiction, theater, and film the writer brings together people of differing social and cultural backgrounds, he needs to step back to watch the inherent drama of differences explode. Differences a.s.sume opposition. That's what makes writing dramatic. If dealing with social and cultural differences makes the writer uneasy, that's good. Emotion-inciting material is the most desirable kind. If social and cultural differences between characters excite emotion, the tension of any story will surely increase.

Many aspects of cultural cla.s.s distinction have been used in fiction. Some characteristics that once denoted upper and lower cla.s.ses have diffused in time.

In countries with diverse cultures like the United States, regional differences sometimes become more apparent than cla.s.s distinctions. Generational differences also produce changes. For instance, while a conspicuous tattoo still suggests ”lower cla.s.s” to the reader, and the larger the tattoo the lower the cla.s.s, in recent years some young people of all cla.s.ses have had themselves tattooed with small objects such as a heart, a rose, or a b.u.t.terfly.

Though the characteristics that once connoted ”lower cla.s.s” and ”upper cla.s.s” to readers are no longer absolutes, they still work as markers in which readers find connotations and a.s.sociations. Those markers continue to be invaluable to the writer.

Let's look at some common markers, some of which have been overused: Hair worn in curlers under a head scarf in public usually connotes ”lower cla.s.s” to readers.

For a woman, fingernails the size of animal claws and garish nail polish used to make a statement about cla.s.s. Clawlike fingernails and excessive rouge continue to suggest unsophisticated artifice, which can be useful to a writer. Black under the fingernails of a man dressed up to go out might be a marker of a person who does dirty work with his hands and never quite gets them clean. The writer doesn't have to say what I've just said. All he has to show the reader are the fingernails; they are effective markers.

Public conduct with children is an immediate marker. A woman walking with a ”dressed-up” child connotes one thing. A woman screaming at her children in the supermarket suggests another.

What does the incessant chewing of gum suggest about a character? What would an ankle bracelet convey to a reader about a character? What about a man wearing multiple large rings, or a diamond ring?

Mannerisms can be important markers. How does the reader react to a male character who publicly picks his nose, scratches under his arms and in his crotch? Would the reader instantly a.s.sume that the character is couth or uncouth?

Even the transportation used by a character can be a marker. If a reader knew nothing about a character except that he owned a pickup truck, a motorcycle, and a souped-up car with oversize tires and a noisy m.u.f.fler, what would the reader think about that character's background?

Food, drink, and the places they are consumed are markers. If the reader knows a character drinks popular brands of American beer, rye whiskey, and chilled red wine, what does the reader guess about the character's background? If the character drinks Scotch, Perrier, and martinis straight up, does the reader have a different view? Of course. These markers are useful. Fizzy wine or coolers would not be the choice of people with educated palates. Nor would you be likely to find people with educated palates on line in a fast-food take-out joint. Conversely, a construction worker, even if dressed in his Sunday best, is likely to feel mighty uncomfortable in one of Manhattan's posh East Side restaurants, where all the waiters are dressed in black tie and the menu is in French.

If your character brought his mouth down to his food rather than his food up to his mouth, the reader would likely draw an instant a.s.sumption about his upbringing. However, some distinctions in eating habits are poor markers because they are too complex to describe succinctly. For instance, the British use a fork in the left hand and a knife in the right. The left hand brings the cut food to the mouth. Americans keep switching hands and bring food to the mouth with the right hand. Distinctions of that sort are not good markers for the writer because they require too much description and readers might still not get the point without the author telling them explicitly. A marker should convey its point instantly.

Perhaps the most frequently used marker is found in the vocabulary and expressions of a character's dialogue. If a character uses words like ”ostensibly,” ”exacerbate,” ”primordial” correctly, and with ease, what would you, as a reader, think about them? That vocabulary is indicative of someone who is well educated. But it could also reflect a pompous person. One of the most common vocabulary markers is heard on television when a police officer talks about a ”perpetrator.”

In most of my novels I have at least one character with an accent, a distinguis.h.i.+ng marker. In The Best Revenge at least three characters have accent markers that differ noticeably from each other. Many politicians speak in incomplete sentences peppered with cliches. Street people use four-letter words and vulgar expressions. All of these markers characterize quickly.

The content of a character's speech can also generate markers. If a character displays knowledge of what went on in previous centuries, is interested in international issues, reads books and appreciates them as physical objects, and votes regularly as a matter of principle, what will the reader think about his or her background? Markers provide the writer with an opportunity to show the character's background instead of telling the reader about it.

Att.i.tudes can also be used as markers: Arthur came to New York expecting to be insulted or mugged by every pa.s.serby.

An inexperienced att.i.tude toward travel can be an important marker, for instance, a preference for group tours, being intimidated by foreign languages and customs, or buying up ma.s.s-produced souvenirs. However, be wary of cliche markers such as an American tourist abroad in search of a restaurant that serves hamburgers.

I have a strong preference for action markers, that is sentences that describe what a character does and at the same time reveal something about the character's upbringing or background: Every time Zelda ate in a restaurant, she found some reason to send food back to the kitchen.

As usual, Angelica let her food get cold because she was busy watching everyone else in the restaurant.

We have just seen three quite different instant characterizations in the same location, a restaurant.

I have sometimes found that even accomplished writers neglect to ask themselves some fundamental questions about their important characters that could provide useful markers. For instance, what trait inherited by the protagonist has most influenced his adult life? What custom of the protagonist's family still haunts his life? Which personal habit has he tried to break, unsuccessfully, for years? What family tradition has had the most positive influence on the protagonist? What is the single most important factor in the villain's upbringing that contributed to his reprehensible conduct?

If you are presently writing a novel, have you examined it to see if there are some social or cla.s.s differences between your two most important characters? How do those differences influence the story? If you have neglected such differences, how might you bolster your story by adding some social and cultural differences that arouse emotion?

And now that you're mastering the creation of characters, it's time to ask, ”How do you plot that story?”

We are driven through life by our needs and wants. So must the characters we create be motivated by what they want. The driving force of characters is their desire.

Inexperienced writers, sometimes ill read in the great works of their own and previous times, often try to write novels with a relatively pa.s.sive protagonist who wants little or has largely given up wanting. I have met more than one writer who says that his character doesn't want anything-he just wants to ”live his life.” That always brings to mind something Kurt Vonnegut said: ”When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away even if it's only a gla.s.s of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.”

The most interesting stories involve characters who want something badly. In Kafka's The Trial, Joseph K. wants to know why he is being arrested, why he is being tried, what he is guilty of. In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the central character constructs his life with the sole object of reuniting with Daisy, the woman he loves. In Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary, her head full of romantic notions, wants to escape the dreariness of her husband and her life. If your character doesn't want anything badly enough, readers will have a hard time rooting for him to attain his goal, which is what compels readers to continue reading. The more urgent the want, the greater the reader's interest. A far future want does not set the reader's pulse going the way an immediate want does. The want can be negative, wanting something not to happen, as in Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, in which the reader hopes that de Gaulle will escape the a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet.

In the chapter on characterization, I suggested that some of the most memorable characters in fiction were eccentric. To carry the point a step further, I suggest relating the character's deepest desire to the character's fundamental difference from other characters, especially the character of the antagonist.

Which brings us to the essence of plotting: putting the protagonist's desire and the antagonist's desire into sharp conflict. If the conflict isn't sharp, the tension will be lax. One way to plan is to think of what would most thwart your protagonist's want, then give the power to thwart that want to the antagonist. And be certain there is a two-way urgency: your protagonist wants a particular, important desire fulfilled as soon as possible, and the antagonist wants to wreck the chance of that happening, also as soon as possible.

Those are the three keys: the want and the opposition to the want need to be important, necessary, and urgent. The result should be the kind of conflict that interests readers.

A word of caution: these plotting guidelines are basic and to some degree simplistic. They are intended to provide the writer with the easiest route to publication. The well-read writer will be familiar with complex plots that deviate from the norm. What they do not deviate from is the fierce desire of the protagonist and the conflict engendered by obstacles.

The essence of dramatic conflict lies in the clash of wants. You need to be certain that the conflicting wants are connected significantly and are over something that the reader will view as important. For instance, if the hero wants to preserve his valuable stamp collection and the villain has stolen it and intends to sell the items in it piecemeal to conceal his theft, their wants are clearly on a collision course. However, ask yourself, does the reader care enough about the stamp collection? If the stamp collection belonged to President Franklin Roosevelt, an avid stamp collector, the theft of that collection could have interfered with matters of state until it was resolved. The reader will care about the stamp collection to the degree that he cares about the protagonist and what the protagonist loves. That's one of the reasons why the best plots develop out of character.

It is easier for the reader to identify with a want that is close to universal and not too specialized (a stamp collection is relatively specialized). The wants that interest a majority of readers include gaining or losing a love, achieving a lifetime ambition, seeing that justice is done, saving a life, seeking revenge, and accomplis.h.i.+ng a task that at first seemed impossible.

In transient fiction (sometimes called ”commercial” or ”popular” fiction), the wants are less personal and often more melodramatic. Events happen rather than grow out of character. Though my personal preference is for literary fiction, I have worked with a number of highly successful professional bestselling novelists who didn't seem to care whether their characters were remembered years later. They mastered craft; their storytelling was suspenseful and compelling for large numbers of readers. The wants of their characters tended to be different from those in literary fiction. For them and other writers of popular fiction, the following wants were paramount: * Defeating the plans of a national enemy.

* Blocking an a.s.sa.s.sin out to kill an important person.

* Rescuing someone close to the hero.

* Solving an important crime.

The clash between your characters can be based on almost anything as long as it is involved with their desires. The most common causes of a clash are money, love, and power. Power connotes control, usually over other human beings. Therefore, in a community of two people, if one has power, the other doesn't have it. Some of the most interesting plots involve a character who has power in one arena up against a character who has power in another arena, and both characters are caught in the same crucible. (We will deal with the crucible in its own chapter.) When planning your story, it is important to remember that small clashes result in stories that seem relatively trivial. Larger clashes resonate for the reader. Ask yourself these questions: Does the conflict you are working on lead to profound unhappiness, injury, or death? Or is the conflict over an object that is exceedingly valuable to the main character? Is the conflict over an important life decision-to move far away, to change one's career, to leave for another partner, to follow a hazardous opportunity, to avoid intolerable circ.u.mstances?

Ask yourself, will the clash between your protagonist and your antagonist seem inevitable to the reader? Have you avoided coincidence as the cause of their clash? Will the clash take place in a highly visible environment so that the reader will see the action?

If you have some concern about the intensity of your plot, ask yourself, Does the conflict you've invented involve the best possible thing that could happen to your protagonist? Is what happens a surprise to anyone? Can you make it surprising by setting up an action and then showing the opposite of what your reader is likely to expect?

Would the conflict you have described result in a verbal or physical struggle? Would that struggle call for strong scenes in which your characters clash in an exciting way? Remember your book is told in scenes each one of which should produce an excited reaction in the reader.

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