Character: The Dark Side of Heroic

Raskolnikov, Holden Caulfield, Winston Smith, MacBeth, Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan and Tom Ripley. What do these fictional characters all have in common?

They are all protagonists, but fail to fit into the category of the archetypal hero due to their imperfections, their lack of positive qualities or having qualities that normally belong to villains. This kind of protagonist has populated literature for hundreds of years, and has spread to movies and television. He is the antihero.

Not the tragic hero who possesses one major flaw but is still heroic.  An antihero’s flaws overpower and dominate his heroic qualities.  Nor is he a Byronic hero who is simply rebellious, a sympathetic figure who rejects virtue but could be redeemed.

Antiheroes tend to lack the self-awareness they’d need to redeem themselves.  And no one else can redeem them either. They frequently perceive the rest of the world as wrong, suffer from grandiosity and narcissism, but are lovable and sympathetic.  They want to do good, but their definition of good may be skewed more in the area of bad. For example, they believe the ends justify the means in the pursuit of some honorable goal, including breaking the law in myriad ways — murder and mayhem.  Hannibal Lecter offers a good example of this: he has a specific moral code that he defends and protects. His moral code, however, is not the one most people live by, so people are always running afoul of his code. His solution is to kill them. If people would just honor his moral code, the world would be a much better place…for Hannibal, of course.

Antiheroes fascinate me. I love them. My favorites right now are Tom Ripley and Dexter Morgan. They are villains who are the heroes of their stories. Completely human and sympathetic, they charm through their flaws, and with each the reader glimpses the psychological pain that contributed to the formation of their personalities.

When I began writing Perceval, I wanted to explore the effects of psychological trauma in childhood on personality, behavior and how such a character perceives the world and his reality. The deeper I dug into the story, the more I realized that my protagonist also needed to confront the reality of the trauma he had experienced. My research convinced me that unlike most antiheroes, mine could have a conscience that he developed from his early experiences with a positive influence, a man who countered the force of the trauma in some way. This pseudo-conscience also makes him sympathetic and “good.”

I see now how my imagination was gradually steering me toward first a sequel to the first book and then to creating a series of five novels to encompass this protagonist’s journey and his struggle with the choices he does and doesn’t make. When I discovered Dexter Morgan and Jeff Lindsay’s novels through the television show, I realized that my protagonist too has an awareness, however different, about human emotions, how they affect behavior, where he is lacking, where he fakes it, and where he truly connects with his emotional being.

A quote by the psychologist Carl Jung has also influenced my work on Perceval’s story and character creation and development.  Jung said, “Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other.” A desire for power, i.e. external power, or power over someone or something, makes real love impossible but not neediness, or the narcissistic need for love and approval. Characters who give only to benefit themselves are examples of this. As are antiheroes.

I know now that the questions that drive my thinking and work on the Perceval novels are: will my protagonist redeem himself?  How? I don’t know.  I write for the answer…..

For a list of antiheroes in literature, movies and television, check out this Wikipedia page.

 

Creating Character and Inclusionary Writing

A writer faces the challenge of creating memorable, authentic characters every time she starts a new story or novel. Debates abound about how much physical description to include, from whose point of view, and the advantages of not including physical description which gives the reader’s imagination the task. Lynn Capehart, in her article for the October 2010 The Writer, “The importance of Inclusionary Writing,” reveals how some white writers inadvertently support racism by the way they describe non-white characters.

Capehart points out that white writers tend to label non-white characters, allowing the labels to serve as physical description by calling to mind a stereotype that goes with the label. In contrast, they describe white characters carefully and with nuance. What Capehart would like to see in all writing is the same kind of care and nuance used in describing all characters, white and non-white.  “Whether characters are constructed with more or less detail should be a function of their worth and weight on the page, not race,” Capehart wrote. I agree, and this needs to be applied to all writers, not only white writers.

Unfortunately, racism continues to live in American society despite progress in civil rights, the fight for equality and acceptance over the last 50 years, and our current President. Women also continue to endure sexism in American society despite progress in their fight for equality and acceptance as individuals. Society influences the writers who live in it, so I think American writers need to be especially vigilant. Fictional characters need to be seen as individual human beings by readers, and it is the challenge of writers to create them as unique individuals.

In imagining the world of the summer of 2048 for Perceval, I originally saw a dystopian America as having reverted back to racist ways. The primary location of the novel is Vienna, Austria, which in my experience has always been an international city, cosmopolitan, but also with a history of anti-Semitism. I had thought that I’d created my characters with care and as unique individuals until I read Capehart’s article. Now I want to read through the novel and pay special attention to the way I describe or don’t describe my characters.

The point of view of a character reveals his character to the reader.  Most of the novel is third person with a focus on Evan Quinn, the main character. Showing a character’s beliefs and attitudes should not necessarily be confused with what the writer believes. The trick is to see the character as an individual with his own beliefs and attitudes separate from the writer, and for the writer also to not impose his beliefs and attitudes on him. This is probably one of the most difficult aspects of character creation and takes time and many, many drafts to master. Evan has been influenced by American society from his birth in 2013 until the reader meets him in the novel. His parents influenced him, his friends, teachers, and the circumstances of his life influenced him.  How he thinks and behaves reflects all these influences as well as his desires and needs and his life experiences. So, creating a character is not only the character’s physical appearance, but also his thinking, his actions, his experiences and knowledge.

Recently, a prologue for Perceval came to me unbidden and with such force and vivid completeness in my mind, I realized that my imagination was signaling me that we needed to do another rewrite of the novel. I plan to expand the title, add the prologue and then review each chapter with an eye to character creation and description, as well as location and time. My writing work and my reading the last three years has added to my knowledge and experience, which I can now use in my work on the Perceval series.….

 

 

Author! Author!

Are you an author or a writer?

The other night I attended a book-signing and reading given by Lois McMaster Bujold at a local Barnes & Noble.  I’ve not yet read a word she’s written but many friends rhapsodize to me about her novels.  So, I was curious.

Book-signings are now an important and expected part of The Writing Life for published writers. Bujold lives in the Twin Cities and described her relief to be home again after a book tour on the west coast.  She described herself as being a “writer” not an “author.”  She smiled and went on to define those terms for the overflow crowd.  A “writer” must write, only wants to write, and prefers to stay home to write.  A writer writes and produces writing in the form of stories, books, plays, etc.  An “author” talks about writing, writes to make money or to become famous, loves attention and loves doing PR.  An author will write a chapter of a book, then map out a book tour and marketing plan, complete with appearances on Oprah and the early morning news shows.  They see being an author as glamorous.  They want to be a writer without doing the writing. 

Bujold’s definitions and witty delivery garnered laughs from us.  But she nailed the differences between those who write and those who spend their time talking about it and going to workshops instead of doing the work.  Bujold writes.  She has won awards for her novels, the Hugo among them.  She confessed to abhorring the “author” side of publication, i.e. going out in the world and promoting the writing, and entertained us with stories about interviews she’d done before moving on to the Q&A portion.

I dread the promotion part of being a writer.  I do not enjoy the marketing and business side of being a writer.  And I used to work in advertising/marketing.  I prefer to write.  I think I have been gripped by this preference since I was a child.  I love to tell stories, to see eyes light up with enjoyment and delight, to imagine someone smiling or laughing while reading something I’ve written.  I want others to enjoy my writing as much as I enjoy writing it.  But I am resigned to having to fulfill my “author” obligations to promote my writing after publication.

Bujold surprised me.  She read not from the novel she was promoting, Cryoburn, but the first chapter of the novel she’s currently working on which she hasn’t yet titled.  What a delight.  What fun!  The energy in the crowd rose as she read, buoying her words with laughter at times.  Clearly, her fans in the audience enjoyed it.  I enjoyed it too.  She has an original voice and style, writes with confidence and her experience showed as she flowed among the points of view of the different characters.  The main character of this new novel has appeared in other Vorkosigan novels as a secondary character — he’s now getting his own adventure.  She created a wonderful sense of mystery around the strong female characters and I wanted to know more.

Baen Books has a Lois McMaster Bujold website that lists all her novels by series that they have in print.  I wish I had one of her books to read today.  An impressive snowstorm dumps inches upon inches of snow on the metro today — perfect weather to curl up with an engrossing novel and hot cup of tea….

How Does a Composer Know What to Write?

While in college studying music, I watched a series of lectures on PBS given by Leonard Bernstein at Harvard in which he talked about music as a language.  WOW.  Before those lectures, I had not thought of music as a language.  Bernstein illuminated how music communicates ideas and emotions through a system of notation.  Spoken language does the same.  The notation in music represents sound produced by instruments or the human voice.  The rules of composition are its grammar and syntax.  Every musician learns them.  How a composer uses those rules, or breaks them, gives a sound or “voice” to the music unique to that composer.

As a literary writer, my ideas come as images or words.  A composer’s ideas arrive as sounds or are stimulated by something visual like art, literature, movies, etc.  In Perceval, Owen te Kumara, Evan Quinn’s composer friend, hears sounds arranged according to the rules in his mind rather than a description in words, such as “in c major, begin with a chord….”  He’s steeped in music’s language and the sounds.  Thinking in sound comes as naturally to composers as thinking in words.

The idea or series of musical ideas dictate what form the piece will take, e.g., symphony, sonata, concerto, etc., and what instruments will play it.  Sometimes a composer may want to compose something for a specific instrument he likes or for a particular musician, or an orchestra or conductor commissions the composer to write something.  Throughout the Perceval series, Owen works on a symphony in memoriam of a dear friend, so his emotions about the friend, the friend’s personality and the friend’s musical instrument (piano) will influence what Owen writes.  The form Owen chooses, a symphony, reflects his friend’s personality, i.e., big.

Each composer has her own approach. Some sit in silence, listening to the sounds in their minds, writing the notes on score paper. Others sit at the piano and test out chords and phrases as they write. Or they work at the computer, using software that will check their writing against the rules every step of the way and then produce the sounds for them to hear.  However a composer works, she is invariably alone.

As his writing progresses, the composer may share it with trusted musician friends or family or not.  Owen shares his work with Evan because Evan has agreed to conduct the world premiere. Sometimes, if a foundation or contest is funding the composition, the composer may be required to meet certain agreed upon milestones and submit proof that he’s met them.  Sometimes composers work closely with the musician for whom they’re writing the work.  For example, Samuel Barber consulted pianist John Browning while he composed his piano concerto for Browning.

How long does it take?  There is no set duration, just as there is none for literary writing. Some composers work faster than others.  Sometimes the music comes in a white heat, sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. If the work is a commission, the composer may have a deadline — he’ll need to finish well before the premiere performance in order for the musicians and conductor to learn the music and rehearse it.

As part of my degree work in college, I composed music.  The ideas never came fast and my musical grammar and syntax were clumsy.  As with a foreign language, it takes time to learn the basics and the rules, and facility comes with practice. I’ve found learning a foreign language easier than composing music, so I have the highest admiration and respect for people who compose music well and produce a large body of work.  And I love hearing new music for the first time.

Owen te Kumara is a fictional character — the music he hears in his mind remains inaccessible to me.  But I wish that he existed so that I could hear the music I imagine him composing…..