Fiction Writing Demystified Page 8

Any size conflict will do, from simple, minor frustration with one’s inability to remove the cap from the Tylenol bottle, all the way to deception, mistaken judgment, to idealism, to passions such as hatred, revenge, jealousy, lust, to in-your-face rage, violence, and on and on.

  I cannot think of a conflict that is too small to write about — or too big — nor should you. Endow your characters with your own minor irks and aggravations, the little, transient, nit-picky irritations you experience; a pebble in your shoe, stuff that embarrasses you, a non-functioning appliance, forgetting a name, the need to find a toilet. The too-human, self-conscious preoccupation with one’s own real or imagined physical flaw, such as fat thighs or receding hairline or large nose. Or one of my faves, difficulty suffering fools. That one’s definitely from my experience in the TV business.

  Nor should any of your characters be too minor to be involved in, or provide, conflict. Even “walk-ons,” such as the doorman or newsstand attendant who may only appear for a moment or two. Give each one something distinctive. Quirks, a disability, a short fuse, make him or her a massively insecure bureaucrat, or a stickler for regulations, or over-sensitive to racial-or-gender slurs. Or they’re only at war with themselves.

  Only at war with themselves?

  That probably describes at least half of the people we know. Internal conflict. There is probably no more fruitful area for discovering the humanity — the identifiable-with facets of your characters — than the battles going on within their own heads. Perhaps one of them is ambivalent about succeeding. Or — plain-old terrified of achieving success. You know someone like that — we all do — the striver who tries and tries and tries — but somehow never quite makes it because events, or other people, always seem to conspire to mess it up. Which incidentally is almost never accidental. Usually, such people are losers because they are for varying reasons determined to lose. At life, in relationships, career.

  Richard Nixon’s almost textbook pattern from the time he was a child was to achieve, to win his mother’s approval — and then screw up. He could not allow himself to simply win. It’s why he left the White House in disgrace. That’s an interesting trait, one that is addressed in greater depth later in this book (The Fatally Flawed Protagonist — pages 94-97). And by the way, long before Nixon became President, it was all there in his face — the paranoia — because in his mind the disasters were never his fault, but rather were caused by others — by his enemies.

  Abraham Lincoln posited that by the time a man reaches the age of 50, “he’s responsible for his face.”

  Look — I mean really look — at the people you know. Our faces mirror our souls, there for anyone to read — and for the artist to understand.

  Yet, for all the information faces yield, they give an incomplete picture of who and/or what we are. There are hang-ups and aberrations — from obsessive-compulsive to serial killer — that are difficult-to-impossible to spot in one’s appearance. For those, we need some fundamental understanding of psychology.

  The modus operandi for compulsive gamblers, for instance, is that they want to lose. Sure, the rush is a plus, and maybe it even tops the ultimate goal, self-destruction. Isn’t that what compulsive behavior is mostly about? Think about the people you’ve met who are their own worst enemies. Maybe they, like Richard Nixon, don’t believe they deserve to win. That’s self-conflict, and it is effective because it’s so believable. It has universality. Your audience — a good part of it anyway — will identify — will see themselves or people they know in that character. All of it adds life to your writing. A bit deeper into this chapter are more concrete examples of common psychological problems, and some of their hows and whys.

  I cannot emphasize too pointedly that, as it has been for me in my career, it is vitally, life-or-death important if you wish to succeed as a fiction writer to think in terms of conflict. To frame your ideas in terms of conflict. And — to create your characters in terms of their conflicts. What do they want, and who or what is in the way of their achieving their goals? Do the biases of those who want to succeed get in the way of winning?

  Even if you your first creative impulse is a plot (or, for those who’re squeamish about the term, “structure,” or “construct”), even if you don’t conceive your story as a set of characters, even if from the getgo you know the beginning, middle and end — your next step is casting your show, deciding who the players are, what they’re about. Try to think of it as putting together the recipe for your character mix. A pinch of salt, some oregano, a bit of garlic to add bite, etc. Characters with whom your audience can empathize, recognize themselves.

  Characters on the verge of, or in mid-crisis — or its aftermath, which is often just as traumatic — the death or near-death of someone close, or in the wake of serious injury, for instance.

  But beware of serving up characters who are too similar. To expand on the food-preparation analogy, vary the flavors.

  Avoid Flat-Out Opposites

  The slob vs. the neatnik. The artist vs. the precision-freak. The freethinker vs. the tightass. Liberal vs. conservative. Jock vs. nerd. David vs. Goliath. Good vs. evil. Beauty and the Beast. Jekyll and Hyde. Familiar? Sure. With good reason. Such pairings are at the heart of how we create drama and/or comedy. But they carry with them a built-in risk — the cardboard-character syndrome.

  Yes, there have been many commercially successful stories built around nothing more than the above setups. Some of them were even well-written. Some are genuine classics. Most are not. Many are little more than almost mechanical instances of incompatibility.

  They’re the ones in which the writer never went any deeper than the archetype.

  Find the Facets

  How much more interesting it becomes when we add a dimension or two to each side of a character. The good and not-so-good. Evil, maybe, but with a touch or two that we find appealing. Contradictions. Sometimes they take the form of surface contrast.

  Consider one of the really dependable, classic symbols of pure evil: the Nazi SS Officer. In his black uniform with white piping, shiny boots and the silver death’s-head on his cap, he’s hard to beat for attractive villainy. But — would we find him as alluring/fascinating if he were squat and ugly? Not a chance. We’re drawn to this figure because of his physical anomalies; he’s handsome, blonde, blue-eyed, and has a great body.

  And he’s vile.

  Often, though, and for me more interestingly, the contrast within a cliché character is what lends dimension. Add a note of doubt to the SS Officer’s psyche. Perhaps he’s not as committed to genocide as he was a few years ago? That has possibilities, but it’s still a touch flip, shallow. Now take it a step further. Ask why? Perhaps he has just discovered that his wife’s grandmother on her mother’s side was a Jew, making both his wife and his daughter Jews as well. Suddenly we have a character I’d like to know more about. Wouldn’t you? It’s push-pull.

  Or the geek who’s ambivalent about his nerdiness, or who really wants to break out, but can’t. Or the jock who hates his body, his physical gifts, because he did nothing to achieve them, or because he feels he’s a prisoner of his physique, that he has no choice but to live up to the role, that too much is expected of him. But — he’s grown accustomed to the easy life it’s given him, the coaches and agents and girls clamoring for his attention, the media coverage. Suppose for example that the reason for all of it is — he’s a young pitcher who can perform this trick. He can throw strikes at 110 mph. Now — what happens when his arm goes dead — when suddenly, he can’t do his trick anymore? When suddenly nobody regards him as special. How does he handle it? What are his inner strengths, if any? Because now he must rely on who he is, not what he was.

  The moral here, unless you’re writing fairy tales, is don’t settle for Princes, Sleeping Beauties, Witches and Sorcerers. Only in allegorical literature are characters all one thing — all good, entirely selfish, all evil. So — if you’re trying for believability, attempting to create the illusion of rea
l life in your writing, you must dig until you find those other, less obvious — and far more interesting — facets. Create characters who consist of more than just a single attribute, who are more than archetypes, more dimensional than merely, say, greedy, or irascible, or logic-driven (a self-delusion if there ever was one; logic has virtually nothing to do with human behavior), or mean. Ask yourself why they are that way — find those other shadings — and then write about them. Take your character-definitions a step or two or three beyond the obvious — into gray areas, impulsiveness, incongruities (which, when-push-comes-to-shove you must be able to explain and justify) — and see what comes of it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

  It is more of the stuff of good writing.

  Thrust

  That’s a term we use a lot in TV, about individual characters, scenes and about the story itself. It’s another good word to place near the top of your self-editing list. Does this character have enough thrust? Energy? Motivation? Does that scene have enough? Or — does your story as a whole have sufficient thrust, or movement, or forward motion, to keep your audience involved and entertained?

  Here we’ll deal with it as it applies to characters. Unless there is a storytelling purpose served by a passive character, it’s best to avoid such types. And certainly, unless that is what your story is about, your protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) should never be passive.

  Both they, and your writing, should be on the move.

  Again, in some cases passivity goes to victimhood, which is rarely very compelling because, typically, after eliciting our sympathies for the first few injustices suffered by such characters, most of us become impatient with them for not taking steps to better their situations. Passive-aggressive, however, is something else — an interesting complexity — which I’ll expand upon later.

  What about those reflective, lyrical moments so many authors love to write — the kind that run on long enough to cause readers’ eyes to glaze over? Not good. Sure, believable protagonists will be prone to bouts of doubt, introspection and indecision. But limit them to moments. Keep them brief. Don’t let them stop the forward motion of your story or your characters — or your prose.

  Protagonists cause things to happen.

  Even if it means trouble for them? Especially if it means trouble...

  Protagonists thrive on overcoming trouble.

  They move the story. They have thrust.

  Which, by the way, is why you see so few kidnapping stories in TV or movies. We avoid them because they tend to be static. After the victim is kidnapped, he or she is stuck in one place, as are the abductors; except for, say, bickering among themselves, their stories stand still till the ransom is delivered, or until the situation is otherwise resolved. One of the few successful kidnapping stories was the feature-film comedy, Ruthless People (Scr. Dale Launer — Dir. Jim Abrahams, David & Jerry Zucker), in which the victim, played wonderfully by Bette Midler, undergoes a very funny character-transformation during her confinement. And, she manipulated her captors, thus significantly moving the story. Another effective kidnap story was John Fowles’ fascinating novel, The Collector, notable more for its alternating focus (the same story told from both the kidnapper’s and the victim’s points-of-view) than for much movement. Though it is very difficult to make such stories work, these and other examples can — and should — serve as first-rate models.

  Even successful writers, owners of impressive track-records, will occasionally make the mistake of positing characters whose engines are sluggish. And when their motors stall, so does our interest.

  Beyond that is the phenomenon of the tired author. I have a theory about one of the probable reasons that this happens; it is, I believe, a product of what passes for winning in our culture, in our marketplace. When a writer — a novelist, say — succeeds in a certain type of story, or with a particular character or set of characters, the system demands a repeat. And then another. The public wants to read more of them. Publishers and agents want to make more money from them. So the writer is offered incentives — usually the difficult-toresist kind such as multi-book contracts and/or large advances — to encourage the production of similar, derivative works. It’s good news-bad news. In my experience, both as a reader and a writer, it is the rare author who can continue to produce on that basis without a serious — and regrettable — loss of edge, of quality. The fun tends to go out of it. It becomes a job. But I believe that most — and worst — of all, it’s no longer a challenge for the writer.

  In a way, it’s what I encountered in series TV. And my own method for keeping myself interested, and my writing fresh, was largely internal, incrementally raising the mental bar. Even after writing 23 episodes of Murder, She Wrote, I was still trying to find a challenge for the 24th (not that the scripts for that show ever became easy). The goals I set for myself may have been minor, and in the end-product probably indiscernible to anyone else — nor did I always achieve them — but they were sufficient that each script was for me exciting and difficult because I was going for something — some little nuance — that I’d never tackled before. One that I wasn’t certain I could pull off.

  So, at the risk of coming off preachy, I urge you to always stretch yourself. Even if you have to invent the challenges, the self-imposed aspirations — your own creative momentum. I find it difficult to believe that being a one-trick pony is much fun, no matter the amounts of money thrown at you.

  Speaking of challenges, what follows are some ways to ensure that your characters are sufficiently tested that they maintain their thrust throughout your story.

  Goals — Small and Large

  Give your characters objectives — ask yourself what they want — and then throw roadblocks in their paths. Even if it’s not the main story you’re trying to tell. That, on a very basic level, is drama. Without it, as I’ve said, your audience loses interest. And one way to insure the audience’s continuing attention is to make certain the goals you give your good-guy characters are important enough — urgent enough — to them, that your audience will also care — and root for your protagonists.

  A word about static characters — figures who are simply there because you might need them for a particular scene or chapter: they are like bores at a party — the ones you find uninteresting in real life. Such figures are not interesting to your audience. They have no place in your story — unless their dullness is part of a point you’re making. All of your characters should have some kind of goal, energy, drive. Even the dreary ones. Something they believe they need. Something that’s at least important to them. Even the shallowest ones — such as the individual whose “need” is the latest high-end flavor-of-themonth consumer item. And something or someone should be making it difficult for them.

  Should your secondary and tertiary characters have such needs and goals — even though you don’t intend to make much use of them? I urge you to build such dimension into even your most minor characters — including single-scene walk-ons. Add it to their biographical paragraphs, so that it’ll be in your head. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by what it gives you when you write their scenes, the color and texture, the aliveness that it’ll contribute to your story. Even a character who may have only a single line of dialogue — or none at all. I guarantee it will enrich your writing.

  Make it Worth Your Characters’ Time — and it’ll be Worth Your Audience’s

  Another key step in developing your characters — and their stories — is choosing the stakes. What’s at risk for them? Are the stakes significant enough to keep them motivated, to justify their actions? What will happen if they fail to achieve their goals? What’s the penalty? What will they lose?

  Obviously not everything need be a life-or-death matter. Except in, say, a wartime combat story, things could become monotonous if those were the only stakes. But between that extreme and a bad-hair day, there are a lot of gradations. Use them.

  And keep in mind that the stakes’ relative value — and even their nature — c
an, and often will, change during the arc of your stories — preferably escalating, becoming more intense. Because if the stakes diminish, so will your audience. An example of rising stakes might be those of a protagonist (a salesman, perhaps) whose initial concern upon arriving in town is a simple need for money, anxiety over closing a deal — but it escalates — his troubles increase; first, he finds himself embroiled in an adulterous affair, which abruptly leads to a robbery or murder in which he is the chief suspect — and so on. The brilliant thriller movies, True Romance (Scr. Quentin Tarantino — Dir. Tony Scott), and Red Rock West (Scr. John Dahl & Rick Dahl — Dir. John Dahl) are models of the effectiveness of escalating stakes. There are numerous others in film and literature.

  Getting back to the writer’s role as entertainer, an even more important question to ask yourself is — are the stakes high enough, and are your characters sufficiently fascinating, to seduce, to force your audience to care about them — about the outcome? Because that is your job.

  Franchises

  Obviously, as stated above, not every story can, or should, involve life-or-death stakes, but those are the ultimate, and they are the reason for the proliferation, among dramatic television series, of what are known in that industry as “franchises.”

  In TV parlance a franchise is an occupation — a profession — that entitles the practitioner (usually the series protagonist), without stretching, to involve him-or-herself in other peoples’ life-or-death problems. The standard franchises are doctor, lawyer, cop, fireperson. Others include lifeguard, private detective, bounty hunter, nurse, etc.

  A franchise makes life relatively easy for the writers of such shows (and for the writer of a series of novels or short stories featuring a continuing protagonist) since the writers don’t have to go through plot-contortions in order to justify placing their lead characters in such situations week after week. In narrative prose as well as in screenplays and teleplays, the franchise obviates — or at least minimizes — the need to contrive the “hiring scene.” Almost nothing in TV is more tedious to write than the usually misconceived dramatic series in which a lead character — with no franchise — must in each episode routinely deal with life-or-death situations. The first fifteen-to-twenty minutes of every show must be devoted to (wasted?) justifying the protagonist’s involvement — a process referred to in TV as “shoehorning” them into the story, trying to make it believable enough for the audience to hang in there.