Craft - Pt. 2 / Character

In the previous post, I said that I believed Plot to be essential to the telling of a story as the momentum of events help carry both it and the reader forward to the end. But I've had the pleasure of reading several books that were deemed "plotless." This may sound counter-intuitive to my previous advice, but I also said that if plot is not the focus, then EVERYTHING else needs to be at a high level of excellence or at least exhibit some emotional content that the reader can relate to.

One of the books I read in a seminar class was titled "Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wenderoth.

While an interesting concept, I wasn't terribly impressed with the final product. However, the lack of plot gave way to greater characterization of the narrator, a man who eats at Wendy's every day and fills out the comment cards with whatever may come to mind. While we don't know what the narrator looks like or even his true motivation for doing this, each comment card reveals bits and pieces of his personality throughout. Some passages:

"July 24, 1996


I was thinking today of the beatings my mother used to give me. I came to enjoy them very early on, and to take them silently, adoringly. Since then I have come to equate silence with extreme pleasure. But that silence was never silence, really. It was a kind of awful familiar music piped in from nowhere at the least possible volume. Like here, today."

or

"December 14, 1996


I always feel like someone at Wendy's is going to help me change. It's so hard to really change - most of the time I don't even think of it as a possibility. At Wendy's, though, especially when I've ordered and I know that good people are working hard to bring me what I deserve, I know I can change. I can become something truly special, like an escaped death-row inmate or a twelve-year-old prostitute."


By the time we get to the final comment cards of the novel, one can speculate that the narrator is slowly losing his mind. The entries become less coherent, more whimsical, and often violent with no apparent impetus or reason. This is an extreme example of plotless characterization, but effective nonetheless. These are the characters thoughts written down without the filter of conversation or activities outside of the Wendy's restaurant.


I personally think characterization works best when there is plot involved. If plot can be considered action, then characterization can be considered the gauge by which emotions and reactions affect the plot. A book that has recently become something of a favorite in the last year is "The Manual of Detection" by Jedidiah Berry.

While something of a more surreal novel, there is a solid plot involving a massive organization of detectives trying to contain and eliminate a carnival of brainwashers and dream controllers. This first paragraph from the opening chapter nearly tells us everything we need to know about the main character, Mr. Charles Unwin:

"Lest details be mistaken for clues, note that Mr. Charles Unwin, lifetime resident of this city, rode his bicycle to work every day, even when it was raining. He had contrived a method to keep his umbrella open while pedaling, by hooking the umbrella's handle around the bicycle's handlebar. This method made the bicycle less maneuverable and reduced the scope of Unwin's vision, but if his daily schedule was to accommodate an unofficial trip to Central Terminal for unofficial reasons, then certain risks were to be expected."

There are several things we learn about Mr. Unwin here, most importantly that he has something of a rigid personality. He has established rules for the way he lives his life, but those rules have been adjusted on this particular day in order to make room for an unofficial visit, completely throwing his day out of wack. His normal routine is no longer normal or routine and the rest of the novel plays this theme out nicely.

The point of all this? Character and characterization are wicked important. My thesis adviser this summer has shown me that in my own work. My human characters (vs. my paintings-as-characters...which I'll discuss later) were anemic and thin. For whatever reason, they weren't popping off the page with as much gusto as the inanimate objects had been. Through the process of really sitting down and figuring out who my characters were, what their motivations were, what kind of vocal/emotional/physical tics they might exhibit, I was able to strengthen up almost every weak spot on the page. Sometimes this can happen after just sitting and ruminating on the character. Other times, this requires writing anywhere from 2 to 30 pages of material JUST FOR THEM that will never end up in the book physically, but that reveals itself through the character's actions or conversations.

If you think of your characters as extensions of yourself, you may find yourself more likely to flesh them out, to make them real. This will only serve to benefit whatever kind of writing you may be doing.