What makes a character in a book or a movie memorable? What makes the character interesting? Sometimes what attracts us to someone is a bit of a mystery, and good characterization requires a little mystery too.
Seeking the Carnivalesque
In the screenplay book I’m reading, Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay by Andrew Horton, the author uses the term carnivalesque when explaining how to develop real and memorable characters. Characters are never complete, set, or finished, but instead are always glimpsed in motion from a certain perspective, Horton says, and quotes Seymour Chatman, “The horizon of personality always recedes before us.”
In a carnival, people are thrown into a place of the unknown, where anything can happen. Carnival is the time when no rules hold, when one can become whatever they wish. And even if the writer knows a character’s core personality and uses this “core” knowledge to drive the plot of a story, there should remain a mystery, “a realm of the unresolved,” in Horton’s words, something neither the writer nor reader can fully know or understand.
The mystery of character, or creating the carnivalesque. Photo by Scott Webb, on Pexels
The Appeal of Uncertainty
“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty,” the poet Yoshida Kenko says. “Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth.”
In a good book or film, sometimes we understand something without being able to explain it; we feel it and don’t know why. When I read these ideas, I thought of one scene in Little Miss Sunshine. When the teenage boy who had all his hopes set on being a pilot finds out he’s color blind, he runs off from the family, screaming out his rage and frustration. He refuses to return to the family van. The sister eventually comes down the hill where he sits and squats beside him. Nothing is said, nothing explained, but we understand without explanation why he returns to the van.
Do any characters stand out as memorable to you? Are you able to pinpoint why? Did you understand them sometimes without understanding why you did?
Spell check doesn’t necessarily catch words that are spelled correctly but chosen incorrectly. Here’s a list of some of the most common I’ve found in my editing experience. (Written in a certain vein, because vampires need proper grammar too.)
accept/except:
Of course I’ll accept (agree with, allow) your tongue at my throat. After the summer drought, I thirst for everything except (excluding, omitting) the thought of your departure.
affect/effect:
What will be the effect (result) of this dry, hot summer? More than these lost barley rows, the drought will affect (influence/cause a response) the substance of my blood, my ability to quench your constant need.
(Usually, “effect” is the noun, and “affect” is the verb; however, “effect” is sometimes used as a verb, as in, The drought effected (to bring about) great change in my body. And sometimes “affect” can be used as a noun, as in, He affected (assumed) a wry humor that belied his concern at the loss of blood.)
capitol/capital:
On the stairs of the old capitol (the building only), we waited for the sun to rise over the state’s capital (town or city holding government). For a moment, we forgot our impending death, content with the joy of last night’s capital (financial assets) blood gains.
ensure/insure:
If she were to acquiesce to his demand, Emily would first ensure (make certain) the well-being of her family. She would insist the vampire insure (plan money payment for loss) her against the loss of her royal blood.
farther/further:
I will not go one step farther (physical distance) if you speak any further (abstract quantity) about my own lust being greater than yours. We are the same.
its/it’s:
It’s (it is) the memory of sun on new green leaves and its (possessive/belonging to) bright heat on the farmhouse porch that keeps me at the window past dawn’s torturous waking.
lightning/lightening:
Although the heavy storm clouds were lightening (lesser in weight) beyond his black cape blowing, the horizon sparked with lightning (electrical force).
principle/principal:
The principal (main, foremost) goal of our midnight meeting was to establish the principles (rule, truth) by which our passion could be sated—without offending the now sterile principal (chief person, head) of our vampire coven.
proceed/precede:
The wedding party will precede (to go or come before) the vampire bride, who will then proceed (to go on or move forward) into the reception hall to taste the guests.
stationary/stationery:
Before composing my letters of consolation on this vibrant green stationery (writing paper), I must find a table more stationary (motionless, unmoving) than these skeletal remains of my month-long feast.
their/there/they’re:
They’re (they are) forever dancing up there (in a place), all these black and starless nights, in their (possessive, belonging to) translucent skin and ghostly gauze dress.
who’s/whose:
I hope that the vampire who’s (who is) dancing above my ceiling knows whose (possessive, belonging to) black heels and heart have danced there once too.
you’re/your:
With all these rules you devise for self-protection, you’re (you are) still left no choice but to follow what most ignites your (possessive, belonging to you) absolute and undeniable need.
For proper grammar, think about how you’re using the words which vs. that.
Essential or Nonessential Generally, the word which introduces a clause that is not essential to understand the meaning of the sentence (nonessential) and can be set off with commas. The word that generally introduces an essential clause, which is needed to understand the sentence. A vampire might demonstrate the difference this way:
Blood that dripped freshly to his lips excited him more. [blood dripping as opposed to some other method excited him]
The blood, which dripped freshly to his lips, renewed his strength. [the blood renewed his strength and happened to be dripping] Which vs. That: Academics Often Misuse Them Often, people mistakenly use the word which in the attempt to sound more academic or in thinking it is the more proper usage. It isn’t. In choosing which or that, remember, if what follows the word is needed to understand the sentence, use that. If not, you can probably set it off with commas and use which.
A Few Other Uses Following a preposition, use the word which, as in the following example:
The blood, for which the vampire had risked her freedom, did nothing to quell her appetite. The blood, in which the vampire now basked, did nothing to quell her appetite. but The blood that flowed did nothing to quell her appetite
Grammar that suits a vampire. Photo from cottonbro on pexels.com
She walks with her sister down the apartment complex sidewalk. In the green, four teen boys bat a volleyball around. They look; she looks. She talks quickly to her sister about their visit. Rapid talk. And while her mouth says things like, “She looks healthy, happy.” Her mind says, “Hot boys. Don’t look. Don’t look.”
Their shirts are rolled up to their chests. Brown skin darkened already by summer sun. One has the Bruno Mars hair (why, guys, why?) but cute nonetheless. Eyes flicker. She talks and walks faster.
Past them now, she nears the parking lot. At the first row of cars, she stops to give her sister a hug and kiss. The four, at a distance now, stand still in a line, as goodbyes are said, and she and her sister head to their separate cars.
She gets in and sighs with relief. Phew, hot. And the volleyball comes winging, then bouncing over, through the lot, to roll in the car space next to hers. Bruno Mars comes jogging over to retrieve it, bending, standing outside her window. She rummages through her purse till he moves on. She drives away.
How genre can change a story:
Fantasy: As he bends for the ball, the string around his neck slips out of his shirt. A flash of turquoise. I gasp and look away. It’s a polinar. There’s nothing I can do but stare ahead as he tucks it back into hiding.
Western: He twirls the ball on one finger and swaggers over. Sun glints off his buckle. He nods without a smile and moves on, taking the empty sidewalk into shadows.
Erotica: He picks up the ball but makes no move back to his friends. Standing, shirt rolled up his chest, he flips the ball hand to hand. His dark eyes stare. I unroll my window.
Mystery: It was a ploy. Obviously. The ball had to be kicked to reach this far. But they couldn’t know what was in my trunk. David said he’d put it there before sunrise.
Literary: I looked away as he bent for the ball. His shoulders were too broad to call him “kid” anymore, but still, who wasn’t susceptible to the mockery of peers? He deserved space to collect himself. In this complex, eyes pried through slitted window shades, and mean grins slammed the doors. He walked head up.
Romance: He snatched up the ball and sheepishly smiled. What had he done to his hair? I thought and couldn’t help but smile back. I could see him moussing it up, laughing at himself in the mirror. But that memory was two years old already.
Choosing genre or story first:
How much does genre choice influence our stories? I know some people write a specific genre regularly. It’s what they read; it’s what they write. Some writers, however, aren’t aware at the initial writing stage what genre they’re aiming for. I tend to blend genres, and see many publishers asking for this blending.
Readers do have expectations when they choose a western or romance or mystery, but readers are also adventurers. I say write the story first, the true and honest thing. Then tweak if necessary. The result might surpass all expectations!
“Show, don’t tell.” All writers have heard the importance of learning this technique. But good writing isn’t as easy as following a list of ten rules. In too many blog tips and how-to lists, the concept has become oversimplified to a quick-and-easy fix, as if changing an adverb to an action fulfills the quest for reader involvement.
I recently came across a writing handbook that suggested showing rather than telling a story and gave a short example: Telling: “No, I won’t go,” Angie said angrily
Showing: “No, I won’t go.” Angie slammed down the phone.
Within the context of a story, this might work. As readers, we might have been feeling Angie’s anger building for three paragraphs and the phone slamming is exactly what we would do too. But as an example of learning to show and not tell, I think it fails. And I see lessons like this too often. If the reader isn’t feeling the same anger, the action of slamming the phone will be as ineffective as “Angie said, angrily.” So what?
“Show” Is More Than an Action
“Show, don’t tell” isn’t simply replacing a stated emotion with a physical action (Jillian felt sad/Jillian wiped a tear). It involves writers becoming so immersed in the story that they stop consciously telling it. The story begins happening around the writer; the story’s world reflects the feelings and governs the actions. The reader is then involved in that world because the writer is involved.
“Show” Is Finding the Life in the Moment
I came across a passage from Elizabeth Chadwick’s novel The Summer Queen. I would present this as a superb example of an author showing us the story as the character lives it rather than telling us what the author thinks the character feels about the story. By its closing, the reader’s breath tightens, suffocating on the news.
William broke the seal, read what was written, and turned to Alienor. “Madam, perhaps you should sit down,” he said, gesturing to a carved bench near the wall.
She stared at him. Dear God, Louis was dead, she thought. She did as he suggested. Roses overhung the seat, heavy and red, their perfume filling each breath she took.
A frown clouded William’s smooth brow. “Madam,” he said gently, “I grieve to tell you that Raymond, Prince of Antioch, has been killed in battle against the Saracens.”
Alienor continued to stare at him. The smell of the roses intensified and the air grew so thick that she could barely breathe, and what air she did inhale was drenched with the syrupy sweet scent of flowers on the edge of corruption.
“Madam?”
She felt his hand on her shoulder, but it was a flimsy anchor.
I would suggest delving deeper into “show, don’t tell” by reading respected writers who have proven their skills over time. I would look at passages in which you, as a reader, have felt the emotions deeply, have experienced a setting and become lost in it.
When Action Feels Distant, Dive Back In
To show and not tell isn’t as simple as phrase replacement. When I’m editing my work, I sometimes come across pages in which the story feels distant to me. I’m not involved. Nowhere in them do I necessarily find a pointless dialogue tag or have a narrator tell what the character is feeling (“Samuel felt confused.”) I use action; yet, something is missing. Despite steering clear of what appears to be mere “telling,” the story isn’t immediate; it’s not “showing” the world in an authentic, immediate way that makes me feel without thinking and know without being told.
It’s Like Playing Pretend
Think back to when you were a child playing pretend. You were called for dinner, and suddenly you realized that you had been gone from this world, lost in something else just as true. Think of those day or night fantasies, those moments when you imagine a scenario and forget you’re driving or become startled as someone speaks. I think writing requires that same state of being lost to one world and alive in another. When we pretend, we don’t tell. We are doing. And in a good story, that doing is shown to a reader.
Play pretend! Photo courtesy of Mathias Zomer, Pexels
Don’t Guide It; Live It
So, to those quick-and-easy writing tips, I would add just a little more: Don’t simply slam down the phone. Be there to know the phone and the table it’s on, to know the clipped, tense language that surrounds you, to know if the air is thin or heavy, to know the history of the relationship happening over the phone. Be in that place and time with that character so that what happens is inevitable and what the reader feels is assured (even if that feeling is ambiguity!).
Show the reader what you saw when you were there, so that they can be there too, without instruction, without clear guidance, but inevitably as they follow your character, as they read the next words.
The ten most beautiful women. The ten most beautiful men. We jump to leaf through the lists, knowing that, amid the ten, there might be one on which we agree. Oh, the others might be appealing, might have features we appreciate, but are they the epitome of beauty? Sometimes only one, sometimes none really stand out for any given person. Who is top on your list? And do you know why?
For that matter, what natural wonders of the world are the most beautiful? Is a beach sunset the purest beauty or a mountain peak sun-glistened? If we disagree on what is most beautiful, is beauty subjective? Or is it objective, with one true definition?
Was Keats Right in His Poem?
When, in mathematics, a theory is defined in the perfect equation—simple, accurate, absolute—it is often called beautiful. In chemistry, the blending of compounds is sometimes called a beautiful synthesis. Is it true what Keats said in his poem? Beauty is truth, truth is beauty?
While looking at life events, recording memories, creating sketches of people I see, and responding to things I hear or read, I hope to look at all life’s seductions, the things that spark us, that stand out as real, as beautiful in one way or another. I believe that something in our subconscious responds to equations of truth, those poignant moments, the world when it shows us true grace.
Can beauty be an equation, where all variables equate to one need? what is beautiful to you?
What Is Beautiful to You?
The many moods of nature might offer fear to one and peace to another. Each holds truth, and, in that, maybe beauty.
We daydream when we’re driving, right, in that quiet space and time? Oh, the radio might be playing, and sometimes a song draws us in. Or sometimes the music is just a rhythm in the background of our thoughts. It’s a bit of space in the day when we’re not doing work and chores, attending to meetings and phone calls, worrying about the news and the judgments in advertisement.
Then we pull into the gas station, where sun shines off the pumps and the few decorative trees shiver a bit in the light wind. A landscaping truck is pulled beside the air pump; men stand about and talk. A white-haired woman holds her cash card, hesitant before fitting it to the slot. Pumping gas: a few minutes of stillness, a moment to let the world around sink in while there’s nothing else to do. Present—for this moment we are in a present space and time.
Be in the present space and time. Image by Harrison Haines, on Pexels
Except now, when I open my door, I’m blasted with talk. Gas station TVs, commercials talking at me, media overload. Loud voices crash over the vibration of leaves.
I don’t like this innovation. The body is most at rest when it’s in the present, experiencing the moment that is. Even stressful times can be better managed if we don’t look ahead, aren’t bombarded with all the possibilities at hand. At the gas pump, I can’t walk away. The video screen has found a hostage audience.
The men who lean against the truck, cross their legs comfortably and laugh with each other. They’re far enough away not to hear. I want an option. An off switch. I want to lean like those men into only the sounds of sunlight on chrome.
Do you have any moments in the day when you feel more aware of your surroundings? Would you like to share a memory of a time you felt present and at peace?
The first image that pops in my mind is the pointed gray hat. Not any gray wizard’s hat, but a softened hat, slightly bent, worn at the edges, a sense of not only history in him but comfort, no need for embellishments or flash. A true hat, a used hat, a fitting hat.
For each character, there is probably some defining image. My mind flashes with Aragorn’s boots, worn too, mud-stained, a foot traveler, a strong and steady stride.
And what about images that represent not a character alone but an entire story or a theme? Why does the hollowed hiding place in the tree linger with so many of us after seeing To Kill a Mockingbird? On a broader scale, what do the wide expanses of frozen white make us feel in Fargo, and do they come to represent the movie as a whole?
In storytelling, whether in novels or short stories or movies, images can convey as much as dialogue or action. The image doesn’t have to be specifically symbolic, as in a one-to-one relationship like the “A” in The Scarlet Letter, or how a key might come to represent unlocking a secret. Sometimes an image carries with it universal associations that we can’t define: water, doors, open skies, passageways, lone trees, shadows, a sun rise.
A movie or a book can be subconsciously more powerful if the writer or filmmaker incorporates resonant imagery, letting the setting convey ongoing themes or character transitions, letting a single image speak rather than the characters themselves.
Imagine a scene in which two characters stand face to face: one is shouting about an important missed phone call, while the other is unable to speak. The argument has nothing to do with what’s really happening between them, which is a betrayal and a broken promise. As they argue, the silent character’s focus is on a china teacup, narrowing in on the crack running between flowers, a crack that appears larger and larger as the argument goes nowhere.
If later in the book or movie, a teacup is once again seen, in a different house, perhaps an older woman holding a fine cup, never broken, we might not consciously ask, what does this mean, what shift is happening here? But somewhere in our subconscious the new image recalls the old; somewhere inside, something stirs and we sit up, become more engaged with the story, without knowing why.
There’s magic in the subtle play of images. Sometimes you might see a movie or read a book that brings to mind a color. I’ve heard people say, “That movie was so blue,” or “That book felt orange.” Obviously, the writer or filmmaker associated a color with the mood of the story or with the characters’ emotions. Often it’s not a conscious choice, but something that happens in the writing stage, which is taken up unconsciously by the reader or viewer.
But when revising any story, the writer should look at the potential of an image, at what the character might not say, at the action that might not happen, but that the image might show. And trust that the reader, the audience, shares a similar consciousness, and will intuitively know.
Often it’s the subtle image working at the deeper level that stays with the audience, that creates a reaction that feels a bit like a mystery, a stirring inside that lingers after the story is finished.
Sometimes a story or a scene in a novel just isn’t working. Yet we can’t pin down why. Our brain, trained in the dos and don’ts of writing, can’t come up with a solution. That’s often when it helps to begin the scene over, write it fresh.
But author Stuart Spencer, in The Playwright’s Guidebook, offers another couple suggestions that might, even more than starting over, help writers let go of what they know, what is there and not working, to find instead what’s supposed to be. He calls the technique using reversals: interchanging character names or changing an essential element in the scene to its opposite.
For example, he says, if Joe is in love with Mike and wants to tell him, try writing it again, exchanging the names, with Mike in love with Joe, wanting to speak. Or change the element: if Joe is in love with Mike, have Joe wanting to kill Mike instead. Spencer’s theory is that “when that first choice doesn’t work, it’s because the intellect has covertly intruded on the work that belongs to the subconscious.”
By shaking things up so dramatically and diving back in, the writer is more apt to return to that place where the subconscious writes. And “the subconscious knows more about the truth than reasoning intellect.” As they say, when making a difficult decision, trust your intuition, trust your subconscious. Whatever lists you make of the pros and cons, somewhere deeper, you actually know what’s right. Sometimes in writing, we have to abandon the lists and trust the story that comes.
