Thank you, Michael, for hosting me on your blog today! It’s been a wild three weeks since my new novel The Companion was released, and this is my last scheduled blog stop before I draw breath.
On one of my earlier blog posts I said something to the effect that what counts in a person’s life is not what happens to them but how they handle what happens to them. In the context of that post I was talking about life in general, in a fairly philosophical mood. But today I want to examine that concept in a more disciplined way, as it relates to how the protagonist of a story reveals his character.
Conventional wisdom (I’ve lost count of the writing how-to books I’ve read that insist on this) dictates that an author must think up Awful Bad Things to heap upon his hapless hero, because – well, just because. That’s what’s supposed to happen. But what are the Awful Bad Things for? Just to populate the plot with exciting, thrill-a-minute disasters? That just turns even a potentially interesting story into a Transformers movie. If Awful Bad Things happen, they have to be relevant to the protagonist’s character arc—they have to move the story forward.
Every event in a story, including (but not only!) the Bad Things are opportunities for the protagonist to show his character.
In my stories I try to take a more nuanced approach to plot and conflict, rather than the simplistic instruction to think up what your hero might be most afraid of and then lock him in a room with it. I call that redlining, and it seems to inevitably lead to melodrama: breathlessly, helplessly attracted; shattered at the loss; flung into the darkest depression; enraged with seething, mindless jealousy; eviscerated by paralyzing shame and self-doubt. You get the picture: every event, every emotion is so over-heated that as a reader I get worn out—and, I have to confess, I stop believing. I get bored.
I remember one story in which the opening scene had the protagonist being awakened by a ringing telephone. It “took all his self-control” not to hurl the telephone across the room. He’d been out partying the night before, and was angry at being harshly awakened. As a revelation of character, that tells me he’s pathologically immature, and inclined to blame others (the telephone) for his problems.
I’m guessing that the author viewed this simply as an interesting way to begin the story, but as first revelation of character it’s working directly against my sympathies. If it took “all his self-control” not to throw the phone, I’m not impressed.
If he actually does throw the phone across the room, he’s got my attention: that’s a clear revelation of character. The protagonist has a violent streak that is going to come out later to affect the story, and he’s probably going to need redemption of some kind. Instant foreshadowing of character arc.
Let’s take a more common example. The hero loses his job. Too often this is nothing more than a plot device, a short-hand “Awful Bad Thing Used to Build Sympathy” inserted into the story.
Obviously there are likely to be financial pressures looming on the horizon for the hero, and he may be angry at what he feels is unjust termination. But what does he actually do about it? Does he make a new budget? Does he say, “Fuck it!” and get drunk? Does he isolate and sink into clinical depression? Does he go postal? Does he summon up his practical stoic and simply go home to start looking for a new job? Does he have to be rescued by concerned friends because he’s devastated?
Each of those behaviors reveals far more about the hero’s character than usually accompanies the plot event of him losing his job.
Why is this important? Because it’s not the event, but the hero’s response to the event that is important. Actions reveal character, and character matters.
Over and over I see romance heroes behaving in the most embarrassingly childish ways only to be magically back as an adult two or three pages later—with nothing in between to provide a reason for a return to sanity.
As a revelation of character, I’d say this wild swing from some theatrical low to some theatrical high without any internal process to provide a basis for it is indication that the hero is actually mentally unstable. But mental instability is almost never an issue in the story. That’s just the way the author has written the character for the sake of ramping up the drama. But it’s drama without a point, because the character doesn’t grow from it.
So while it’s inevitable in a novel that Bad Things have to happen to the protagonist, I feel it’s far more important for an author to use those events to reveal some significant aspect of the hero’s character than it is to simply cook up the Bad Thing itself.
Where the hero’s response to a difficult event is simply melodrama, the author actually damages the hero–she/he loses a profound opportunity to show what the hero is made of. And I don’t mean just courage. What about compassion, deceit, vindictiveness, rage, humility, cool analysis, wisdom, drunken stupidity, grief, perseverance, ingenuity, or restraint? What might a demonstration of these qualities mean in the evolution of the hero?
Anyway, these are just my thoughts on the matter. What are yours?