The most interesting fictional characters ever

While writing my last post on creating interesting fictional characters, I attempted to find a drawing (sans copyright restrictions) to illustrate it. In doing so, I realized I wasn't sure which character from fiction I would most like to use. Miss Havisham? (What characteristic made her interesting, exactly, beyond her bitterness?) Elizabeth Bennett? Jay Gatsby?

I found no unrestricted line drawings of great fictional characters, just photos of the actors who had played them, so I gave up. But along the way, I found several lists of most interesting characters, put up by media sites and fan sites. Here are a few:

• 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900 (from NPR, 2002). Number one: Jay Gatsby

• The 100 favourite fictional characters... as chosen by 100 literary luminaries (listed in London's Independent newspaper, March 2005)

• The 100 Greatest Fictional Characters of All Time (Fandomania). Number one: Batman (as voted by their readers).

• And, finally, this: on Yahoo! Answers, in answer to the question, Who's the best fictional character of all time?, the answer that garnered the most votes was "Shaggy (from scooby doo). Need I say more?"

Extra: for comic relief (and to see how a character can be summed up in a business card) check out Cracked's 29 Business Cards of Famous Fictional Characters (OK, I confess, I didn't get some of these...)

Note: I don't think Mr. Darcy is the most interesting fictional character ever... I just like looking at Colin Firth with sideburns.

Writing interesting characters

In Issue 55 of Writers Ask, Bret Anthony Johnston suggests making characters more likable by giving them at least one annoying habit ("We can't identify, not completely, with perfect characters, so as readers we resist and retreat from protagonists with flawless skin..."). OK, got it—I found this a fun and uninhibited task. My characters began tapping their feet nervously, clearing their throats, or clutching their steering wheels in heavy traffic until their knuckles turned white.

To make them more fully realized and interesting, Johnston also suggests answering a series of questions about each character you're creating. His list of questions included: "What does your character most want?" (some people have said that the answer to this question is the basis itself of a short story), and "What does your character most regret?" But the question I found easiest to answer was this: "What is in your character's wallet/purse?" Unfortunately, every character I have created since reading this has now carries an unusual purse or has an overstuffed wallet—a trait I rarely pay much attention to in real life. It became the first thing I wanted to describe about them when I got around to putting them down on paper.

I'm sure Johnston meant these few questions as a launching point, to inspire writers to pay more attention to detail, and to avoid writing about themselves. To simplify this exercise, you could make a list of intended/planned characters and assign each an outstanding characteristic. Or create some kind of rotating list of questions to answer about your fictional characters (which I will attempt in another post).

The problem for me with all these exercises is that most of my fictional characters don't begin as a visual presence but a voice. They start talking to me as invisible companions that accompany me during the day—like an ongoing internal seance. Perhaps I should try to see what they look like as they speak to me, or ask them what they really want, or what's in their wallets. Yet I'm afraid if I question them, at least while they're still trying to introduce themselves to me, they might vanish. It's probably better for me to write down the conversations (as much as I can remember them), then go back and embellish and add descriptions and stated desires after they've had a sufficient chance to confess their souls.

Writers Ask

I am planning a couple of posts about the newsletter, Writers Ask (WA), published by Glimmer Train Press. I am describing it a little, in this initial post, so I won't have to keep referencing it.

WA continually offers something I had wanted to do on this blog (going beyond my occasional interviews with individual/creative people)—it asks multiple writers about the particulars of their craft. For example, the most recent issue,  Issue 58, asks 13 writers (including T.C. Boyle and Ann Patchett) questions on "Theme."

It's a little pricey—$22 for four issues a year.  I'd thought I wouldn't renew it in the New Year, to save some money. But in that recent Theme section, writer Aaron Gwyn said: "Show me a list of the masterpieces of world literature and I'll show you a list of trouble." He goes on to prove it by describing several novels succinctly in this way, e.g., Ullysses: "you're the only Jewish guy in Dublin and someone is dating your wife and doing a very fine job of it." Just with that little bit of text I realized what is wrong with the fiction I've been writing recently—no trouble, no conflict, no plot.

It was also through WA that I made my way to Michael Cunningham. I had resisted him, for some reason, after watching the movie version of "The Hours." But in Issue 57 (Fall 2012), under the theme "Place and Setting," he was asked about the futuristic, drone-filled world he had created in his novella "Like Beauty." Intrigued, I checked out the audio book for Specimen Days (the novella is part of its trilogy), read by Alan Cummings. The ending of its first novella, "In The Machine," was so good I found myself wanting to get out of the car to stand up and applaud.

The newsletter is maddeningly (at least to this former librarian) unorganized. I wish there was some kind of paper index or online metafilter for the topics and authors that have appeared on its pages thus far (I've asked the editors if they would consider doing that someday). Until then, I'll read every page, and take notes, looking forward to it as a wonderful surprise that arrives in my mailbox every three months.

Creativity not violence

I spent much of the weekend grieving about the Sandy Hook ES shootings. Then a skit on Saturday Night Live, an adult parody of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown," pushed a little of my sadness into a meditation on why some angry and/or crazy males turn to guns, while others turn to art.

Biographies of Charles Schultz paint him as a man who "specialised in making art out of angst," who "grudgingly held on to every indignity and insult he ever received and used them later on to fuel his strip"—including experiences beyond his awkward childhood. This transformation of bitterness into the long-running "Peanuts" comic strip (and all related TV shows and licensed products) made Schultz a rich and famous man, exacting the best possible revenge on the childhood peers who ignored him.

Such angst has played out again and again in other lives and bedrooms. It has fueled heavy metal and moody goth songs, crude cartoons and abstract paintings. The lucky boys find guitars or paints or pens or cameras or street dancing. They may not be good enough to make a living at it, but it gives them an outlet, it lets them use their anger (and their vibrancy) for something that, if not beautiful or the highest art, at least causes no damage to anyone else.

What I see a lot of now, though, are groups of teenagers (or, worse, single teenagers) playing video games where they spend hours shooting aliens and "enemies." Hours and hours not out in the sunlight, not laughing or being goofy, not making something with their hands—with only a single purpose to garner as many "kills" as possible.

I am not calling for a ban on video games (what's the use of that?). But I would like to see some kind of cultural shift where young men are encouraged to be creative and expressive, especially in groups. Right now, teenage boys who are not gifted at sports have almost no other group activity they can engage in outside of school other than video games. Organizations like Guitars Not Guns aim to "encourage children and teens to use their creativity to foster personal development and to help divert them from self-destructive influences." But their intention is on at-risk youth, not alienated white suburban teenagers.

I propose this as something that can be discussed outside of the current debate about gun control. I am not sure any of this would have prevented the Sandy Hook shooter (I won't use his name) from doing what he did. How much more heroic and life-affirming had he instead just scrawled bad poetry in composition books or strummed amateurish rock songs. I wish somehow I could praise him, and others like him, for doing that instead. And, yes, I understand that he was mentally ill. But mental illness has not kept some artists from creating beautiful things. The autistic knitter created interesting and gorgeous yarn creations. Her handiwork is housed in a museum, not a morgue.

Story maps

A while back, I started a Pinterest page on Writers Tools and Tips (that I've hardly added anything to lately...). To feed that page (and to have a permanent place to park this information), I'm uploading  the Story Map I've started using when writing short stories. (You don't have to use it before you start the story, but it can help you at any time during the writing to clarify who is saying what, and how else a character might be described). I have created it and honed its elements based on fiction writing classes I've taken and books I've read over the years.

The image above is there for mostly for graphic purposes (and so I can link to it on that Pinterest page). Here it is as text, below, if you'd like to import it into word processing, and adapt for your own uses.

[Note: If you copy and paste this into Microsoft Word, and want to retain the table, choose the "Keep Source Formatting" option. You can still type into it. If you are bothered by the pinkish background that imports from this blog, though, you can paste the text and table separately—choose "Keep Source Formatting" for the table only, then under "Table Properties" choose "Shading"--no fill.]

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STORY MAP

WORKING TITLE:

SETTING(S)

·      Year(s):         

·      Season(s):

·      Place(s):

CHARACTERS

Name	Approx. Age	Physical description

PROBLEM:

CONFLICTS:

EVENT 1:

EVENT 2:

EVENT 3:

EVENT 4:

SOLUTION:

Writing a novel, piece by piece

This is a Scrivener Corkboard being used to its full power—mine has few elements on it.

Apparently I am a NaNoWriMo Rebel—one of the hundreds who don't follow the typical rules set forth by NaNoWriMo. I am a Rebel simply by not aspiring to write 50,000 words during the month of November. But I'm also a Rebel since I'm not really writing a novel but a set of inter-related stories, many of which are no more than a few vignettes and descriptions right now, which I am collecting in separate electronic folders.

It has been liberating to write like this. I am not trying to create a long, linear narrative and can choose to write a little bit in each story without having to connect any new writing directly to what has already been written—I can write about a past occurrence without bothering to present it as a flashback, or can write about a future event without worrying about having first to describe what has happened between times.

I have only been able to write this way because I am using Scrivener, a software package that promises to help writers "create order out of chaos" (though, right now, I'm embracing the chaos more than the order). Scrivener describes itself as "a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents." So far I've only been using it  in an elementary way, to move text  around on its "Corkboard"and keep track of the word count for the entire manuscript, which is composed of seven half-finished stories. You can download it for free and give it a try (and then pay later if you decide it works for you).

I have yet to tap Scrivener's full power since I am too impatient to sit through all of its tutorials—but I intend to after NaNoWriMo 2012 is over (and I have reached my personal, 25,000-word count goal).

NaNoWriMo again

I am attempting NaNoWriMo again this year and, like last year, I am hopelessly behind. As of the beginning of Day 13, I stand at 7,659 words—when my expected total should be 21,671.

I attribute my slowness, in part, to the hurricane at the beginning of the month, which took out the power for a couple of days and flooded our basement. Since then I have been busy, some days, until late evenings, with paid work and other responsibilities (like cleaning up the basement). Rather than be agitated about not meeting the daily deadlines, I have made my peace with it. I'm still aiming to write a book (a series of related short stories), but I'm probably not going to have it all done by Nov. 30th.

I compare this to an older person who runs a marathon, knowing that they are not going to finish in under three hours, or even under 4.5, per the average time. I am walk-running a six-hour marathon instead, happy to keep trucking along at a 15-minute mile. At my current rate, according to my helpful NaNoWriMo Stats page, I am not expected to finish until January 23rd.

I just wish there was a slower NaNoWriMo—a two-month (or even three-month) book marathon for busy people (and parents) who still want to reach the goal but just can't get there as fast as those who are freer and unfettered.

Women Who Rock (their clothes)

Speaking of rock music, I went to see the Women Who Rock exhibit at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C. last week. It was a fun exhibit and I loved the costumes, but that was the problem. Most of the female musicians were represented by what they had worn—that's fine for someone like Madonna (above) or Lady Gaga or Cher, for whom costume drama and sets are as much of their art as their music. But  it was puzzling to see a singer like Marianne Faithful represented by a glam outfit that she wore God knows when (also in her glass box were two prominently displayed faxes Keith Richards had sent her; apparently he scribbles in the same decipherable way that he speaks). I would have liked to have seen pictures of the dewy-eyed Marianne Faithful alongside pics of her more haggard, cigarette-throated elder self, or even better, a looping video showing her transformation over the years, which would surely be a better representation of her life.

Would a "Men Who Rock" exhibit have any kind of focus on items of clothing they had worn? Here is the pair of jeans that Bruce Springsteen wore on the cover of "Born in the U.S.A."; here the chambray shirt Dylan wore on "The Times They Are A-Changing." Not very distinctive, or for that matter, very important in terms of the art produced.

I'm not sure what else one could use to visually represent rock music. Some walls played videos of performances, and there was an entire wall of album covers. Each room had its own soundtrack, according to time period. We walked through in less than an hour and then had lunch. Still, I have to admit, I was thrilled to see the outfit that Cindy Lauper had worn on the cover of "True Colors" and the short (and tiny) red dress Tina Turner had worn in her "What's Love Got to Do With It" video.

E-girl reviews rock music

One of the joys of being a parent has been witnessing how my children respond to music.

When he was in-utero, I-guy would kick so much when a Dylan song came on that I had to sit down (or turn it off). Once—and only once—in the midst of dinner, when he was about three, he very seriously began to sing "Hard Times" by Ray Charles—all the way through, without stopping. ("My mother told me/ 'Fore she passed away/Said son when I'm gone/Don't forget to pray..."). Now he likes ska music and the Smithereens, among other things, continuing to find his own musical paths.

E-girl hated to be in the car as a baby and would start to scream about five minutes in. I found the only thing that would calm her down was if I sang "Hello Dolly" in an Ethel Merman voice. (The other day she started to sing that song and then said, "How do I know these words?") I have no idea how we came up with this antidote to her discomfort. Later she gravitated toward classical music and begged to hear it in the car when we drove anywhere together.

This long intro is really just an excuse to share some of E-girl's recent musical opinions. I try to keep my kids off my blog, at least in any exploitative way. Even if blogs had been much around when they were toddlers, I very much doubt if I would have publicly proclaimed their toilet training successes and failures. And I try not to brag about them widely, or live through them in any way, because I want them to have their privacy, and private, not-publicly-shared histories. (I think this also strengthens my own sense of identity). My biggest justification for doing this right now is that I want to park her quotes where I won't as easily lose them. And, I think, they're unique.

Keep in mind that E-girl's current favorite pop/rock group is Cold Play and her favorite album is the soundtrack from "Once."

• The B-52s: Those girls sound so good and then this guy just keeps trying to talk over them.
• Rihanna: Her voice is all auto-tuning.
• Janis Joplin: She has a certain style.
• Neil Young: His voice is soft and soothing, like running your hands in lotion, except with your ears. I think he could sing in a Muppet movie. 
• Grateful Dead: They suck.
• Taylor Swift: All her songs sound the same.

The plot thins

For all my good ideas over the years, I have failed to produce more than a handful of short stories, only two or three of them published (in addition to a couple of novels that need heavy revising). Instead, I have dozens of notebooks filled with descriptions of experience and emotion, which I have sometimes turned into essays, but rarely into any kind of cohesive story.

It wasn't until after I attended a lecture by Pam Smallcomb last year, on how to write children's picture books, that I began to realize I don't know how to write a good plot—or any plot, really. Plot is so essential to fiction, I don't know how I missed its absence.

I like poetic prose and deep insight, which is why I tend to read literary fiction rather than genre fiction. But those books rarely keep me up at night—unlike the Harry Potter books, whose pages I continued to turn long after my bedtime, until I had read the whole series. It was those little hooks along the way that kept me interested, which I've mostly ignored in my own fiction.

I never felt this way about poetry, perhaps because writing good poetry—especially form poetry—is a learning experience. I didn't assume that I knew what I was doing just because I could put down words and make rhymes. I understood that there is cadence and form, and building toward some kind of epiphany, all within a few lines. A massive, humbling undertaking if done well. And so I felt no embarrassment in consulting guides like The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics as I wrote poems.

But plot? I didn't think I needed to study it. Wasn't the telling of the story the same thing as plot?

Now I am reading, as Pam suggested in her lecture, 20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them). They include variations on the two essential plots that have been described over the years: a stranger comes to town, a journey is taken. But I'm finding it helpful to break down books I know and love into their mechanical parts, using this book as guide. Next, I will apply it to my own fiction; it's hard to admit that I am still a beginner at all this, but I'm never going to be a better writer unless I acknowledge my current limitations.