Creating Characters: How to Build Story People (17 page)

The danger is that if you go too far with this process you may create a being of such complexity and with so many facets that you lose your story. Goal orientation may submerge in soul searching, and life’s trivia overwhelm dynamics. When that happens, a handful of intellectuals and academics may ponder and analyze your work, but it’s unlikely to attract any mass readership.

I can give you no answer to this problem. You must decide for yourself to what degree you want realism to balance against situation-oriented tension, insight against excitement. For the issue
is
a matter of degree. Neither extreme is going to satisfy too many readers.

Consider the amoeba as a character. The simplest of one-celled life forms, irregular and constantly changing in shape, it has direction in the sense that it’s programmed to survive by projecting pseudo-pods to engulf its food. As an implacable, though non-malicious villain, it could do very well in a science fiction story, if only you could give it more meaningful emotion.

A number of writers have taken advantage of this kind of thinking to use animals as characters (Jack London with
Call of the Wild
), extraterrestrials (remember
E.T.
?), automata (Lester del Rey’s classic “Helen O’Loy”), and so on.

The secret to writing about these creatures beyond the human pale really involves no skills beyond those you’ve already learned. In dealing with them, the key point to remember is that, precisely because humans can understand only humans, you must somehow endow your non-humans with human attributes, human traits.

Three questions will help you build such non-human beings both effectively and with minimum waste motion:

1. What are Alien’s unique characteristics?

2. What does Alien have in common with your readers?

3. What is Alien’s purpose?

Where Question 1 is concerned, it should be obvious enough
that Alien should somehow register as . . . well, alien; that is, nonhuman, as a ghost or a horse or a computer is non-human. And that is in no way a call for cliched bug-eyed monsters, either. It may be enough that your other-worldly creature can read minds or walk through walls or reproduce via parthenogenesis or spontaneous generation or breaking off segments as do some kinds of starfish.

Question 2 zeroes in on the fact that it’s essential for you to provide your alien with tags your audience can understand. Because that’s how Godzilla, and the primitive in that delightful film,
The Gods Must Be Crazy,
and Hal the Computer from
2001,
and Black Beauty, and A. E. Van Vogt’s Ptath successfully captured readers.

Or, as a science fiction artist once commented to me, “the simple way to make an alien monster acceptable to humans is to give it cocker spaniel eyes.”

Which brings us to Question 3, and the fact that sad or warmly adoring cocker spaniel eyes simply aren’t enough when you’re building an alien in fiction. In addition, it’s vital that you know Alien’s purpose, what he/she/it is trying to do. He may not be able to voice it, you understand, so long as we lack a universe of discourse between species. But when snails invade your garden or cockroaches your kitchen, you have a pretty good idea of what they’re after. Same for Greyfriars Bobby at his master’s grave, and the billion little green men who invaded Earth in Fredric Brown’s
Martians, Go Home!
On its own level and in its own way, each
feels,
and so, whether we love or hate them, we understand them.

Beyond which, projection, extrapolation, inference from established components—in a word, our old reliable
rationalization
—will provide you with the answer.

What’s more to the point is to make sure you frame your nonhuman character in a story world that makes his goal-striving and emotion both human and logical. Thus, E.T. is understandable, makes sense to us, because he’s stranded far from home. We know nothing about that home—nor do we need to. Homesickness is all we need. We understand it because we ourselves have felt it, so it gives us an emotional springboard from which to empathize with the little alien.

In the same way, the dog Buck in Jack London’s
The Call of the Wild
reacts to the harshly brutal world into which the story plunges him in a manner that fits our own emotional patterns. We
can understand his return to the savagery of his forebears on the basis of the stimuli to which he’s subjected.

And so we end up back at the point from which we started: the importance, ever and always of emotion, feeling. It sparks well-nigh every story you read or write. Without it, your work is marked by happenstance and doomed to failure. With it, plus an understanding of basic story structure and character development, your chances for success are good.

So much for roles. But we’ve been serious about this writing business long enough. It’s time we took a break, looked at the lighter side of things, humor, and how you can create it and adapt it to your story.

We’ll explore it in the next chapter.

How do you give a character or story a light touch? What’s the secret of “amusing”? Those are questions on which most of us have pondered at one time or another.

People do like to laugh, though. Ask Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, Bill Cosby, Art Buchwald, Daniel Pinkwater, Garrison Keillor, Anne Tyler, Roseanne Barr, or your friendly neighborhood TV gagman if you don’t believe me.

Where you as a writer are concerned, humor and its low-key cousin, the amusing, often are next to vital, and not just on account of their reader appeal. In addition, they’re useful tools for changing pace, reducing tension, adding proportion, neutralizing purple prose, and maybe even unscrewing the inscrutable.

Further, there’s a simple approach, once you understand the issues. But said understanding
is
important. Without it, you can grope and fumble endlessly.

The thing to remember is that the amusing character actually is a character whose roots lie in humor.

So, what
is
humor? How do you handle it?

Answer: Humor is first and foremost a state of mind, and said state varies drastically from individual to individual. Attitude is the issue—an attitude or character trait we call a sense of humor.

Before a character can have a sense of humor,
you
must. Do you view the world through slightly skewed, laugh-tinted glasses? Do you see people and events with which you come in contact as funny? Is it your habit to chuckle—perhaps involuntarily—at things others take at face value?

Fine! The fact that you react thus constitutes a good start when
it comes to creating lighthearted story moods and ludicrous or pleasantly entertaining people and situations. Beyond that, once you learn humor’s underlying principles, applying them to your story people will soon be second nature.

So, forward, and forgive me if I seem to take the long way around, through cartoons and jokes and gag definitions and mirth-provoking verse en route to where we discuss the actual creation of humorous and amusing characters and situations. It’s necessary, believe me, if you’re to understand the issues.

Laughter is the noise a person makes when he or she attains release from the tyranny of the “should.”

Humor is a device designed to do this releasing. It’s a trigger, a detonating cap, a mental tickle.

To make people laugh, you devise a plausible (and quite possibly ridiculous), yet unanticipated alternative for something that
is
or
is supposed to be
a certain way. Then, you call attention to this alternative in such a manner that the reader or auditor abruptly becomes aware of both its contrast with and its similarity to the norm.

In other words, implicitly or explicitly your reader anticipates one thing, then unexpectedly gets another. Yet what he gets makes sense, in its own warped way, and no damage is done, and so he laughs.

Exhibit A:
A cartoon shows three ghosts in a spooky-looking attic. Two, garbed in white sheets, are talking. The third, silent and the obvious object of the discussion, wears a black sheet. Punchline: “This is Cousin Adolph, the black sheet of the family.”

Where’s the humor in it?

To find out, we need to consider four points:

1. The
assumption
which exists in the reader’s mind . . . the
should
, the expectation, the “This-is-the-way-things-like-this-are-supposed-to-be.”

2. The
alternative
to this assumption which the humorist offers . . . the unanticipated deviation from established pattern.

3. The
applicability
of the humorist’s use of the alternative . . . the element of warped plausibility which forces the reader to concede, “Yes, it
might
happen this way, if you grant the right premise.”

4. The
abruptness
with which the reader becomes aware of the alternative’s contrast to the assumed norm, the situation.

Now, applying this pattern of analysis to our ghost cartoon, what do we find?

1.
Assumption:
The world follows certain rules, even where ghosts are concerned. Specifically, ghosts
should—
are supposed to—wear white sheets.

2.
Alternative:
Here is a ghost who deviates from the established pattern. He wears a
black
sheet.

3.
Applicability:
The alternative is made rational, plausible, in a warped fashion by the play-on-words and play-on-ideas of the punchline.

a.) “Black sheet” is an obvious pun—a twisting of language that provides an applicable yet unanticipated alternative for the assumption that the words
should
add up to the familiar phrase, “black sheep.”

b.) Most of us also assume that ghosts are ghosts. That is, we take it for granted that (1.) ghosts are uniquely different from humans, and (2.) all ghosts are the same. Our cartoon, however, confronts us with a plausible yet unanticipated alternative for this idea, this stereotype: Ghosts, it in effect says, react like people; and, like people, they sit in judgment on each other.

4.
Abruptness:
Attention is called to the alternative approach suddenly and unexpectedly, with a punchline that brings out the point of the gag in a five-word phrase at the
end
of the sentence.

Exhibit B:
Here we have a joke:

“Doctor, I’m worried,” says the patient to his psychiatrist. “I’m always talking to myself.”

“Is that really so bad?” the psychiatrist probes. “Lots of people do that.”

“Yes, Doctor, I know,” responds the patient. “But I’m such a bore.”

1.
Assumption:
That the
act
of talking is what’s bothering the patient.

2.
Alternative:
The
content
of the talking actually is the issue.

3.
Applicability:
Much as we may hate to admit it, all of us have been bored with ourselves, at one time or another. So the patient’s statement
does
make sense, even though it’s so far out as to reduce logic to absurdity.

4.
Abruptness:
The
very last word
in the story is the stinger!

Exhibit C:
A gag definition:

“Sympathy is what one girl gives another in exchange for details.”

1.
Assumption:
Kindness and concern are supposed to be the key motives for sympathy.

2.
Alternative:
In actuality, avidity for scandal and a desire to gloat over the other fellow’s troubles frequently serve as our point of focus.

3.
Applicability:
The truth of the alternative, and the wry, cold-turkey frankness with which it is set against the politely platitudinous stereotype, are obvious.

4.
Abruptness:
Again, the arrangement of the line is such that the punch comes at the very end. And the word “details” captures the exact nuances of both connotation and denotation beautifully.

Exhibit D:
Let’s look at a familiar fragment of humorous verse:

See the happy moron;

He doesn’t give a damn.

I wish I were a moron—

My God! Perhaps I am!

1.
Assumption:
Mental deficiency is something that afflicts somebody else.

2.
Alternative:
It just might be that we’re not as sharp as we think we are.

3.
Applicability:
Haven’t we all some time or other given lip service to how fortunate the stupid are, in their alleged freedom from responsibility and worry?

4.
Abruptness:
Rhyme and timing put the punch where it belongs—cleverly phrased, at the end of the verse.

Now few writers deal with such rigidly structured forms as those set forth above. But we all may very well make use of the same principles in giving our copy an occasional light touch.

For example, consider this line from Lilian Jackson Braun’s
The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare:

“Mr. President,” said Susan Exbridge, “I would like to make a proposal. The Singing Society will present Handel’s
Messiah
at the Old Stone Church on November twenty-fourth, exactly as it was performed in period costume. We had planned a reception for the performers afterward, and this museum would be a marvelous place to have it, if Mr. Qwilleran would consent.”

“Okay with me,” said Qwilleran, “provided I don’t have to wear satin knee breeches.”

1.
Assumption:
A straight statement/question will get a straight answer.

2.
Alternative:
The person responding may take the statement/question lightly—as when Qwilleran tacks on the facetious bit, “provided I don’t have to wear satin knee breeches.”

3.
Applicability:
The satin knee breeches line is perfect counterpoint to Susan Exbridge’s statement “exactly as it was performed in period costume.”

4.
Abruptness:
The stinger phrase appears
at the end
of the sentence, where it will jolt the reader most.