Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors (8 page)

In the construction of a building, if an upper floor starts to sway, where does the problem lie? Not in that floor. It lies in the very foundation of the building. Maybe the concrete pad wasn’t laid right. Or the supporting piers aren’t deep enough. As in the Bible story, the house built on sand falls, while the house built on rock survives the storm. It could be the exact same house. But one foundation is solid, one is not.

And so, when novelists ask me about their books’ “sagging middles,” or tell me their plots are stuck or weak, I take them back to the foundation of their story.
What
is the protagonist’s Desire? Everything else in the novel should spring from that.
Everything.

Why do some novels seem to wander? Why is the plot boring? Often due to lack of a strong Desire for the protagonist. Without it you can end up with a story in which the main character merely reacts to events. These characters look weak to readers.

All right. So how to discover your protagonist’s Desire? The process often isn’t easy. Or quick. Two areas of knowledge will guide you:

1. Your character’s inner values, which tell you who she is and what she wants to achieve—
before
the inciting incident takes place.

2. The inciting incident, and how it changes the character.

“Inciting incident” refers to the first major conflict in your story. It’s the conflict that kicks off—or incites—all other conflict. For example, in my suspense novel
Sidetracked
the inciting incident is when the main character, Delanie Miller, stumbles upon the dead body of her good friend. She’s clearly been murdered. From that moment on, Delanie’s life changes.

On the surface the second point above sounds somewhat like the old “chicken or egg—which came first” problem. I’m telling you an author needs to know his protagonist’s Desire to build the best conflict, yet to know the Desire, you must know the story’s first point of conflict. But most authors do already know the inciting incident of their stories. The inciting incident forms the premise of the novel. If you’re a total pantser and start with a character, knowing nothing about what is going to happen to him, you’ll soon find yourself typing the inciting incident. If not, you’re going to have a weak story. Every reader of a novel—and every viewer of a movie—subconsciously awaits the inciting incident, and expects it soon. It’s the event that gets the story moving. In a script the inciting incident usually occurs about ten pages (ten minutes) into the movie. For a novel I advocate putting the inciting incident in the first chapter. There are exceptions to this, as with any guideline. But too often novelists use the exception badly. The result is a novel with a slow start, its beginning filled with a lot of backstory and narrative. Or a prologue that isn’t needed. Or both.

We’ll look further at the inciting incident in our discussion of the second D: Distancing.

Three-point structure for a character’s Desire

1.
The Desire must be stated in terms of an action verb.

A state-of-being verb (“to be” or “to have”) is so general that it doesn’t give rise to action. These would include such goals as “I want to be happy” or “I want to have lots of money.” That’s a start, but you need to probe much further. Why? Because a novel is the story of your character’s
actions
, not her
state of being
.

Let’s say you determine your character’s Desire will start with the general idea: “I want to have a happy marriage.” Fine. Probe from there, much as you did in the Personalizing process. What must the character do (action verb) to achieve that goal? The answer will depend on her definition of a happy marriage. That phrase means different things to different people, depending on who they are at their core (inner values). You’d have to ask your character to define what a happy marriage means to her, then set her in pursuit of these goals. Her pursuit will naturally be stated in an action verb.

2.      
The Desire must be very specific.

Picking up on number 2—remember that knowing your character’s Desire helps you create scenes of conflict to oppose that Desire. Here’s the irony: you’d think that the more general your character’s Desire, the more plot points it will lead you to. The opposite is true.

Take the above example: “I want to have a happy marriage.” In order to move that Desire from a state-of-being verb to an action verb, you will have to move it from generality to specifics.

Let’s say you determine this character’s definition of a happy marriage is one of trust. The focus of her Desire will now be: “I want to build trust within my marriage.” Good. Now you’ve gone from a state-of-being verb (have) to an action verb (build). And you’ve moved in the direction of specifics. But you need to go further. How, exactly, does the character intend to build that trust? What does trust look like to her? Does it mean she must convince herself of her husband’s honesty so she won’t suspect him of being with another woman when he works late? Or does it mean her husband must commit to working shorter hours so she’ll have no reason to worry? Or does it mean she must persuade him that
she’s
trustworthy? As you can see, each of these would lead to a very different motivation within the character.

Say you now discover that the problems with trust in the marriage stem from faults within your character, not her husband.
She
must change. She has lied a lot to her husband and has lost his trust. She wants her once happy marriage back—and the only way to get it is to stop lying and prove to him that she’s trustworthy. Now the Desire is very specific. How to state it so it best helps you create your story?

I’ve found the best way is to make the Desire “two-pronged”—the plan of action followed by the ultimate goal.

This character’s Desire could be stated: “I want to never again lie to my husband so that I can rebuild trust in my marriage.”

Each “prong” of this Desire can lead to points of conflict. For the first prong, you could throw all kinds of temptation to lie in your character’s way. What if she needs to lie to protect a friend? Or her husband himself? At what point will she crack? Or will she crack at all? The advantage of the second prong is that it gives you another point at which things can go wrong for your character. What if she totally changes and never lies again—and still her goal isn’t met because her husband refuses to believe her?

Another advantage of the second prong is that it often keeps your character from appearing merely selfish. Let’s say you have a protagonist with the inner value: “The only thing more important than money is family.” Building on that, you could start with a general Desire: “I want to be rich” and hone it to an action verb with specifics: “I want to earn at least $200,000 a year so that I can pay for my sick mother’s medical bills.” Without the “so that” prong, the character is focused only on himself. And again, that second prong can lead to more ideas for conflict within your story. What if he works two jobs to attain the salary he wants—and the cost of treating his mother goes up even more? Or what if he can pay the bills, but she still isn’t getting well?

The point here is
possibilities
. The more specific your character’s Desire, the more possibilities for conflict.

3.      
The Desire must be exactly correct for the character and story.

The slightest mistake of intent may not seem like much when you pinpoint your character’s Desire, but it can lead to a very different story in the end, just as two angled lines begin together, then grow farther and farther apart as they progress.

Let’s go back to the woman’s Desire: “I want to never again lie to my husband so that I can rebuild trust in my marriage.” Now let’s tweak that Desire just a tiny bit: “I want to never again be caught in a lie so that I can rebuild trust in my marriage.” Whoa. What a difference that tweak makes. She still wants trust in her marriage. But she’s not willing to change to achieve it. She simply has to be more cautious about when to lie. Sometimes she’ll choose not to, for fear of being caught. Other times she’ll lie with utmost cunning. This motivation will result in a very different story.

In
An Actor Prepares
Stanislavsky tells about his playing the part of the hypochondriac Argan, the main character in Molière’s
The Imaginary Invalid
. Stanislavsky first thought Argan’s super-objective (equivalent to our character’s Desire) was: “I want to be ill.” (By the way, notice this is a state-of-being verb. That’s okay for an actor, who is portraying the character as already written, not creating the conflict of the story to begin with.) But something wasn’t working in rehearsals. The play was supposed to be funny—and it wasn’t. Argan was coming across as too … sick. Too heavy. Stanislavsky then returned to the foundation of the character—the super-objective. He realized he’d been slightly off, but that slight mistake had made all the difference. He tweaked his understanding of Argan’s super-objective to be: “I want people to
think
I am ill.” With that motivation driving Stanislavsky’s portrayal, Argan’s movements became lighter. Exaggerated. He became funny.

The Protagonist’s Desire sets up the stakes in your novel.

Once you’ve determined your protagonist’s Desire, ask, “What happens if she doesn’t achieve it?” In other words, what are the stakes? Failure has to
matter
. It has to mean the character’s life will be changed for the worse. Plus, often it’s not just the character’s way of life at risk, but loved ones as well. In a “high concept” story, the whole world’s existence may be at stake.

Naturally, the degree of risk will vary depending on your genre. In a suspense often the protagonist’s very life is on the line—or the life of someone she loves. In less action-driven genres, such as a contemporary family saga, the stakes still need to be high enough to drive the story. Weak stakes = weak Desire. If the character has little to lose by failing to attain his Desire, why try all that hard?

I’ve read novels with inherent weak stakes that did contain a lot of conflicts, with the protagonist struggling to overcome them. But those novels are “much to-do about nothing.” Why should I care if the protagonist obtains his Desire or not? It won’t matter that much to his life. In these cases the equation is: weak stakes = weak tension.

Characters who have two Desires

You may discover that your protagonist has two Desires—one conscious and the other subconscious. This tends to occur in more complex character-driven novels rather than in those driven by suspense, mystery, or action. But not always. The two Desires are often diametrically opposed to each other, causing internal conflict. The character will pursue the conscious Desire, thinking that this is the utmost goal. But the subconscious Desire will at times be the one driving the character’s actions and choices, especially in times of stress. As events in the story unfold, the subconscious Desire will rise to the surface. The character will then begin to see this Desire and the inner value from which it springs. Many times at the end of such stories, the character must choose between the (originally) subconscious and conscious Desires, and will decide upon the former, realizing that it, indeed, was the driving force all along. If your character has both a conscious and an unconscious Desire, you will have to determine which of them is the ultimate driving force.

Gone With the Wind
shows us an example of a protagonist with two Desires. Scarlett O’Hara’s conscious Desire regarding her love life is: “I want Ashley Wilkes for myself and myself alone.” Through the entire long novel, Scarlett lives through one conflict after another, always dreaming of Ashley, thinking she loves him. But Scarlett’s subconscious Desire is: “I need a man stronger than I, one who will make me feel secure.” This isn’t something Scarlett would ever admit to herself. But the truth is, she has a breathless, sometimes almost childlike passion for life that gets her into trouble. (It also at times gives her strength.) At the end of the book, Scarlett’s conscious Desire can finally come true. Now that Ashley’s wife has died, the two of them can be together. Yet at that moment Scarlett realizes Ashley is not the man for her after all, because he’s weaker than she is. (“I never really loved him.”) The man she really loves is Rhett Butler, her husband, the one who “comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from her dreams.” When Rhett leaves her, Scarlett doesn’t revel in her sudden freedom to be with Ashley. Instead, all she can think of is winning back Rhett’s love. Her conscious Desire has been replaced by her formerly unconscious Desire.

Example of Desire

Remember that you start discovering your protagonist’s Desire by focusing on his inner values and what he wants prior to
the inciting incident. This is your character in his normal world, before it’s upset by a major unexpected event. (In
The Writer’s Journey
, Christopher Vogler calls this the character’s “ordinary world.”) Let’s look at John Steinbeck’s tragic novel
The Pearl
, as an example of the protagonist’s Desire driving the entire story. First, the introduction of the main character in his normal world:

Kino and Juana live in near poverty with their baby, Coyotito, in a little town near the ocean. One morning tragedy strikes—Coyotito is stung by a scorpion. Kino and Juana hurry into town for a doctor. But they are turned away because they don’t have the money to pay for treatment. Back home Juana applies a poultice on Coyotito’s wound while Kino dives in the ocean, looking for pearls to sell. Juana prays he will find a big pearl.