Techniques of the Selling Writer (8 page)

Does this mean that the term “focal character” is a synonym for “hero”?

Not unless Sammy Glick is a hero in Budd Schulberg’s
What Makes Sammy Run
. Or Macbeth. Or Dracula. Or Elmer Gantry.

Thing is, “hero” has come to have connotations of the positive and desirable in our
thinking. A focal character may prove the opposite, yet still intrigue us even as
we loathe him.

Therefore, he may—ordinarily will—be the hero. But not always.

Are “focal character” and “viewpoint character” the same?

A viewpoint character is someone through whose eyes we see all or part of a story.
In effect, we get inside his skin.

He is
not
necessarily the person around whom the yarn revolves, however. Sherlock Holmes is
a focal character; the viewpoint is Watson’s. In Dashiell Hammett’s
The Maltese Falcon
, Sam Spade is the focal character . . . the viewpoint, author-objective.

On the other hand, François Villon is both focal character and viewpoint character
in Robert Louis Stevenson’s
A Lodging for the Night
. Same for Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Walter Huff in James M. Cain’s
Double Indemnity
, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, and an infinity of others.

So, a focal character
may
be a viewpoint character; but then again, he may not.

But definitely, he
will
be the central and most important character, because he’s the one who determines
your reader’s orientation.

Isn’t it possible to write a story without a focal character?

Of course it is. But the penalties frequently are much the same as might descend upon
our city boy if we were to give him a gimmicked compass, whose needle points in one
direction one moment, in another the next. The lack of a strong central figure to
cheer for or throw rocks at takes the steam out of the story. Direction, continuity,
and perspective all tend to disintegrate.

In William March’s
Company K
, for example, each chapter is from the first-person viewpoint of a different member
of a World War I infantry unit. The writing is superior, individual episodes hold
considerable interest, and the author eliminates possible confusion in advance by
explaining the whys and wherefores of his procedure in the opening episode.

But the unity a focal character would give just isn’t there. The book ends up as a
series of sketches rather than a novel. The all-encompassing montage of war the author
attempts is reduced to a blur by sheer diffuseness.

How do you present a focal character most effectively, so that maximum meaning and
feeling are conveyed?

An intriguing question. To answer it, we first need to give attention to that fascinating
microcosm which we term . . .

The story world

You need to remember three key points about the world in which your story takes place:

Each of these items is of quite crucial importance. To build a story world is to play
God in a sort of private Genesis. You can understand the issues best if you consider
them as they relate
to the world of reality—the world in which you and your readers move from day to day.

Thus, our own world is a vast, echoing, drafty place, in which it’s easy to get lost.
No matter how much you travel, there always are new corners to explore . . . odd alleyways
you haven’t seen before.

Equally, you dare assume little about your reader’s background. He may not be familiar
with the jungles of Mount Kenya, or the rush of commerce along Singapore’s Raffles
Place, or Chicago’s South State Street in those blocks sleazy with decay, or even
the garish tastelessness or slick contemporary note struck by the living room of the
house next door. So, the only course is to paint each setting before said reader’s
very eyes, in full color and sufficient—not to mention pertinent—detail to bring it
completely alive for him.

Next question: How do you bring a setting to life?

The answer, of course, lies in the human animal himself. His world is a sensory world—a
world of green grass and white houses . . . purring kittens and thundering trucks
. . . Chanel No. 5 and curling wood smoke . . . fresh cold orange juice and hot crisp
bacon . . . silk’s rich smoothness and the harsh grit of volcanic ash.

So, you build your story world of these same sensory impressions—the seen, the heard,
the smelled, the touched, the tasted. Emphasis is on the vivid image and the impactful
figure of speech.

Then, with analogies, you link it all to the familiar, even if it costs you an extra
word or two or three. It will be worth it. Someone who’s never smelled the lunar pits
now may come to realize that they have a parallel in the acrid, sulfurous, flaming
smoke that belches from the shaft of an exploding mine.

Finally, and perhaps most important of all, you consider the frame of reference in
which this world exists.

Here is where you relate all that has gone before to your reference point, your focal
character.

You do this by presenting your material
subjectively
, as your focal character receives it.

Why?

Because each of us, on the basis of his goals and attitudes and
past experiences, reacts to his environment in his own unique and private way. The
manner in which I see things depends as much or more on my own mood as it does on
the external stimulus—the place or person or event. One man shudders at slum dirt;
another bristles at the sullen hostility that pervades each grime-stained, gutter-stinking
door front; another relaxes, unaware of filth or fear, because here he’s at home in
his own world.

The words a writer uses to describe a setting must mirror such feelings. Your very
phrases distinguish a thing you like from one you dislike, all efforts at objectivity
notwithstanding.

And so you build your story world—a moody, subjective bailiwick, brought to life so
vividly with sensory images that each and every reader automatically finds himself
transported there, no matter how limited his experience.

But don’t relax, even then. Your job is just beginning. For the story world, far from
being static, is an ever-changing place.

Story equals change
. . .

A story records change. It sets forth the details of how your focal character moves
from one state of affairs and state of mind to another.

Take the typical mystery. It begins with your hero somehow plunged into jeopardy via
murder. It ends when he brings the killer to justice and, in so doing, eliminates
the peril.

Between those two points is movement—a duality of movement, in point of fact. External,
physical movement carries Hero through assorted clashes with Villain, until one or
the other is defeated. Parallel with this runs a thread of internal emotional movement.
Most often, it’s presented introspectively—at least in part in thoughts or feelings.
Sometimes, however, it’s merely implied, or demonstrated in physical terms.

This internal movement reveals the continually fluctuating levels of tension that
eddy through Hero in the course of the external struggle. Too, here are the categories
of reactive feeling—such items as shock and grief and rage and panic and grim resolve,
and a host of others so complex that they really can’t be labeled.

A love story? We begin with boy wants girl; we end with boy gets girl. Between lie
an infinity of possible physical complications, with emotional turmoil to match.

And so it goes. In fantasy, heroine
becomes
witch; in science fiction, spaceman
battles
monster; in domestic romance, wife
improves
husband; in western, marshal
cleans up
town; in business novel, executive
wins
top post.

In each and every case, however, one thing stands out: Somebody
does
something. The situation, the state of affairs, at the end of a successful story
is not the same as it was at the beginning. And neither is the focal character’s state
of mind. In greater or lesser degree, he’s revised his evaluations, his attitudes,
his ideas of who is good and what is bad and how to deal with specific kinds of trouble.
His future is different than it would have been had the story not taken place. If
nothing else, he’s relieved of uncertainty as to just how his problem will work out!

Why is this factor of change so vital?

The answer lies in your reader’s attention span. Boredom attacks in seconds when no
new stimulus—for which read, “change”—impinges on him. If you want proof, see how
long—or, rather, how briefly—you can force yourself to concentrate fully on a given
object or fixed point. There’s no story in a static situation. A still life will never
hold your reader. Word photography isn’t enough.

But change alone isn’t enough either, if your goal is a successful story. What you
seek isn’t action for its own sake, but those specific changes that affect story development.
The things that happen must move your character along toward his goal, closer and
closer to the place you want him to go.

Concretely, you want external developments that will lead him to feel—and therefore
behave—in a constructive manner where the story problem is concerned.

Shall we contrast this with much of the gobbledygook that passes for complication
in beginners’ stories?—At dinner one evening, Hero orders steak. But the waiter warns
him against it . . . persuades him to try oysters instead. After eating them, Hero
feels a bit queasy. Oysters, he decides, always seem to upset his stomach. He’ll avoid
them in the future.

Now, you do have change here. There’s a switch both in the hero’s state of affairs
(an external force, the waiter, leads him to change his original order for steak)
and in his state of mind (feeling illish, he decides not to eat oysters again). But
unless his queasiness and/or his decision not to eat any more oysters have marked
bearing on the rest of the story, you’ve merely wasted time, space, and effort.

On the other hand, suppose a love-story hero drops by to surprise his sweetheart.

He does indeed—she’s in the arms of another man.

Shaken, Hero tells her off, or punches his rival’s nose, or decides to go call Margie,
or leaves town in a blind rage, cursing the fickleness of all women.

Have changes taken place? Yes. Do they affect the rest of the story—its development,
its outcome? Yes. Is your focal character’s state of mind changed by it? Indeed it
is, even if only in terms of never again taking too much for granted.

Does this mean you must eliminate all your pet fragments, on grounds that they contribute
too little?

On the contrary. The issue, ever and always, is to
make
them important to the development of your story. If you want a brilliant example
of what I’m talking about, get hold of a copy of Clifton Adams’
The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones
and read
Chapter 4
. It concerns a sunset.

Generations of editors have screamed imprecations at writers who dragged in lengthy
descriptions of such natural phenomena. Now, here’s a sunset that occupies the better
part of a chapter. Yet everyone loves it.

Why?

Because Br’er Adams, a skilled hand and then some, has motivated its inclusion; has
made it a matter of vital importance to his hero; has centered a life-and-death struggle
on it.

And there, in a nutshell, is the whole issue involved in the duality of story movement.
External events have no meaning in themselves, no matter how bland or how violent
they may be. Their inclusion or exclusion per se is completely inconsequential. They
aid in story development only as someone has feelings about them and reacts to them.

Therefore, we
must
have change in both the external world, your focal character’s state of affairs,
and his internal world, his state of mind. Neither can stand without the other. Only
as they interact, meshing like finely tooled gears, will your story roll forward.

Precisely how does this interplay, this dual movement, take place?

That’s a question that calls for more detailed analysis of the patterns of causation
that rule the story world.

. . .
equals cause and effect
. . .

There’s a story about a Chinese who sought to divorce his wife for infidelity when
she gave birth to a child with obviously Caucasian features. The judge granted the
decree . . . on grounds that two Wongs don’t make a white.

Or consider the light switch. You flip it. A lamp comes on, and all’s right with the
world.

In the same way, you pull the trigger, and your gun fires. You put a coin in a slot;
a candy bar comes down the chute. You overeat; your weight goes up.

We expect things to proceed in an accustomed fashion, a fashion that makes sense to
us. When they don’t, we’re upset. If you take out a cigarette and
it
starts to smoke
you
, you have a right to be surprised.

“Science is based upon the belief that the universe is reliable in its operation,”
says scientist and science writer Anthony Standen. People like the idea that there’s
a reason behind everything that happens . . . a cause for every effect, as we so glibly
put it. It gives us a sense of security; a nice, tidy feeling that everything is in
order and that we’re in control so far as understanding is concerned, even if not
physically.

So, in idle conversation—and sometimes, unfortunately, even in that not so idle—we
act as if cause and effect link together at a one-to-one ratio. Each cause, we imply,
brings about a single effect. Each effect results from a single cause.

Actually, our world seldom operates quite this simply or neatly. The situations with
which reality presents us more often
than not prove nightmarishly complex. When a traffic patrolman makes out an accident
report, he checks items ranging from type of pavement to weather, from presence or
absence of stop signs to time of day, from speed of vehicle to alcoholic content of
drivers. Similarly, an ulcer may be described as the result of too much hydrochloric
acid in the stomach—but just why is that excess acid there? Tell a psychiatrist that
you slugged your wife because she bought a new mink coat, and he’ll have a field day
lecturing you on displacement, repressed hostilities, and veiled aggressions.