In
the last lesson, we talked about basing your fictional characters on the real
people in the world around you. Now, our plot is about to thicken. The process
is about to become more complex.
It’s
usually not enough, you see, to simply pluck people out of real life and set
them down in the pages of your story. Even if a character is based on an actual
person, it still needs to become a fictional
character – something quite different from a true human being. Characters are realistic, and yet they are not quite real.
Therefore,
when writing fiction you must create
characters. For most writers, much of this act of creation happens before the
actual writing of the story begins. If this sounds a bit like homework, well,
it is. But usually the payoff is worth the effort.
The Pitfalls of
Photo-Copying People
First,
let’s look at some reasons why
characters need to be fictionalized. (You may do better with your homework if
you understand its purpose and necessity).
Truth
be told, there are numerous pitfalls to photo-copying people, that is, sticking
real people in a story without any fictionalizing. For one thing, you might
lose some friends. But that’s not the only reason.
Real
people live twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and so much goes on in
their lives and inside their minds that it is literally impossible to capture
them on paper in a way that is truly realistic. There is simply too much
material. Fictional characters require much more focus than people in real
life. Otherwise, the readers, not to mention the writer, will get lost.
Besides,
it’s difficult – impossible, really – to get inside anyone other than yourself. No matter how well you know
someone, you can never be absolutely certain what he or she is thinking and
feeling, hoping and fearing. And these are things you, the writer, will want to
know about most of your characters.
Consider
Jay Gatsby. He’s a total mystery to us at first, and to our narrator, Nick.
Gradually we begin to discover what’s beneath the seemingly-impenetrable
exterior. In Chapter 6, we learn some of the truth about James Gatz’s humble
Midwestern beginnings – a truth that is quite different from the truth Gatsby
himself reveals. In a sense, Gatsby is really two people. At the end of this
chapter, we gain some insight into Gatsby’s life-altering introduction to
Daisy, revealed in the rhapsodic passage beginning "One autumn night
..." We will discover even more about Gatsby in the remaining chapters. If
you’re going to base characters on the real people in your life, you’re going
to have to know them at least as well as Fitzgerald knows Gatsby. And most of
us don’t know many people that well.
But,
you’re thinking at this point, "I know somebody better than Fitzgerald knew Gatsby. I know me. I’ll base a character, lots of characters, on myself. That’ll
be easy!"
Really?
Do you think you know yourself all that well? Well, maybe. But think about it.
Your knowledge of yourself is quite literally subjective. That is, you only
know yourself from within and can’t
see yourself from the outside. You literally have no objectivity regarding who
you are and what you do. To write wholly autobiographical fiction is therefore
a very dicey undertaking. This is something we see time and again in the
fiction classes at Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Characters that beginning writers
base on themselves are almost always the thinnest on the page, the least clear
and convincing.
Paradoxically,
it’s also possible to know certain people too
well. In writing about ourselves, or our relatives and best friends, we
tend to take all sorts of information for granted. You know that your father moved you and your brother and sister
back and forth between Orlando and Anaheim when you were kids, because he was
obsessed with Mickey Mouse. But you may know it so deeply you forget to tell
the readers.
Finally,
a character based on an individual close to the writer is also unlikely to
surprise the writer and delight the reader. Some of the best things in stories
happen when the characters take the writer in unexpected directions. Characters
that are photo-copied from life tend to do exactly what the original people did
in reality. They remain faithful to the facts rather than going where the story
wants or needs to go.
Remember
the Mystery Woman from the last lecture – the one who appears at your bus stop
each day with a different book in her hands? What if, instead of being a
stranger, she were your officemate and casual friend? Then you would know why she had a different book every day.
You would know that she took a speed-reading course once, and can now devour a
350-page novel in an hour or so.
If
you stuck too closely to who that person really was, it’s unlikely that you
would invent the delightful scenario we created, in which a woman from out of
town pretends to read a different book each day in hopes of meeting a stranger.
It might not occur to you to make this person anything other than a speed-reader. By fictionalizing the person, you open
up a myriad of interesting possibilities from which you may choose.
Complicated,
isn’t it? Not really. Here’s a relatively simple solution to all the problems
discussed above.
Pieces of People
Perhaps
the most effective way to make the transition from real people to fictional
characters is to create composites.
This method does two things: 1) It forces you to fictionalize, and 2) It allows
you to mold people to fit the specific needs of your story.
Using
the composite method, you create characters who are actually amalgams of
several people you know, or know of. You put together pieces of various people,
in much the same way that Dr. Frankenstein created his famous monster.
For
example, you may create a character who has the personality of your best friend
and the looks of your cousin. Maybe he talks like your boss, smells like your
father, and eats like a slob you saw in a diner last week. Note that all of
this is inspired by real people in the world around you; that hasn’t changed.
It’s just that the way we’re using our raw material is more involved, more
active, more creative – and ultimately it will serve the story better.
We
talked about how Jay Gatsby’s situation bears some similarities to that of the
young F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby is a man without much status who falls in
love with a socially prominent Southern belle, and focuses all of his energy on
transforming himself into someone he thinks will be worthy of her love
But
that’s not the whole story of Jay Gatsby’s creation.
Scholars
have discovered that a man named Max von Gerlach once signed a note to
Fitzgerald that featured the phrase "old sport." This von Gerlach had
a bunch of conflicting identities; he was variously thought to be a baron, a
bootlegger, and a car dealer in Flushing, Queens – the location of The Great Gatsby’s "Valley of
Ashes." Sound familiar? Many believe that Fitzgerald met von Gerlach in
Great Neck, Long Island, sometime during the early Twenties. (Great Neck and
Manhasset Neck are thought to be the West and East Eggs of the novel.)
In
other words, Fitzgerald combined an autobiographical situation with some of the
characteristics of a colorful man whom he seems not to have known all that
well. He probably also added details drawn from other people he’d known or
observed. The result: a brilliant character.
Or
think of Daisy. We said earlier that she was probably inspired by Fitzgerald’s
wife, Zelda. However, there are things about Daisy that are not true of Zelda.
Though socially prominent, Zelda’s family was not, in fact, rich. Daisy is
very, very rich – so rich that even her voice is "full of money."
Mrs. Fitzgerald hailed from Alabama, not Kentucky. Nor did she cheat on her
husband with a man like Gatsby or run over her husband’s lover in a car. Those
details probably came from other human behavior witnessed by the writer.
Or
think of the Mystery Woman. Perhaps you have taken a piece of her from someone
you work with – the fact that she reads a different book every day. But the
other pieces of her came from elsewhere. Perhaps your brother is extremely shy
and so you borrow that trait from him. Perhaps your college roommate was from
Kansas and so you borrow that trait from her. By playing Dr. Frankenstein and
making a composite, you have created a terrific fictional character that is
willing to go wherever your imagination wants her to go. Who knows what she
will do?
On
a final note, consider this. Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, sticks very closely to the facts of
Fitzgerald’s life, much more so than The
Great Gatsby. Though This Side of
Paradise was a big success when first released, it is nowhere near as good
a novel as The Great Gatsby. And the
characters in it are not nearly as memorable as Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, and the
rest of this marvelous fictional cast.
The
composite method worked well for Fitzgerald, and it can work for you.
Discussion
After
reading the lecture, try answering some or all of the following:
1. Can you think of any additional
problems that may stem from putting a character in a story without
fictionalizing the person?
2. Does the concept of composites seem
interesting to you? Does it seem puzzling?
3. Are you more interested in writing
characters that are similar to or unlike yourself?
~~~~~~~~~ Source: 2005-2006 free online courses at http://bnuniversity.com/
