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Fiction Editor Alan Ackmann continues his series on Crafting Fiction with an explanation of why creating complex three-dimensional characters is so important in short stories and in other types of writing. It’s been awhile since my last blog; chalk it up to mold, moving, teaching, and travels. But I’m thrilled to continue our Crafting Fiction Blog Series. Those with shrewd memories (or the ability to click Past Blog links) recall that the last post ended by promising to explore how fiction can honor God without overtly sermonizing. That’s a tall order, and the first step is recognizing that good writing reveals the truth of people’s pain and ecstasies, and when the right moments are depicted lovingly, that truth reveals the majesty of God and his creations. From my perspective, this requires focus on good characterization, which can also extend powers to other aspects of writing.
The Power of Specificity Characterization is the process of creating authentic, recognizable individuals. When discussing stories with fellow editors, my most frequent comment is that characters seem generic, nothing separating them from the rest of the world. Most frequently, interchangeability results from a writer’s having not recognized or portrayed one of life’s great simple mysteries: that each person is made up of unique experiences, memories, fears, and feelings. Such characters lack precision, and their anonymity makes them inaccessible. A professor of mine claimed that if your character drinks beer, you should know if he wraps both hands around the glass and hunches over, if he pinches the rim and sips politely, or if he rests one palm on the sides when he’s not drinking, scared the glass will fall. You should know whether he notices that the glass is cold, if the beer is imported, or if he cares. You have to know if his father drank, and if this makes him feel guilty; if he is celebrating, mourning, forgetting, or remembering. People reveal themselves through major decisions about jobs or marriage, but more readily reveal themselves through smaller, incremental gestures that transform our understandings, and writing that does not resist the impulse to see people as types rather than individuals can only go so far. I wish I had a formula that could chart predictable trajectory for characterization, but there isn’t one; the only proven way I’ve found is time and observation. But the rewards of this process are great: if the people at the center of our stories are recognizable, their stories can create universal emotions for the reader.
The Power of DesireOf course, fashioning a fleshed out person or two is not, by itself, enough (although it’s a fine start). The art of fiction is narrative in addition to portraiture. The encouraging news is that good characters suggest good stories, because every specific, fully rendered person will experience desire. All people want something—whether it is a thing (Moby Dick), a person (Lolita), a home (The Grapes of Wrath) an emotion (Catcher in the Rye), the recreation of a memory (The Great Gatsby), or whatever else. Your job as a writer involves recognizing these desires. Ideally, this is not something you will have to force; the more time you spend with characters, the more clearly their desires—like everything else—reveal themselves. Your job as a writer then becomes following those desires, and (for awhile at least) keeping them unfulfilled. There are countless ways to do this, but we’ll save that for some other time.
There are caveats, of course. The characters’ desires should be vital enough to lead them towards significant changes or experiences, which have impact beyond the world of the story. By the end of an Alastair Macleod story, a reader never doubts that they have read about the most significant thing to ever happen to a character, and that the ripples of their narrative transcend the borders of the page. Similarly, it’s helpful if characters’ desires and challenges are interesting to people beyond themselves—if their decisions impact other circumstances. Finally, it’s a good idea if the desire is complicated by some subsequent internal factors—which brings me to my final point.
The Power of ContradictionsA student of mine, in that simple, poignant way freshman have, once commented in workshop that “people are funny little creatures.” I could not agree more. The context had to do with a character wanting something (let’s say…“love”) purely and desperately, no other inclinations in her head. On paper, this sounds fine—the character wants something, put something in her way, and off you go. The problem, in this case, was that the character wanted nothing but love, and her desire was so passionately and undistractedly rendered that its very intensity became boring. People rarely want only one thing, and they rarely feel only one way about it. Characters should do the same. A character may desire the same thing someone he loves also wants, for example, but only one of them can have it; in working towards their goal characters may feel willingness to hurt that frightens and excites them, or they may attain their goal and find it empty, or unworthy of the price. Internal contradictions, surprises, create complexity, which is nothing more than the end sum of a character’s (and reader’s) divided emotions. These contradictions are also the stuff of great literature, and some of the most moving images in the Bible reflect this truth—fear-filled Jesus on his knees in dim Gethsemane; Abram’s trembling knife above his son; Jonah’s cowardly flight and remorse. Today, there are limitless complexities, contradictions, doubts, and textured triumphs in our faith and spirituality, and when taken together, these distinctions demonstrate “the human heart in conflict with itself”, which (in the words of William Faulkner) “alone can make great writing, because only that is worth writing about—worth the agony and the sweat.”
When selecting pieces for Relief, we always look for strong characterization, and many works we showcase (“The Institute of Transcendence” from 2.1 and “Baggage” from 2.2) do a fine job of creating three-dimensional characters. Check them out, and check back in two weeks for the next entry in our “Crafting Fiction” series. Previous Articles:
Alan Ackmann received his MFA in fiction from the University of Arkansas and teaches at DePaul University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Clackamas Literary Review, Louisiana Literature, Ontario Review, and elsewhere. He is a former fiction editor of The Evansville Review and was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at the 2007 Sewanee Writer’s Conference. Find out more at www.alanackmann.com.
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