Paksworld

Most of us have had the experience of knowing someone so well we were sure we could predict their behavior in all circumstances….and then being shocked to the core to find out they did not behave as expected. It happened to me again this past fall. They weren’t hiding what they were–I just didn’t see it.

Non-writers sometimes think that fictional characters are entirely under the writer’s control–after all, we have a “delete” key, don’t we? (Or, in the old days, erasers and white-out.) Surely the writer can force the character to do what the writer wants…it’s not like the character is a real person who can slam the door and walk away.

Except…readers want characters to feel real. And one part of feeling real is a character’s ability to refuse cooperation. Even cooperation with the writer.

Just like “real” people, characters express rebellion in different ways. Some are quiet; some are noisy. Some simply go flat and limp–as if the character turned into a sopping wet photograph of himself/herself.

I find talkative characters the easiest to deal with. They’re eager to tell me why they chose the path up the hill instead of down; they explain (sometimes at tedious length) how to do whatever it is they’re doing (fishing, flying a plane, repairing a radio, cleaning a weapon); they express their suspicions and their enthusiasms and their darkest fears. The silent ones–especially the silent sullen ones–annoy me as much as I annoy them by prodding them. Immobile silent sullen ones are the worst…the plot just sits there waiting for them to do something. I dangle lures in front of them: adventure, danger, food, new people, old acquaintances. If it’s bad enough, it kills the story (one of my two failed novels: the same two characters had the same discussion no matter where I put them or what distractions–including imminent danger–I put in their way.)

Sometimes finding out more about the character can save a project (or the character in my original conception of him/her) but sometimes the character’s determination to go do something stupid (or evil or boring) is greater than my ability to force them–and keep them alive as “real” people. In the Paks stories, Barranyi is one of those. I had in mind Barranyi as a simple foil for Paks: same size, same basic abilities as a fighter, many good qualities…just not chosen to be a paladin. Barra resented that. She started turning sour early and every time I tried to take her aside and explain that I really did like her, and she really could be a hero, just not that kind of hero, she got madder. Her resentment was realistic (yes, there are people like Barra who go through life resentful and bitter) and its fallout–the damage she did to people who liked her, and even loved her–was realistic. But that was not her planned role early on.

I’m having an argument with a character in the second book of the current group. No, she’s not threatening to turn out like Barra, but she’s done something I think is stupid and not in character. She insists it is. At the moment, she’s stuck in the woods on a cold night while she and I have a long discussion…I’m tempted to say “–and you can stay out here in the cold by yourself until you get some sense–” She’s already said “You don’t understand!” and I’ve already said “Then explain it! I am your writer–you can tell me anything.”

It’s exchanges like this, repeated to other writer friends in front of people who aren’t writers, that convince non-writers we’re all somewhat crazy. I remember the slightly worried expression and tentative, wary tone of one onlooker who said “It sounds like…like you’re talking about these people…in your head…as if they were, you know, real.” The writer friend I was with at the time looked at me, and I looked at her and we both looked at the non-writer and said, very cheerfully and in unison, “Yeah. That’s about it.” This happened again last night, between church services when the choir and musicians were eating together: a writer/editor friend and I were talking about the new book and this rebellious character and a new baritone who doesn’t know me began to look more and more worried. I’m not sure he was much reassured when we explained it was only a partly-written book.

If characters don’t feel real to us–if we can’t argue with them, scold them, and have them sometimes turn right around and do the totally unexpected–then they won’t feel real to readers. Or so I think. If letting them be real means sometimes losing a whole book (it’s happened to me twice now) then…that’s the cost of giving characters room to be who they are at all levels, not just the level at which we first think of them.

I’ve taken Christmas Day off, away from the gal out in the cold winter woods by herself, and I’m hoping when I open communications tomorrow she’ll at least tell me WHY she did what she did. Can we negotiate? Doesn’t she realize it makes her look weak? Is she weak? (She better not be: she has major stuff to do later. Unless she’s the wrong one. Or unless we’re going to spend some quality writing time getting her through whatever the problem is. ) Huh. Maybe her horse should break its hobbles and get away overnight….no, I’m not working today.

“You can’t make me!” says Character.

“I could, but I’d rather you figured it out for yourself,” says Writer. “You’ll be better for it.”

And remembering how I felt when someone said that sort of thing to me…the realistic character’s subsequent behavior shouldn’t surprise me.

It does anyway.