Tag: fiction

Closing with Character

The New Year and Reviewing Character

character.jpg
Defining character means many thing for writers. (“Character” by NY is licensed under CC by 3.0. )

The closing of the year is a jumbled-up affair: The summing up of another year juxtaposed with setting up the next year. It’s not dissimilar to beginning a revision, which I’m (finally) undertaking for a short story I recently wrote. Both processes involve reviewing what you did, what you wish you did differently, and what you will do going forward. And, in both cases, it’s a good time to think about character. Writers use numerous techniques to make their fictional persons feel alive, something that greatly interests me as I edit that first draft where the protagonist feels a bit lacking in, well, character.[*] I recently read two books, one a novel and the other a short story collection, that approach the idea of character in compelling if divergent ways that illustrate what we as writers can really do to with our characters.

Unknowable Versus Lacking Character

A clear sense of character or even lack of character, for example, isn’t necessarily a handicap to tale well told. In The Vegetarian,[†] Yeong-hye rarely speaks throughout the haunting tale that chronicles the manifestation and evolution of her madness. With the exception of an unsettling dream sequence she recounts (presumably to Mr. Cheong), her story, her words, and her life’s details are told through the perspectives of her husband, brother-in-law, and sister. She is in essence a negative presence, and each narrator can only react to her mysteriously changed behavior and/or guess at her actions. We, as readers, experience their bewilderment in tandem. The result is remarkable: Yeong-he, much like roots of her madness (and seemingly, all madness) remain unknowable.

In contrast to her absent presence, Mr. Cheong (Yeong-hye’s husband) defines a lack of character in an altogether different and entirely unpleasant manner. The Vegetarian is not a story for the fainthearted, and Mr. Cheong is clearly the most reprehensible of its denizens—chiefly because he lacks empathy and compassion. The marriage between the two is not a love match: Mr. Cheong aspires to the “middle course”[‡] and finds it “only natural that [he] would marry the most run-of-the mill woman” available (12). Clearly, he represents a certain patriarchal extreme, where marriage means about his needs are being met and indifference to his wife’s interior life, interests, and even mental health. Or, as he puts it, “The strange situation had nothing to do with me” (26). Eventually, her decline, undoubtedly worsened by his neglect and mistreatment, cannot be ignored. Of course, he abandons her; after all:

her expression, which made it seem as though she were a woman of bitter experience, who had suffered many hardships, niggled at my conscience. (38)

Characters at Crossroads

Where loss seems to shatter and/or disrupt the characters of The Vegetarian, characters in the collected stories of If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This frequently find themselves at crossroads in their lives where they struggle to cope with their losses.[§] “Pine”, an exemplary story of the collection, features the widowed Claire who marvels at the choices Heidi made with her kitchen: Claire decides that, were she in Heidi’s shoes,[**] she would have chosen a smaller, easier to navigate kitchen with a pine floor to deaden the clumping gait of the prosthetic leg (155). Claire’s choices unsurprisingly are for muting: when her daughter questions her about her “friendship” with Kevin, she “think[s] about reassuring that no one could ever replace her father for me. I’m sure that is what she’s really asking” (164). It’s not. Alyssa suspects that Kevin has feelings for her mother and, in insisting Kevin is welcome to attend her soccer game, is assuring her mother that she’s okay with Claire moving forward. Claire instead focuses on how soon she will be losing her daughter to adulthood (165) and keeping Kevin as her “yes-man”—or more accurately, her emotional crutch that prevents her from moving past her widowhood (158-9, 172-3). Both Heidi and Claire have suffered terrible losses due to cancer. Their approach to these losses comes down to character: Heidi eventually found within herself the grit to get on with her life, while Claire (for now) remains exactly where she stood when Joe died.

Defining Character

Character, as Merriam-Webster has kindly reminded me, is complex word that refers to  more than persons of fictional works. It ranges from alphabetic markings to reputation. It suggests moral make-up of individual as well as the identity of groups.[††] It is word that encompasses much, and you need context to understand which character you happen to be dealing with, whether they lack, morals, or strength. Characters of fiction, too, need that complexity or even that mystery to make them real. As I go forward into the New Year, editing away, I’ll be sure to keep my character’s character and this complexity in mind. And, perhaps, mine as well.

Happy New Year!

Which characters caught your attention in 2016? Tell us about whom and why in the comment section below. Also, sign-up to the Sequences’s newsletter to keep current with the latest posts.

NOTES:

[*] New Year’s resolution #1: take it easy on puns.

[†] Kang, Han. Vegetarian: A Novel; Trans. by Deborah Smith. New York: Hogarth, 2015. Print.

[‡] I’m uncomfortably reminded of the advice that Robinson Crusoe’s father gave him about choosing the “middle state” of life at this moment. (Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: Bantam, 1991.)

[§] Black Robin. If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This: Stories. New York, Random House, 2011.

[**] And resolution broken! Amusingly, Claire also considers whether Heidi is “more in denial” about her circumstances (155).
[††] “Character.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 29 Dec. 2016.

 

Room to Read

Speaking as an avid bookworm, there is nothing more irresistible than an unread book.

“This must be Thursday,” said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. “I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I grew up in a reading household: both of my parents read regularly. My dad built bookcases in our den that still couldn’t hope to hold all the reading material we owned. My mom took me to the local library at least once a week, letting me check out all the books I could lug home. Laudable as their efforts were, this isn’t about how they inspired my reading.[*]

It’s about how sharing a room did.

The room in question was the bedroom I shared with my sister. Or, more accurately, the one she shared with me. Being several years older, it had been hers first. Granted, it remained hers in some real ways when it came to where things went and space division. I’m not sure if that’s much consolation for a teenager trading her privacy (and full-sized bed) for a much younger and much messier little sister. All things considered, she probably got the worst end of that deal.[†]

And I’m not saying that just because she’s frequently mentions the horrors of negotiating a floor strewn with doll shoes whilst trying to silently slip into bed after a night out.[‡]

But when you happen to be one of four children, sharing happens. So we did. She may have shared a bit more with me than she knew at the time. Speaking as an avid bookworm, there is nothing more irresistible than an unread book. She kept hers under her dresser. And, I most certainly borrowed them.

Being a voracious reader, I read rather indiscriminately then.[§] I quite happily absorbed myself in some sister’s not-so-age-appropriate romance novels alongside the library’s copy of Little Women. But there was one book—I don’t recall whether my sister was in high school or college at the time the new book came or exactly how old I was—but I vividly recollect the cover as it peeked out from behind dark wooden legs: a planet with its tongue sticking out. That one, that one was a revelation. A clinically depressed robot? Computers declaring the meaning of life is 42? A chap who can’t manage Thursday? It was odd and hilarious at once. I loved The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, even the bits I didn’t quite get yet. It’s one I’ve reread many times, and it was my sister who (unwittingly) placed it in my path.

As we time went by, my sister purposely lent me books, too. Often, she provided me with plot synopses so that I could decide whether they were worth reading. Of course, we don’t always agree to read the same sort of books,[**] but I’m always interested in trying her recommendations. Like that time she suggested I read this story about a kid called Harry Potter. I was a bit skeptical, since it was for kids (or so I thought). She sent me home with the first three books. And she was right: they were great. For her birthday, I bought her the next four as soon as each was published.

I suppose putting up with a kid sister eventually paid off for her.

Who is your partner in reading? Post in the comment section below! Also, sign-up to the Sequence’s newsletter and keep current with the latest posts.

NOTES:

[*] Although, they absolutely did and do continue to inspire me to keep reading.

[†] Not that it was her choice.

[‡] I have it on her authority that stepping on Barbie doll shoes whilst barefoot is excruciatingly painful. It’s little wonder she made sure I became a far tidier person than I was naturally inclined to be.

[§] For the sake of my sanity, I no longer partake of breakfast cereals. To this day, I can’t seem to stop myself from rereading the boxes again and again.

[**] I still can’t talk my sister into horror fiction.