META: Some Thoughts on Problems in Characterization in Serial Literature

[Tom Russell]

SOME THOUGHTS ON PROBLEMS IN CHARACTERIZATION IN SERIAL LITERATURE

My recent flare-up with Martin Phipps (one could hardly call it a real
flame war) hinged on the question of what makes compelling
characterization.  He said that each character should have a "unique
voice" or "speech pattern", and I can see where he's coming from; it's
a technique that has its uses, especially, it turns out, for serial
literature.

The problem with this approach, to my mind, is two-fold.  Firstly, it
too often and too readily denigrates into shtick and catch-phrases.
Desi Arnez announces that he's home and informs Lucy that she has some
'splaining to do.  Jackie Gleason threatens to beat his wife before
telling her "Baby, you're the greatest"; Kel loves orange soda, it's
true, it's true, I do-oo.

All these characters have a unique voice and pattern of speech; all of
these characters are facile and flat.  They have very limited
personalities.  If they show another facet-- if they approach even two-
dimensions-- it's usually in a very special episode, in the form of a
clumsy monologue that has nothing to do with that "unique voice" and
"pattern of speech".  And thus, these things are out-of-character and
garish.

The second problem with the speech pattern fallacy is that, to be
frank, in my personal experience, most people don't have "speech
patterns".  They're not constantly excited or constantly bored or
constantly dumb or constantly sexy, the way sitcom-people are.  Real
people have many sides, which can lead to an equally fatal fallacy:
that of over-contradiction.

Since people are multi-faceted, some authors try to show every side of
the character, to the degree that the characterization feels
schizophrenic.  The various aspects of the character never gel with
one another, and the end result is a character who does things for no
reason, who doesn't feel like a living person, and who doesn't
engender either audience sympathy or interest.  Which-- especially in
serial literature-- is a problem.

But before we get to the special problems posed by serial literature,
we should address the best possible "trick" to deliver convincing and
compelling characterization, and that is context.

Characters-- and people-- do not exist in a vacuum.  Their
personalities-- despite what sitcoms tell us-- are not fixed states of
being.  They're not statues we can look at to discern what they're
made of.  Personality is not displayed in repose, but rather in
action.

Characters need to do things.  The things they do, the reason they do
them, and the way in which they do them-- all these things show
personality, and provide a context in which that personality can be
displayed.

For example, let's say a young woman comes home and surprises a
burglar.  She grabs a gun and shoots him dead.  It's a melodramatic
example, but it'll work for our purposes.  Two questions arise, and
both are questions of context: how did she shoot him and why?

The answers could be as simple as this:

   Janie came home and saw the burglar.  She reached for her gun and
pulled the trigger.  He died.

The answer to the first question is that she shot him "matter-of-
factly", for that is how the act is described.  Bluntly, simply, like
court testimony.  The answer to the second question is not present in
the text, but rather the subtext: one can gather from this three-
sentence opus that Janie was frightened by the burglar and reacted
accordingly.

Now try this one:

   Janie opened the door.  The hallway light was on.  She hadn't left
the hallway light on.  Carefully, she reached into her pocket and
withdrew her pistol.
   And then she saw him: hulking, imperious, a shadow with her jewels
coiled in his sweaty fist.
   She fired the gun.  It was heavy in her hands, heavier than it had
ever been before.  She threw it down.
   But the burglar was heavy too.  He fell first and then he died.

Not the best prose, mind you, but this example goes a long way to
making the idea that she's afraid more explicit.  And in this example,
Janie's obviously smart enough to (a) notice the light being on, and
(b) get her gun ready.  The detail about the heavy gun might also
reinforce the idea that she's scared and confused.

But let's add one sentence:

   Janie opened the door.  The hallway light was on.  She hadn't left
the hallway light on.  Carefully, she reached into her pocket and
withdrew her pistol.
   And then she saw him: hulking, imperious, a shadow with her jewels
coiled in his sweaty fist.
   "Please, lady, don't shoot me, I'll put them right back!"
   She fired the gun.  It was heavy in her hands, heavier than it had
ever been before.  She threw it down.
   But the burglar was heavy too.  He fell first and then he died.

See what a difference ten little words make?  Has Janie become a cold-
blooded killer?  Or is she in a state of panic?  The bit about the
heaviness of the gun might now indicate that she's feeling guilty
about what she's done, or that the enormity of it is now dawning on
her.

Let's add one word, "grandma's":

   Janie opened the door.  The hallway light was on.  She hadn't left
the hallway light on.  Carefully, she reached into her pocket and
withdrew her pistol.
   And then she saw him: hulking, imperious, a shadow with her
grandma's jewels coiled in his sweaty fist.
   "Please, lady, don't shoot me, I'll put them right back!"
   She fired the gun.  It was heavy in her hands, heavier than it had
ever been before.  She threw it down.
   But the burglar was heavy too.  He fell first and then he died.

Does that one word make a difference?  Not really.  It certainly adds
a detail, but it's a detail that exists in a vacuum.  Was Janie close
to her grandmother?  Do the jewels have some special significance?
There's no way to tell; our single-word addition lacks a context.

Let's add another scene:

   Janie's grandma raised her after her parents died in an auto
accident.  When Janie's grandma died, the estate was split between
Janie and her uncle.  Her uncle got everything but the jewels.

It certainly won't win any prizes, but it does provide some context:
her grandma was important to her, and by association the jewels.  But
let's add some more context.

   Janie's grandma raised her after her parents died in an auto
accident.  Things were wonderful, until her Uncle came back from
overseas.  Seeing that his mother was getting frailer by the year, he
put her in an old folks home.
   Janie tried to see her grandmother as often as she could, but her
Uncle couldn't be bothered to drive her.  Then, Grandma took a turn
for the worse.  The doctor called, and said she would be dead by
morning.  Her uncle was out gambling.  Janie tried hitchhiking to the
retirement center, but in the end had to walk twenty miles in the
rain.
   It didn't matter; by the time she got there, her grandmother had
died.  Alone.
   The estate was split between Janie and her uncle.  Her uncle got
everything but the jewels.  And Janie had to fight him in court to get
them.

Again, it's very compressed-- not very polished prose-- but it
provides context in a few different ways.

While the first draft of this scene showed that Janie's grandmother
was important to her, this draft shows just how important she was: so
important that she walked twenty miles in the rain.  Now, what happens
if we up the ante further?  What if she had to walk twenty miles in
"the blinding cold sheets of rain"?  By making the obstacle more
perilous, we make the goal-- her grandmother-- that much more
important.

And by answering two of our questions-- what does she do and how does
she do it ("walking twenty miles", "in the blinding cold sheets of
rain")-- we provide an answer to our third, the all-important why:
"because she cares about her grandmother enough to walk twenty miles
in the blinding cold sheets of rain".  Often, one doesn't need to say
"this is why the character did this"; usually, the reader understands
why because of what is done and how it is done.

This doesn't mean that one should ignore motivation altogether; one
could argue, for example, and argue successfully, that the paragraphs
preceding that sentence about the rain are what provides the
motivation.

And so context not only exists in terms of what's done, how it's done,
and why, but also in terms of what came before and what comes after.
This is the context of comparison.

Remember that characters do not exist in a vacuum, but in relation to
one another.  In fact, the very act of juxtaposition provides a kind
of context.  The fact that Janie walks in the rain to attempt to see
her dying grandmother is made more heroic and telling by the fact that
her uncle is out gambling at the same time; her uncle becomes more
loathsome for the same reason.

Her uncle, then, exists as a foil for Janie.  We can bring this out
more, albeit in a less obvious way than you see below:

   Janie's grandma raised her after her parents died in an auto
accident.  Things were wonderful, until her Uncle came back from
overseas.  He was broke.  Again.  His mother opened her arms and
welcomed he back into her home.
   The trouble started right away.  The drinking, the drugs, the
debts.  Janie tried to talk to her grandmother about it, make her see
things her way.  But Grandma was firm: "He's family.  Never turn your
back on family."
   "Okay, Grandma."
   "Promise me."
   "I will.  I promise.  But what if he does something first?"
   "Turn the other cheek."
   "I promise."
   And she tried to keep that promise, she tried to kill the bastard
with kindness.  But he was mean, and surly, and always needing money.
Grandma tried to wean him, giving him less and less each week.  He
yelled and screamed but she held firm, like she always had.
   Until the day he put her in the home.  He said she was looking
sickly.  But Janie knew the real reason: now he could have as much of
her money as he wanted.
   Janie tried to see her grandmother as often as she could, but her
Uncle couldn't be bothered to drive her.  She tried to be firm with
him, to not take no for an answer.  But the old man scared her.  She
learned to be quiet.
   Then, Grandma took a turn for the worse.  The doctor called, and
said she would be dead by morning.  Her uncle was out gambling.  Janie
tried hitchhiking to the retirement center, but in the end had to walk
twenty miles in the blinding wet sheets of rain.
   It didn't matter; by the time she got there, her grandmother had
died.  Alone.
   The estate, or what was left of it, was split between Janie and her
uncle.  Her uncle got everything but the jewels.  And Janie had to
fight him in court to get them.

In this example, we've made a few contrasts: we've contrasted the weak-
willed Janie with her strong-willed Grandmother; we've contrasted the
caring Janie with the apathetic and opportunistic Uncle; we've
contrasted the self-destructive and irresponsible Uncle with his
fiscally-responsible and forgiving mother.

Now, Janie wouldn't really appear weak-willed if we hadn't made her
Grandmother "firm".  Sure, she was frightened of her uncle and she
backed down, but who wouldn't?  Her Grandmother, for one.

And so, in the context of her grandmother's firmness, Janie appears
weak-- or, and this is an important distinction-- thinks herself to be
weak.

There's another character contrast we've made in this example: the
weak-willed Janie who doesn't stand up to her uncle versus the strong-
willed Janie who takes him to court.  And this is that most important
of tools, the character arc.  It's what we associate with strong
characterization, whether in a novel or a film.  Its use in a serial
form, however, is a bit trickier.  But we'll get to that in just a
moment.

Similar to the context provided by a character arc, there is a context
provided by a defined principle.  In our example, Janie promises her
grandmother that she won't turn her back on her uncle; but in the
legal battle, she very clearly does that.  This tells us something
about the enormity of the action: she is defying her grandmother's
wishes.  Why?  Is it because she's angry?  Is it because she wants
something of her grandmother, now that she's lost even the right to be
with her at her deathbed?  Is that anger a sign of weakness?  Even her
attempt to keep the promise is expressed in angry terms.

The answer is really a mixture of all of these, and that's the power
that context-- and ambiguity-- can have.  If we want a more didactic
example of a context provided by a defined principle, we could change
the way Janie's parents were killed:

   Janie's grandma raised her after her parents were killed at
gunpoint.  Janie swore she'd never take a human life.

This principle-- one forged in parental demise-- is very clear and
stark, and it's apparent that she would only violate this in the most
extreme of circumstances.  And so, when we come to the end of our
story:

   Janie opened the door.  The hallway light was on.  She hadn't left
the hallway light on.  Carefully, she reached into her pocket and
withdrew her pistol.
   And then she saw him: hulking, imperious, a shadow with her
grandma's jewels coiled in his sweaty fist.
   "Please, lady, don't shoot me, I'll put them right back!"
   She fired the gun.  It was heavy in her hands, heavier than it had
ever been before.  She threw it down.
   But the burglar was heavy too.  He fell first and then he died.

-- we can answer the question of why she shoots him thusly: Janie
shoots the burglar because the jewels were so important to her that
she was willing to violate her own moral code.

It's no coincidence that this is as much as structural issue as it is
a matter of characterization: character and structure and really one
and the same.  And now, that brings us, at last, to the problem of
serial literature.

I'm not talking about books written in serial form, like many
Victorian novels; they have a beginning, middle, and end.  I mean
those serial works that are ongoing and without end; these lack a
coherent structure.  And without structure-- without a character arc--
how can there be real and compelling characterization?

The first intentionally on-going serial form, the sitcom, used the
weakness as an advantage: since the form lacks structure and thus the
potential for a traditional character arc, none of the characters had
any such arc.  They never changed.  Their personalities were defined
in sound-bytes and catch-phrases, in having unique voices and speech
patterns.

These were well-suited to a serial form because such a status quo
could, indeed, go on forever (or until the contract was no longer
renewed).  But they make for bad storytelling-- sitcoms really work
best telling one-story-per-episode-- and the character work is,
necessarily, flat and non-dynamic.

Soap operas tried a different tact, and that was to have many, many
character arcs by providing many, many characters.  As one character's
story wraps up, another is just beginning and another is somewhere in
the middle.  There's a never-ending cycle.  And this ensemble format
does often result in some strong and dynamic characterization because
there are countless foils, as well as countless back-stories and
complications, to serve as an engine of context.

But it has its drawbacks, too.  Some stories are so good that, once
they're told, there's really nothing more for the characters to do.  A
classic example is the saga of Luke and Laura.  After the initial rush
of the romance, the wedding, and saving the world from being frozen
solid (damn those Cassadines!), there wasn't really anything left for
them to do.

The end result is that the character of Luke is constantly being
reinvented.  While the presence of the actor provides some continuity,
those working in prose-- and comics-- don't have that luxury.  Once a
character becomes boring, reinvention feels kind of lame.  (Anyone
remember Storm going all punk for a couple years?)

But some characters on the Greatest Soap of All Time, General
Hospital-- like Sonny-- remain vital and interesting.  That's because
despite all the smaller stories, there's a larger story behind Sonny--
a story about anger, about his soul.  He doesn't have a character arc
so much as a constantly-evolving set of contexts and conflicts.

A character like that is essentially static; they can't change too
much or the story ends and the character becomes boring.  But if a
more ephemeral storyline, a deeper conflict and context that helps
define the character, if that exists, then that character will remain
interesting.

What I've tried to do in Jolt City, with the character of Martin Rock,
is to define him by a deeper conflict: the pull between Ray's way of
doing things and his own, between nostalgia and grit, between trust
and cynicism-- a conflict that spills over into his personal life as
well as professional.  A conflict that allows him to express certain
behaviours-- for example, the way in which he makes bad spur-of-the-
moment decisions after bottling himself up.  A conflict that's
reflected in the context of what's happened to him, as a child, as a
soldier, and as a superhero.

I'm not saying that I've succeeded in all these counts; to do so would
be conceited.  But I've certainly tried my best.  And after the Snapp
storyline wraps up, I feel the story of Martin Rock will still sustain
itself-- that the character will remain interesting and vital.  (At
least to me.)

I've given a fair amount of thought to what makes good character work,
and I've done a fair amount of reading; the ideas presented above
aren't new ones, but they are good ones.  It is these ideas that have
produced the greatest works of narrative art of the last two or three
thousand years.

I don't present these ideas to 'school' anyone, or to end discussion
on the matter; I bring them up to engender thought, feedback, and
discussion.  Don't be shy.  Let's all talk about character work, in
the context of serial literature and the special problems-- and
solutions-- it poses.

==Tom