Yesterday the USPS gifted me with the new Poets & Writers, which has Marilyn Monroe on the cover (reading James Joyce's Ulysses). If you haven't got it, go buy one right now. Better yet, subscribe. One of my favorite pieces was "Agents and Editors." This month it's a Q&A with Janet Silvers, available online. There was also a very good essay by writing professor and accomplished novelist Robert Boswell. The title is "The Practice of Remaining in the Dark: How to Create Complex Characters." Sorry, fans. This one - well worth your time and money - is print only.Boswell's article in particular raises a difficult question: When do you want fully rounded characters, and when do you want a flat character? Here's an example: The knights from a Chretien de Troyes story ends up flatter than western Kansas (Fast Fact: Kansas is the only state scientifically proven flatter on average than a pancake).
It's hard to imagine Yvain, the Knight with the Lion, exhibiting a range of emotions outside Courtly Love and Ass Kicking. I like my knights like I hate my tires: flat.
But even in genre fiction, so called, people seem to trump caricatures. Remember the anguish of Peter Blood (from Raphael Sabatini's pirate epic Captain Blood) when he comes to the conclusion that "only a fool" would set himself up as a doctor to human beings, which he considers "best exterminated"? Why then does Blood risk his life to save the slaves he is sent to work among? Why bother?
Boswell suggests that stock characters in fiction are only part of the problem. He echoes an earlier Ernest Hemingway sentiment (although he doesn't quote E.H.) that a writer should not be afraid to leave things out. What we give the reader, then, is a sense that he or she can never know the characters completely. In laying out his thoughts, Boswell mocks writing classes and writing textbooks, saying, in effect, "Why do I need to know this character's birthday? Tell me, please."
In writing, as in life, much of what lies beneath contains 90% of a novel's substance. Hemingway also famously compared fiction to icebergs. What floats beneath the surface supports magnificent beauty, maybe; but there's no reason to map that ice, to tick it off in meters, and so on. To write on and on about a character simply drains the life from them, and the energy from you, the writer. So think twice before opening up that fancy writing textbook, or before you fill out a questionnaire. Start instead with probing questions, learn a little, and begin to write.
The people in your story will reveal themselves in time.
