Techniques of the Selling Writer (24 page)

Beyond “What’s going on?” lie other implicit questions: “What
should
be going on?” “What else do you need to establish a proper story world?”

Answer: Conflict. Desire plus danger.

How do you establish conflict?

You face somebody with opposition.

—At which point, 999 would-be writers cry out, “But how can you establish conflict
without telling past history? How can you have a fight without a background?”

Our answer here goes back to our original point: Show what happens as it happens,
moment by moment, in strict chronological order. You don’t have to know what’s gone
before in order to see somebody slug somebody else. Explanations can come later. All
you need is a man or woman with a goal—a he or a she or an it going someplace.

Then, bump this being into opposition, and you’re in business.

Obviously, such a clash should have some bearing on or relationship to the central
issue of your story. But all that takes is a bit of planning. The important thing
is to find a striking, self-explanatory scene, so that you can establish the element
of struggle and, through it, hook your readers early.

In this connection, what’s sometimes termed a
bone of contention
or
weenie
may help you to demonstrate that something’s at issue, even though for the moment
your reader doesn’t understand how come.

Thus:

You see? Itself unimportant, perhaps, the paper clip is a symbol of the relationship
between these men. Their reaction to it and to each other bring a host of elements
into focus—the state of mind of each; their caliber and potential; all sorts of things.

So, whether the paper clip itself is intrinsically of worth or consequence or not—and
it quite possibly may be—it serves here primarily as a bone of contention between
these two. Objectifying
an issue, it creates conflict in a striking, self-explanatory scene. And your story
gets under way.

Ever and always, your story deals with people. The beginning is the place where you
introduce them to your reader.

To introduce any given character effectively, you must first of all bring him on
in character.

That is, the character must behave like the kind of person he is. Otherwise, how can
your reader know what to expect of him? That’s why, in a less sophisticated period,
the villain so often kicked a dog in Chapter 1, or the hero saved a child from a bully.

Today, we smile at such obviousness. But the principle is still sound, when used with
even a modicum of taste and judgment.

To bring a character on in character demands three things:

To say that someone “has character” means that you know where he stands. He’s for
or against something. He exhibits desire, direction.

The same idea applies to your story people. A successful character is more than just
warm meat. He’s a living, breathing human being, with all the drives and ambitions
and attitudes and prejudices of such. A drab nonentity who blends into the woodwork
simply isn’t strong enough.

To interest your reader in a character, therefore; to make him care about someone,
pro or con, you must give him some definite something to which to react. The character
must exhibit traits designed to arouse emotion. He must be for or against things,
in word or deed, about which your reader too feels strongly. You may not like a man
who drinks too much, or beats his wife, or picks his teeth in public. But at least
he gives you cause for your attitude.

So, too, do you judge the man who gambles his life on his faith that he can climb
a dangerous mountain . . . or who refuses to lie despite his employer’s threats . . .
or who stays with his wife—or a woman not his wife—in the face of community scorn
and condemnation.

Character can’t be demonstrated save in action. What others say about you may be merely
reputation. Your own self-description can range from delusion to plain-out lie. But
when you act—ah, then the cards are down and we see the stuff you’re really made of!

For this reason, you as a writer should devise incidents that will force your story
people to reveal early—or at least hint at—their true natures,
in action
. Each must display, and thus establish, that aspect of himself which is of top importance
to the story. Is your man a thief? Show him stealing. A scholar? Let him abandon the
party for the library. Ambitious? Have him maneuver a chance to impress someone who
can help him.

Note, please, how this implies that one trait, one aspect of personality, stands dominant
in each character.

Play it precisely that way. Human patterns are infinitely complex, granted. But a
story focuses on a crisis in someone’s life. Under crisis conditions, a single trait
frequently
does
dominate. If you don’t think so, try sometime to persuade a teen-age girl to break
away from the behavior patterns of her group, or a fat-and-fiftyish male to stick
with a diet.

Thus, while each of us possesses a host of attitudes and traits, not all get equal
emphasis at a given moment. Today, passion may drive me to the exclusion of all else.
Tomorrow, it may turn to disgust; or, under the pressure of a change of circumstance,
be moderated or overshadowed by a desire for security or fame or intellectual achievement.

For the duration of your story, then, let one trait stay dominant in each character.
Keep Tom honest, Dick cruel, Harry stupid.

—Which is not to say that you shouldn’t modify the picture upon occasion. Perhaps
Tom is greedy as well as upright. Cruel Dick, on the side, is a doting father. And
though Harry can’t count past ten with his shoes on, he’s a wizard where motors are
concerned.

Such divergences, such contrasts, such apparent contradictions—in large part, a story’s
sense of reality springs from them.

But
do
keep one trait in the spotlight. For the moment your
reader grows confused because emphasis is too evenly divided—(Is Tom primarily honest
or primarily greedy?)—you’ve lost him.

This simply means that you should match characterizing act to role. If your story
demands a man whose dominant trait is courage, with all other aspects of personality
ignored, then for heaven’s sake don’t show him at the start behaving in a manner that
places prime emphasis on how kindly he is.

In the same way, and for the same reason, try not to present a character in a characterizing
act that’s non-typical of him. Don’t bring on a sourpuss in one of his rare moments
of congeniality, for example. Your reader will, justifiably, resent it, when he later
discovers that the guy ordinarily goes round biting babies.

So much for dynamics. On the “how-to” side of introducing characters, there are three
main points to remember:

That is, give an impression of the person first—“a cute little chick with red hair,”
“a shambling, slab-like man,” “a shadowy little woman in a big feathered hat that
would always be remembered long after she herself was forgotten.”

Why handle it this way?

Because that’s the way most of us see people. We pay no heed to details until person
and/or detail become important to us.

Apply the same idea when you write.

Your handiest tool in capturing a first impression is our old friend the significant
detail. Center your description on whatever sticks out like a sore thumb, the way
a cartoonist does when he caricatures a prominent person. The big ears, the buck teeth,
the potbelly, the turned-up nose—these are the handy tags to tie to. Further, failure
to note such at the start will breed all sorts of trouble for you later, when your
reader discovers that the
girl he assumed was pretty and petite actually is tall, sallow, and overweight.

Many characters—the minor ones—will need no more than the most obvious, abbreviated
kind of label. The others you can build as you go, salting in more detail and description
as it’s required.

On the other hand, there
is
one situation that warrants more than impressionistic detail to begin with. That’s
when another character is for some reason eager to appraise the person to be introduced.
Exhibit A: Mama, as she glimpses Sonny’s bride-to-be for the first time. But even
here, a little restraint ordinarily is desirable.

The day when readers would hold still for a long-winded, static description of a character,
complete with family tree, is long gone. Now, they want him alive, breathing, doing
something—preferably, something interesting.

So, figure out some business for your boy or girl, as if you were a theatrical director
blocking out a play. And prepare your reader for each impending entrance, whether
by a knock at the door or a sudden awareness of the scent of lilacs or the sound of
running feet. Do
not
just let someone pop out of nowhere. A menace, especially, loses half its punch for
Friend Reader if he’s not aware that something unpleasant is about to happen.

Here I have no choice but to contradict flatly all the hallowed advice you’ve read
about the need to introduce all your characters in a hurry. True, it’s good to get
them on stage early. But it’s even more to the point that no one will remember or
give a hoot about them if they’re presented as a mere jumble of names and/or faces.
A vivid entrance that hooks your reader’s interest is infinitely more vital.

To begin a story, traditionally, you must first establish time, place, circumstance,
and viewpoint.

Time, place, and circumstance we’ve already dealt with. Now, what about viewpoint?

Viewpoint is the spot from which you see a story. It’s the position and perspective
you occupy in order best to savor a fictional experience.

Ordinarily, that vantage point is inside somebody’s skin.

That is, your reader will live through your story as some specific character experiences
it. He’ll see and hear and smell and taste and touch and think and feel precisely
what that person sees and hears and smells and what have you.

And he’ll see, etc., nothing which that character doesn’t. No looking through walls.
No second-guessing motives. No sneaking around inside somebody else’s brain.

Maybe this puts Friend Reader inside the focal character, the center of attention.
Or perhaps he’ll be another major participant in the action.

Or, he may be a minor player—an observer, a bystander, a sideliner.

Or, he may be the author, or even (though not so commonly these days) God.

Or, if your story’s long enough, you conceivably will introduce several different
viewpoints—major, minor, author-objective, or what have you.

How do you establish viewpoint at the beginning of your story?

The trick is simple: As early as possible, you let your reader know that he’s looking
at the story world through a particular person’s eyes . . . living the story, as it
were, inside that person’s skin.

Like this:

Here, viewpoint—specifically, Mr. Devereaux’s viewpoint—is established the moment
we introduce that word
wondered
. The only way you can know that someone is wondering—or thinking, or feeling, or
aching, or what have you—is to be inside his skin, living and experiencing with him.
It’s an effective device, and one that does the job in a hurry.

But suppose we played it a different way:

Here, we see externals only . . . what’s done, what’s said. And precisely
because
nothing’s revealed which would place us inside either character’s mind or skin, your
reader realizes that you’re making like some sort of literary motion-picture camera
equipped for sound. Viewpoint: author-objective.