When a Character Fights
You
by Shelly Frome
This topic reminds me of an issue I
once had with a patriarchal in-law. Every time he would say, “The
party was quite acceptable, everyone was well behaved,” I wanted to
counter with, “I’d call this a party that died.” But I held
back for fear of upsetting everyone. But that, of course, is what
fiction is all about--making a scene. Initiating some action that
causes complications, greater effort and greater resistance as the
storyline becomes self-generating.
Something even more
to the point comes to mind. A renown writer confided to a few of us
at the University of Florida that whenever he tried to manipulate any
of his characters, they stopped talking to him. In fact they refused
to do anything until he gave them free rein. It was only then that
something surprising yet inevitable would happen and his writing took
off and rang true.
In other words,
imagine if J.D. Salinger was frustrated with Holden Caulfield because
Holden was dead set on leaving prep school, taking off for New York
in flight from all “the phonies,” getting into all kinds of
scrapes and eventually spending time with his kid sister Phoebe. What
if Salinger insisted that the story took place solely inside the
school? No more Holden. No Catcher in the Rye. What if Kathryn
Stockett was having trouble with the maid Aibileen who kept all that
pain and anguish seething inside. Since Skeeter was on deadline to
submit a piece about maids in Mississippi for a New York magazine,
suppose Stockett stepped in. Just had Aibileen suddenly throw all
caution to the wind and divulge the dreadful things that happened to
her during the Jim Crow era? No more Aibileen. The Help would
have simply become one of those safe and predictable tales about
social conditions in Jackson at that time.
On the other hand,
if you’re only interested in making sure readers keep turning the
pages, you can use the one about a code and a secret religious
society as a guide. The author of this bestseller (who shall go
nameless) had no trouble with his characters at all because he made
them one-dimensional. Robert Langdon is only described as a
crackerjack symbologist from Harvard who looks like Harrison Ford. He
doesn’t even have to worry about abandoning his class or telling
his department head where he’s off to. And when he examines a
mutilated body at the Louvre, he’s given no time or inclination to
respond to the victim’s plight. All that matters is solving this
juicy puzzle. Even Sophie, who turns out to be the victim’s
granddaughter, doesn’t so much as shed a tear. As a cryptographer
with tunnel vision, her job is to play second fiddle to Langdon and
run here and there as they both skip over to London and cross paths
with a crazed albino and all sorts of other stock characters. .
Problem solved. All
you have to do is pigeonhole everyone in the cast and send them where
you will.
Admittedly, I can’t
help preferring the more honest approach. As an actor I learned to
keep each performance alive by playing the moment. In a way it’s a
trained-in sense of danger and dynamics. Something I look for in
choosing the novels I read and a guideline every time I sit down to
write.
About Shelly Frome:
Shelly
Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of
dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former
professional actor, a writer of mysteries, books on theater and film,
and articles on the performing arts appearing in a number of
periodicals in the U.S. and the U.K. He is also a film critic and a
contributor to writers’ blogs. His fiction includes Lilac Moon, Sun
Dance for Andy Horn, Tinseltown Riff and the trans-Atlantic cozy The
Twinning Murders. Among his works of non-fiction are the acclaimed
The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and
writing for the stage. Twilight of the Drifter, his latest novel, is
a southern gothic crime-and-blues odyssey.
Genre:
“A laudable crime thriller with a Southern setting”—Kirkus
Reviews
Publisher:
Sunbury Press; released in January 2012
"Twilight
of the Drifter" is a crime story with southern gothic overtones.
It centers on thirty-something Josh Devlin, a failed journalist who,
after a year of wandering, winds up in a Kentucky homeless shelter on
a wintry December. Soon after the opening setup, the crosscurrents go
into motion as Josh comes upon a runaway named Alice holed up in an
abandoned boxcar. Taken with her plight and dejected over his own
squandered life, he spirits her back to Memphis and his uncle's Blues
Hall Cafe. From there he tries to get back on his feet while seeking
a solution to Alice's troubles. As the story unfolds, a Delta
bluesman's checkered past comes into play and, inevitably, Josh finds
himself on a collision course with a backwoods tracker fixated on the
Civil War and, by extension, the machinations of the governor-elect
of Mississippi. In a sense, this tale hinges on the vagaries of
chance and human nature. At the same time, an underlying force
appears to be driving the action as though seeking the truth and long
awaited redemption. Or, to put it another way, past sins have finally
come due in the present.
Excerpt:
Wolf
Creek was silent again, shrouded and hidden away in the fading early
December light.
Then
the cracking sound of wood as the old hunter’s blind gave way
somewhere in the near distance, a sudden scream and a muffled thud.
The cracking sound was not nearly as sharp as the first gunshot or
the second, the scream not at all as piercing as the first cry or as
grating as the moans that followed and faded.
The
coonhound took off immediately, ignoring the touch of frost in the
creek water, the obstacle course of fallen tree limbs and bare forked
branches, the muddy slope and the snare and tangle of vines and
whip-like saplings. Within seconds, the hound was bounding higher
until he came upon a prone scrawny figure totally unlike the one that
had just fallen on the opposite bank.
Sniffing
around, barking and howling, the hound snapped at the flimsy jacket
and bit into it. As the scrawny little figure began to stir, he tore
into the sleeve, ripping it to shreds and barked and howled again,
turning back for instructions. The sight of the skinny flailing arms
sent the coonhound back on its haunches—half guarding, half
confused as it turned around yet again, looking down the slope to the
creek bed, still waiting for a signal.
Presently,
a tall, rangy man made his way across the same obstacle course,
long-handled shovel in hand. But he was only in time to catch sight
of a girl clutching her head, staggering away from the scene through
the tangles and deepening shadows. Then again, it could’ve been a
boy for all he knew, but he settled on a girl, a flat-chested tomboy,
more like. Casting his gaze up to the snapped rungs of the
tree-ladder, he spotted the broken edge of the rotting hunters blind
some eight feet above where she could’ve seen everything.
The
coonhound began circling around him, displaying the shards of
material dangling from his jaw. Instinctively, the man rushed
forward. Then he thought better of it as his overalls got snagged in
the brambles. From the look of things, the girl was probably dazed
and confused and wouldn’t get as far as the dirt drive, if that.
Wrong
guess. The slam of a hood as the flat-bed’s worn V-8 motor
fired-up, the grinding of gears and the familiar whine and squeal of
tires signaled the tomboy was away and well out of reach.
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