[Writerpreneur] Compelling Characters 03

A TRINITY: WRITER, READER, VP CHARACTER: our stories mimic a world where we aim to infuse spirit and life. In three parts, these are (1) the author, (2) the VP character and (3) the reader.

And now, let us try to objectively analyze, in the contrary Western fashion, this strange phenomenon of subjective relationship and viewpoint.

If you will ponder it, you will see that this subjective relationship between you, the writer, and your story is an amalgamation of three entities. It is a trinity, reminiscent of the religious Trinity. And our stories mimic a world where we aim to infuse spirit and life. It is, by parts, (1) the author, (2) the VP character and (3) the reader.

(1) The author, like God to the greater, real world, stands as lord, master, and creator to the tiny world of his story.

The author, unrestricted by time, space, or circumstance, guides his creatures akin to how the Creator guides us - through the silent voice of conscience.

(2) Your Viewpoint (VP) Character is the person you write so that the reader feels is telling the story. Everything in that story is told through that character’s senses – whether you write in first person or third.

The VP character, like the Son in the theological Trinity, is the visible “Me.”

He knows only what he has seen, heard, felt, tasted, and touched in his past. And, unless ignored, he feels that different wisdom within. It’s that whispering by the still, small voice of ineffable truths.

His inner voice links him to his author, as our inner voices link us to ours. He, as we do, doubts this voice. He faces present difficulties as we do, lacking foresight, much like ourselves. Like us, he lives only in the present, remembering back and looping into fears of what’s ahead.

(3) The reader is that mysterious third member of the trinity, the Holy Ghost, of whom we have only the vaguest conception. But in fiction, at any rate, we know he associates and identifies himself with the Son, the VP character.

So, as prudent writers, we refrain from giving too many outward physical details of our VP character. How do we know what the reader looks like?

We are now ready to understand this VP trinity in action and watch it infuse a cold plot equation with warmth, life, and action.

Here’s how to conceive, plot, and write a story:

(1) The creator, or author, poses the plot.

He does this by setting up a dilemma with which to try his characters.

“What would I do if I were Abraham, torn between the love of my son and fervent desire to obey the Lord?” “What would I do were I Eve, struggling between a wish to eat of the tree of knowledge and an almost equally strong contrariwise impulse to obey my Creator?”

(2) The author creates a character to struggle with the problem.

This central character may or may not be the VP character. Ordinarily and most simply, he is. Sometimes, however, a minor character sits and watches the struggle — life and drama from a ringside seat, so to speak.

Often in the past, but more rarely today, this spectator VP character is the author himself.

It’s important to remember that while gods used to visit earth in the past, nowadays they avoid any potential embarrassment by staying away.

Currently, the ideal approach depicts the VP as one of story’s characters, typically the hero or heroine.

(3) The character then struggles with and solves the problem.

And you, the author, writing his struggles, do a quick change from being the creator to being that VP character. You currently embody that person.

And you let him feel nothing, think nothing, do nothing you cannot vividly imagine yourself thinking, feeling, or doing under the circumstances.

I mean – and take this literally – you laugh, cry, hope, despair, rage, and rejoice with him. For if you cannot feel to the fullest degree with your character, you cannot make him come fully to life.

So lock yourself up in a private cell, if you think you must, but go ahead and laugh, cry actual tears, get embroiled, or whatever, as your character meets situations evoking these emotions.

Upon doing so, a peculiar yet uplifting change will start.

The words you write will be charged with story vitality. They might appear unchanged. A dead automobile battery looks just the same as a live one, too. When connected, the charged story word and the live auto battery provide the crucial kick. Portraying the VP character with emotions is how you deliver that impactful kick.

Of course, throughout this procedure of being primarily the VP character, you remain also the creator. As the creator, you help the VP character to “see” his problem.

Like the Creator, you provide needed elements—people, resources, timing—at opportune moments.

Much like the first-grade teacher who puts apples on the desk at the proper time for the six-year-old to see. She then guides him more or less subtly in his struggles to make 1 + 1 = 2.

Yours, naturally, is a somewhat harder task than that of your primary teacher, since you must create the apples as well.

Build opposing emotions as you go, culminating in an ultimate confrontation. Enlist villains for evil, saints for good. You stage a more or less gaudy outer struggle.

But the primary struggle, never forget, remains in the one central character’s breast.

You guide the character toward the obvious right choice, but also make following that choice difficult. And then, when he does it, you, the creator, have his reward prepared and ready.

As he chooses the “right” course, you, the creator, let him arrive at the right destination, his reward. Like a character, facing a crossroads, selects the best option. As if someone they trusted had told them. Just as you would do yourself.

I am speaking here of a plus-equation story. In a minus equation you do the same in reverse: bring your character up to his decision, let him make the “wrong” choice, and so arrive at his punishment. Regarding reality, I’m unsure; I won’t speculate. Fiction, however, we are often fatalistic. We plan and ordain a “good” or “bad” ending from the beginning.

Poor characters, perhaps it’s just as well they’re only paper creations after all!

(4) The reader, the third part of the subjective trinity, hitch-hikes on the VP character, experiencing with him whatever may befall him.

Or, if the VP character is not the central character, the reader enjoys himself at third hand – which perhaps explains why minor character VP’s are not too popular in popular type magazines.

In the main, you keep your “Holy Ghost” component in mind only to slant and condition your story for its potential market.

Seldom do you address a story to “everybody,” for if you do, you cannot please anybody. Instead, you narrow your audience to someone of the literary-taste groups.

You try to imagine the likes and dislikes of one of those quite imponderable people, a typical Saturday. Evening Post reader, or Collier’s fan, or Atlantic Monthly, or Woman’s Home Companion, or Wild West Weekly buyer.

And then you try to fit your plot problem, your characters, language, and especially your action and reward, or punishment, to that ghostly consumer of your wares.

You represent the consumer, too, remember, as you write. Even if he is a ghost, try to give the poor fellow better representation than he receives in the councils of management, labor, and consumers. You will receive your reward, if nowhere else, in heaven.

Must I point out that this process, while typical, isn’t the only approach?

Firms most often focus on capital, management, labor, in that order, with consumers last. Even quite successful firms don’t always follow this practice. In reaching for your story, you, just as any other business enterprise, may come first upon any part of it, supplying the other parts later.

You may see only the plot problem first, and then need to create or discover the characters, circumstances, etc., to incarnate it. Or develop a central character, then devise a suitable conflict. The initial view may only show a beginning, lacking characters or problems, the solution, or even the middle.

It does not matter. Knowing the expectations, the parts, and the pattern allows you to supply the missing pieces, working backward, forward, or both ways from the middle.

Of course, you may be only a would-be author in search of everything. In that case, I commend you to the mercies of the Lord.

Already we have noted that the writer, like the Lord, is not bound by space or time, unlike your character. This presents a more difficult problem than hoped.

But neither is it too complex – at least not in fiction. Similar to real-life individuals, fictional characters exist only in the present moment. Thus, whether you use the past tense, as most writers do, or something else, you, the writer, need only remember that necessity and feel that the time is now in every sentence you write, as you write it. Whereupon, if you have done it well, that obliging ghost, the reader, will also feel, this is right now, whenever and wherever his eye chances to alight upon your lines. And you have won half your battle to make that reader feel your story is alive.

Remember: The indescribable present shifts with the reader’s viewpoint. As he reads on through your story, the “now” and the life of your character both follow his reading eye. That is fine. But if that reader shifts his glance, his attention, “now” still goes with that glance. The character and your story become distorted and dead for the moment. Perhaps you and the reader can resurrect them, perhaps not. You, the author, must try your best to avoid this dangerous situation and so write your story so that the reader cannot stop reading, not even for an instant.

I concede that’s an ideal; perfection remains elusive. But you will try for it. To help yourself, know something about story time and space — and how to use them to avoid tiring your reader. Without realizing it, he reads without feeling the fatigue or boredom caused by the years and distances portrayed in your fiction.

Your goal is to make the reader spellbound and keep him that way.

Very well. As the author, you understand that your perception of time and space differs from that of your character or even your reader. For, to you, the entire space of the story must be one continuous now. Refine your writing over and over. Ensure the reader can follow the narrative by your flawless rendering of each point.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,” means nothing to you as the author. Rework, revise, repeat until content.

Authors perceive story duration as spatial distance, not temporal. You plan your story, let us say, to cover two months in the life of your central character. Instead of two ordinary months, your two-month writing period resembles a two-yard canvas, allowing free rewriting or “repainting”.

It may appear that I am overdoing it when I repeat the matter of viewpoint as often as I have done. Our ingrained sense of clock time, our belief that past time is unusable, causes repetition. Or at least I have found it so in working with students.

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With the story – that plausible tall tale – and that main character hero the reader is rooting for, we need to dive more deeply into that character's conflict. And we find that his internal conflict is almost inseparable from the plot...

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( This text was based on works by William Foster Harris, an early OU Professional Writing course instructor.)

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This excerpt is from “Forgotten Bestseller Secrets” — one of the Writerpreneur Series. You can get instant access to your digital ebook copy and all three mini-courses from that link.

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