Eneh Akpan Writes: characters

Showing posts with label characters. Show all posts

Sunday, September 15, 2013

A Character is NOT a Rose

Bram Stoker's (1847-1912) Notes on the personal for his novel Dracula. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Roses will always smell sweet. I can't say the same about characters who seem to be strung up on hubris by default.

In fiction, the names given to characters are almost as important as the theme of the story. That fact is beyond dispute. You have to make character names as memorable as character traits.

A vampire that stalks the night who goes by the name Dracula would strike terror into the hearts of folks long before his true form is revealed. Consider Lord Voldermort in the Harry Porter series. And the fact that the villain's name was altered after he turned and became a twisted sorcerer.

In real life, in fiction even in scripture, names have featured elaborately in programming the mindset of its bearer as well as those of the people around them. Readers would root for heroes with memorable and likable names. But there are rare moments when an heroic feat hauls an otherwise ordinary name into a threshold of heroism.

It's art and in this realm, rules are flimsy things.

As precaution, make an habit of giving your protagonists admirable names and then tag your villains and anti-heroes with horror-inducing names unless you know, to do otherwise, would sell your story faster.

A rose by any other name will smell sweet but a character on the same basis will definitely suck. That's food for thought.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Stephen King's 'Women'

Stephen King apparently has a threefold cord binding and holding his female characters in place as creations of a unique mastermind. At least, to a point where their interests can be nailed on a definable subject.

Men.

King's female characters' association with their male vis-à-vises seems to spark off their journey into the dark places of this world. Trouble trundles in either directly from the male characters (in many of these cases, their lovers/husbands) or is tied to their hanging around these menfolk.

Photo: digitalspy.co.uk

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. You might find those (in any of King's novels) if you have a careful eye. The female characters featured here have their strengths and weaknesses which decided their outcomes in their peculiar situations. Mind you don't take these as the MC of the stories, some like Rose Daniels and Jessie Burlingame are, but most are major characters. This write-up points the strobelight on their peculiar qualities not the men in their lives and not the plot of the respective novels.

Rose Daniels (Rose Madder)

The MC (main character) in King's fantasy story, Rose Daniels married a psycho cop. Rosie endured Norman Daniels' (her husband) beatings for about fourteen years. But after realization dawns she may eventually get herself killed starring in the endless drama she breaks away from home.

She later remarries and her true altruistic nature which made her stick out fourteen years in a miserable marriage is brought to the fore. Rosie offers to rescue the baby of a woman she encounters in a parallel universe from a labyrinth guarded by a beast.

Winifred 'Wendy' Torrance (The Shining)

"Wendy is an extraordinary woman." These words made by her husband during an interview at the Overlook Hotel (setting of the novel) appropriately describe the character Wendy. Wendy is another female character who stayed strong by her man's side despite his shortcomings; Jack Torrance (her husband) was battling alcoholism and had inherited his father's temper (very bad temper).

When Jack threw a fit and unwittingly broke his son's arm, Wendy was there to call the hospital. When the "hotel" took possession of Jack's mind and turned him against his family, to save her's and her son's life, Wendy battled her husband and love found a way in the end.

Annie Wilkes (Misery)

The prototype bad nurse, Annie Wilkes is responsible for the deaths of over 100 old folks and infants. She happens to be the number one fan of the writer Paul Sheldon.

While a practicing nurse, Annie Wilkes assumes the role of god and maker and believes other people's right to life is her business. She has the right to decide who among the folks under her care lives or dies. She lives alone, is divorced and though arrested once in connection with the deaths for which she is responsible is never actually convicted. Her treatment of the sick and crippled Paul Sheldon reveals her oppressive and possessive state of mind towards the weak.

Susannah Dean (The Dark Tower Series)

Odetta Susannah Holmes lost her legs when a sociopath pushed her in front of a subway train, meaning to kill her. She deals with this trauma by unconsciously creating a volatile other hidden in her brain. Each split personality is unaware of the others existence. The hidden woman calls herself 'Detta Walker.

The love of Eddie Dean (a major character in the ongoing series) makes the two personalities of Odetta and Detta to acknowledge each other and merge as one into Susannah Dean. As the two personalities compensate each other Susannah becomes a stronger and better woman.

Mary (Roadwork)

Mary marries Barton George Dawes after the couple discover she's pregnant with his child. She later suffers a miscarriage. She births another child by the same man, named Charlie but he dies of brain cancer a few years after. Mary's marriage takes a turn after this incident both parents unwilling to let go and come to terms with their situation.

Mary rarely smiles much after that. Even Dawes (husband) notes this fact. She might as well have been a zombie. With the marriage strained to breaking point, Dawes sabotaging of his company's purchase of a new facility was the icing on the cake. Mary leaves her husband and home for her parents'.

Cynthia Smith (Desperation)

The female hitchhiker who got picked up by a writer's roadie and got herself into a situation where she would have to fight for her sanity and her very life.

Cynthia left home at age seventeen and spent most of her time as a drifter. She finally settled down with a guy who pretended to be clean. He got hooked on crystal meth and beat up on her. She left him for a shelter. She told the roadie, Steve Ames that she had every reason to be careful of guys; one had nearly torn off her left ear and another had broken her nose not so long ago.

She was returning home to her father (a retired preacher) and her mother.

Elizabeth Eastlake (Duma Key)

The evil in the story uses Elizabeth's young mind and talent to get back into this world from the depths of the ocean and then unleashes terror on her family. With Liz's help, the evil spirit (called Persephone) is trapped in a jar of freshwater where her powers are weakened.

Suffering from Alzheimer's and in her 80s, Liz is the one who 'senses' Persephone is regaining her powers in the pit where the jar is buried. She is struck dead at an art exhibition hosted by the MC, by two damned souls who appear in the image of her dead twins sisters. But not before she gives clues on how to destroy the wicked entity controlling the Key.

Jessie Burlingame (Gerald's Game)

To reinvigorate their tame and lame sex life, Jessie's husband, an otherwise successful lawyer devices a plan; handcuff Jessie to the bedpost and then initiate the act.

Jessie threw away her personal dreams to get married to Gerald for his money which should account for the mentioned lax in their sex life. The experience in the cabin lodge awakens a suppressed painful childhood memory. Jessie was sexually abused by her father when she was only ten. Jessie is almost a direct opposite of Mattie Devore from Bag of Bones. The death of Gerald (her husband) in the cabin is a kind of revenge on her father and Jessie is ready to start her life all over again(?)

Lisey Landon (Lisey's Story)

Lisey is stalked by psycho fans of her dead husband for the deceased manuscripts. One peculiar case is a guy who mutilates her to make her surrender her husband's literary property.

She faces the odds head on to keep the warmth of their love going. Despite her husband's family's dirty past; Scott Landon's father killed his son and Scott had to kill his father to contain an incurable insanity that was gaining on him. She is dedicated to the memory of her late husband a famous and successful novelist. Scott has a special ability, the power to transport himself to another world. Eventually, Lisey inherits this gift and with it saves herself from the maniacs who stalk her.

Mattie Devore (Bag of Bones)

Mattie is a twenty-one-year-old, widowed mother of a little girl. She is involved in a custody battle with her billionaire father-in-law. Despite the strange circumstances in which we find Mattie, she's never had one sleepless night over her dilemma. She is unbelievably optimistic and fond of Kyra, her daughter.

Another great quality of Mattie's is her self-reliance which is initially put to the test when Max Devore (her father-in-law) offers to pay her off for custody of Kyra. Mattie refuses instantly. Secondly, after she is fired from work, a direct follow up of her custody battle with Max Devore, Mike Noonan has to force Mattie to take his money. She is killed in a drive-by shooting after the end of the custody battle.

From widows (Lisey Landon) confronting the dark night to married women (Jessie Burlingame) battling their husbands/lovers and then pan to single women (Annie Wilkes) who lust for independence. Does Stephen King follow a set pattern when creating his female characters or are these mere coincidences? You decide. Check what happens to the couples in these stories: The Dark Half (the details are in the first pages of The Sun Dog); Secret Window; Dolores Claiborne; The Langoliers and so on.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Monday, February 18, 2013

Character Archetypes of the Horror Genre

Ghost Photo credit: Pétur Gauti

A look at character archetypes of the horror subgenre. This is a personal thing, really. Once, I found a website that classified all the prototype into only three classes: The Vampire; the Ghost and the Monster. I discovered doing it this way kind of leaves room for a little improvisation (for me, at least), I can focus on the individual character archetypes and talk about each one at a time instead of lumping them together in one bogus family tree.

The Vampire

The vampire is one of the shape shifters of the horror genre. And probably, the most famous of the undeads. Somebody once commented on how swiftly the character has evolved through time and even faster than the flu.

Modern films and books keep inventing new forms of the vampire story finally creating vampires who can co-exist with humans in a near-cordial relationship.

The Werewolf

Another shape-shifting character and for the most part sworn enemies of the vampire. This character is considered a lycanthrope or a wolfman whose transformation takes place at the appearance of the full moon. It wields a form of power stronger than a man's and a wolf's combined.

Extraterrestrials

Aliens or ETs are intelligent life forms from space. Although, in some fictional works, some of these extraterrestrial species are a positively productive bunch, many of their type like the ones featured in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher for example. Another good example are the set of ETs on the X-Files.

Psychos

I decided I'd detach these set of villains from the monsters for a special reason; most psychos are super-intelligent beings. (Their level of intelligence is probably too advanced for them and they eventually, self-destruct.) Thomas Harris' famous anti-hero, Hannibal Lecter falls under this category and probably, the prototype mad scientist, Frankenstein.

Monsters

The characters called monsters besides anacondas, devilish sewer rats, usually possess a low IQ yet, their blood boils with the essence of evil.

Zombies

These characters are classified as undead along with the vampires, the werewolves, and the ghouls. The zombie is a specie of mindless, reanimated corpses who feed on human flesh. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead is considered a progenitor of the fictional zombie in modern fiction.

Ghouls

These characters are also shape-shifters as well as the undead. I have placed the Ghosts and the daemons or spirits in this category. Ghouls are desert-dwelling, shape-shifting, evil daemons. But since I also refer to the ghost, ghouls are also spirits of dead people and include the supernatural beings like evil spirits and the likes.

If, perhaps, you have a better method of classifying these horror archetypes, I'd like to see what you got to give.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Monday, September 17, 2012

6 Steps to a More Interesting Dialogue

Talk is cheap, they say. Do you believe this to be true of dialogue or do you think there’s more to all that fictional talk?

Let’s take a nice long look at six steps that push towards writing captivating dialogue. See if you think differently at the end of this piece.

1. In This Silence…

If you’ve ever listened in on two people talking over a sensitive issue especially, one punctuated by brief pregnant pauses, you would readily understand the power of injecting silence into the dialogue of your characters.

The sound of silence can work the magic in your dialogue if you stitch them into the right scenes and at appropriate intervals.

2. Color Dialogue with Emotions

You can’t not notice the sarcasm dripping in folk’s speeches when they engage uninvited salespersons; the anger and deep frustration when they cry out in despair if they can’t find the car keys and the utterance tinged with sadness when they relate a painful near-tragic personal story.

The speeches of your fictional characters become more real if it captures the emotions in the scenes. Make the words your characters speak reveal their frustrations, their fears and even their weaknesses without making it seem too obvious (or it may appear to the reader as if you’re using dialogue to pass on information which a good narration should handle effectively).

3. Resist Word-for-Word Recording of Speech

Face it; real people conversations are dry and lifeless. If you gotta write dialogue, don’t record real people’s speeches word-for-word. The reason is obvious: it’s boring! Too many things happen around people when they talk and they may put the main tête-à-tête on hold while they speculate on these. Sometimes, it’s just plain old distraction.

You don’t want to dump these erratic and unnecessary breaks into your story if you want to create dialogue that grabs your reader’s attention.

Courtesy: spinner.com

4. Let the Yarn Flow… It’s Only Natural

One of the best ways to get it right when creating dialogue is to avoid injecting big vocabularies into your people’s speech. It kills the connection. Every time a reader encounters a big word, it jerks ‘em out of the story and gets ‘em scampering for a thesaurus. Never indulge in this destructive exercise. Except of course, your character is a professor of linguistics or a show off whose primary purpose on earth is driving his listener nuts with extravagant words.

Keeping dialogue in your scenes flowing is about not allowing folks in your stories say stuff that isn’t expected of real people at least, under natural circumstances. It’s about writing it so it sounds like real natter.

5. Omit Needless Words

Having given this long lecture on what and what not to do in dialogue, I believe this part is relevant. You’ll find that some words are more meaningful than others and some are totally unnecessary.

If it does not give new information about the scene; if it’s something totally obvious like out there in the open, there’s no point having your character(s) say it. The reader would figure it out for themselves. Avoid having your character(s) repeat something you already stated in the narration in his/her dialogue.

6. Read Author Interviews

Actually, read any interesting interviews you can lay your hands on.

Reading interviews can be a good education in writing dialogue. After all, interviews are nonfiction dialogues.

This is one nice way to recreate dialogue almost word-for-word. Reading author interviews can give you deeper insight because sometimes, authors sound a lot like one of the fictional characters in their books.

And that’s all folks. If you can make your dialogues sound natural, you can get your reader lost in your stories and secure your future in the business of make-believe.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan