Dynamic Characters (12 page)

We will never hear exactly what Trace says to Cash—and very little of what anyone says to anyone else in this story. What does Cheever gain from this?

Just the opposite of Carver's gain. In Cheever's story, the setting is everything—so much so that in real life people refer to a certain kind of New England upper-middle-class suburb as
Cheever country.
This distinctive milieu has shaped all his characters' attitudes, actions and feelings. Cheever conveys this not only by the richly detailed descriptions of social mores, but also by minimizing the dialogue. Dialogue is individual, and Cheever's characters very often are not. They're creatures of their place and time, even somewhat interchangeable. Giving them little dialogue subtly conveys this to the reader. It also reduces the story's immediacy—which in turn reinforces the sense of the author as an anthropologist detailing the strange tribal rituals of a distinctive culture.

Minimizing dialogue is tricky; most readers like to ''hear'' characters' own words. If you try this, compensate with three things:

• a setting compelling and individual enough to warrant all the attention you give it, and which you know in thorough detail

• a strong enough prose style to make lots of description interesting to read

• enough action to keep all that description from making the story too static

If you have those strengths, give minimalist fiction a try.
LEAVING OUT OTHER, CAREFULLY SELECTED DETAILS

Omitting a detail works like a hole in a photograph: The eye immediately focuses on the tiny bit that is missing. Why is that little piece cut out, rather than any other little piece? The effect is, paradoxically, to give heightened importance to what is not there.

One example: deliberately omitting the use of characters' names. William Carlos Williams does this in his classic short story ''The Use of Force,'' in which a country doctor fights with a child to make her open her mouth so he can test her for diphtheria. Even after the doctor learns the little girl's name (Mathilda), he continues to think of her exclusively as ''the child.'' This makes her seem less like an individual than like a representation of childhood itself—which is appropriate, because Williams's story is about the appalling bonds of love-struggle-sexuality between children and adults.

You must, however, present the omission of a critical name in such a way that we know it's deliberate, not merely carelessness. Williams accomplishes this by an overrepetition of ''the child,'' until it becomes almost a mantra—or a battle cry.

Similarly, any other ordinary detail you conspicuously leave out of your story—genders, ages—will be emphasized. Judith Merril does this in her classic science fiction story ''Survival Ship,'' about a space ship landing on a new planet. Merril leaves out gender. Not until the last paragraph do you realize that the ship's captain and officers are female and the entire crew male. Instantly you must rethink all your assumptions about the story—and about the world behind it. Of course, this is the author's aim. She achieves it by omission.

THE BEST WAY TO OMIT DETAILS

We touched on this idea in chapter one, but it bears repeating: The very best way to leave things out is by the artful choosing of what goes in. Suppose you know sixty-three details about your character, all of which
could
go into a given paragraph of description. The success of the paragraph depends not only on choosing a manageable number of them (Gustave Flaubert recommended three), but also the
right
ones. Artful choice thus dictates what gets left out.

For instance, consider this description from Paul Theroux's most recent novel,
My Other Life
:

I sat in the shade of the verandah, watching the hot street and the white sky, the earth like pale powder, and everything still except the insects. I walked into the sun and immediately felt the weight of it on the top of my head. I stood alone in the middle of the street on the small black island of my shadow, and thought: I am where I want to be.

This is as good as it gets. You can see the scene, feel it, experience it. What makes such a passage work? Economy, originality, flow—all the things we think of as ''good writing.'' But, mostly, something else:
Each phrase adds value.

That may sound like a curiously businesslike statement to apply to fiction, but look again at the paragraph. Every image adds new information to the picture we're forming in our minds. The first eight words orient us. The next eight show us what the character himself sees, economically conveying both a visual picture (street and white sky) and a feel (hot). The next five words deepen the image by adding a metaphor (''like pale powder'') that brings in a host of unstated connotations: Powder is dry, light, easily disturbed, a cover for what lies underneath. The next six words add a different sense: sound. The next sentence goes back to the issue of heat, emphasizing it with an original and extreme metaphor
—think
of the burning weight of the entire sun on your head!

More new information is packed into the last sentence: that the character is alone. That he stands on his shadow as on a ''small black island,'' further emphasizing his aloneness and extending it into a realm beyond the simply visual (''No man is an island,'' etc.). And finally, in contrast to the heat and loneliness, which we might have interpreted as negatives, come the last seven words (''I am where I want to be.'') Those seven words simultaneously let us into the character's inner life
and
reverse all our emotional expectations by showing us, in a simple and nonpretentious way, that he is happy.

As a result, Theroux's description:

• is personal, conveying the character's view of the scene, not the author's

• does not unduly slow down the pace, because it has meaning for the character; we thus receive it as more than just static pictures

• appeals to more than one sense (sight, sound, temperature)

• seems fresh, because the two metaphors are not hackneyed (especially the second one)

And all that in seventy-one words! Theroux left out everything nones-sential—and that's the definition of good description.

But how do you define
essential?
Genre can be one guide. Readers come to books and stories—any books and stories—with preconceptions. Actually, they're more than that: They're pre-choices. A reader who picks up the
New Yorker
has chosen it precisely because he wants a certain kind of fictional experience. The same is true for those who plunk down $25.95 for a new thriller, romance, adventure, science fiction, ''literary'' or mystery hardcover. Part of this choice is how much description they expect—and of what.

A romance novel, for example, may include quite lengthy descriptions of clothes (read Judith Krantz), people's appearances and perhaps room interiors. Romance readers enjoy this. A fan of Tom Clancy, on the other hand, does not want to wade through page-length descriptions of someone's outfit. He
does
want page-length descriptions of the weaponry on a nuclear submarine.

Sometimes even the subgenre makes a difference. Usually readers of police-procedural mysteries neither expect nor want lengthy description (think of Ed McBain's Eighty-Seventh Precinct novels). On the other hand, mystery writers as diverse as Simon Brett and Miriam Grace Monfredo include lots of description. Neither writes police pro-cedurals; Brett's ''Charles Paris'' mysteries are theater-based ''cozies'' and Monfredo's books are historical mysteries.

Do consider genre when you consider what to leave out. This applies to both what you describe and how long you describe it.

LEAVING OUT EXPLICIT MOTIVATIONS

Omitting explicit motivations works for many different genres, if done right. It does
not
mean leaving out motivation itself. Your characters must have plausible, consistent reasons for their actions. Usually these reasons are expressed one of three ways:

• through dialogue (''I'm not going to the wedding because I can't stand the thought of my father marrying that woman,'' Sue said.)

• through thoughts (She wouldn't go. It would just be too horrible. How could her father marry such a tart?)

• through exposition (The last thing Sue wanted to be doing on this lovely May morning was attending her father's wedding to a girl twenty-two years younger than he. But she didn't feel she had a choice.)

It can, however, be quite effective to skip all of these and simply let the character's actions stand by themselves, unexplained. Margaret Drabble does this in her novel
Jerusalem the Golden.
Clara has just met Clelia at a poetry reading and has had an argument with her in the ladies' room. Immediately afterward, Clelia speaks:

''Look,'' she added, ''if you give me your address when we get back there, I'll give you a ring, and you must come and see me and I'll tell you about it.''

And when they got back to the bar, Clara did indeed inscribe her name and address and common room telephone number upon a page of Clelia's unbelievably occupied diary... . And as she went home that night, she knew that she was sure that Clelia would at some point ring her.

But
why
is Clara so sure?
What
has made Clelia ask for her number when they've been squabbling? Author Drabble doesn't say, forcing the reader to figure out the answers for himself. The result is to focus his thinking on what the characters are really like . . . which also focuses him more intently on the book itself.

One note: This works better with some kinds of fiction than with others. Some commercial fiction, in all genres, subtly promises its readers that they will receive large doses of emotion or action, not thought puzzles. In such stories, you might do better to make motivations overtly clear.

How do you know whether any fictional element is better included or left out? There's no right answer; it's a judgment call. Or—write it both ways, and ask some trusty readers which works best. They might just agree with Robert Browning that ''less is more.''

SUMMARY: WHAT YOU DON'T SAY

• You can't put in everything you know about your characters. Choose artfully.

• Leaving out description results in characters subtly unconnected to their surroundings.

• Leaving out dialogue puts emphasis on setting.

• Leaving out details
may
throw whatever is omitted into sharp relief.

• Leaving out explicit motivation forces the reader to supply it for himself.

• Genre should influence what you choose to include or leave out.

Many, many writers are tempted to create characters by basing the externals on real people: Cousin John's appearance, a neighbor's weird gestures, a friend's background and speech patterns. After all, the models are indubitably real, so shouldn't that bolster the believ-ability of their fictional counterparts? Wouldn't drawing on a real person's appearance, mannerisms, speech, tastes and observable behavior give you a boost up on characterization?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

It depends on who and what you copy, and how slavishly. Using a real person as a model can gain you a solid starting point for a fictional character. It can also gain you a watered-down and underimagined character—or a law suit.

So if your Aunt Minnie is a fascinating kleptomaniac (her collection of stolen doorknobs from places where Woodrow Wilson slept; her purloined cat collars), there are both legal and personal questions to consider before you put her in a story. Can her husband Uncle Dan, the quick-tempered lawyer, sue you for libel? Will your mother, Aunt Minnie's sister, ever forgive you? If you change Aunt Minnie's name, do you have to inform your editor that she's based on a real person? If you decide that Aunt Minnie steals something from Madonna, and you want to put Madonna in the story, too, can you do that without permission?

Laws, of course, change constantly. (Abraham Lincoln once wrote, ''A nation may be said to consist of its territories, its people, and its laws. The territory is the only part which is of certain durability.'') What I write now could be outdated next year, or not be applicable in your particular case. Specifics depend on who you copy, how you write about him and where you live. Nonetheless, let's examine some general guidelines, both legal and literary, for making use of the intriguing Aunt Minnie.