Relationships & Partners and Writing Skills Tips. (A Writing Advice Guide Book

Lecture 4 Fictional Characters Imagined and Observed

After two paragraphs that explain Emma's family situation, Austen then tells us: "The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened to alloy her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her."
The rest of the novel is essentially a gloss on the first two pages, showing Emma's impetuosity, vanity, and cluelessness as she tries to manage the love lives of everyone around her without recognizing her own true love. There's no need for any Mrs. Dalloway-style intimacy with Emma's stream of consciousness, and there's no watching her slowly reveal herself through her speech and behavior. Austen simply tells us about Emma's character right from the start, then launches into her story.

Austen's description of Emma is frank, to the point, and unironic in the sense that Austen never has Emma do anything later in the book that undercuts her original description. Thus, with Emma fixed firmly in our imaginations as a vain, beautiful, meddlesome girl after reading only the first two pages, we are free to enjoy her effect on the lives of the people around her.

This approach works especially well with comic fiction, which often depends on types rather than fully developed characters or at least on characters who never really change our first impression of them.

We can compare Austen's approach with a more indirect, interior one from the opening paragraphs of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Again, in just a few paragraphs, we meet an adult, first-person narrator who is looking back with bitter irony on her unhappy childhood. We learn that she grew up in a household where she was considered an outsider, but she knew how to stick up for herself.
The difference between Jane Eyre and Emma is that we don't learn everything we need to know about Jane in the first few paragraphs. Instead, we are drawn only gradually into the story while being given hints of her struggles to come.

This technique works better than Austen's would in this instance because Jane Eyre is a darker, more serious book.
There's more at stake here than romances and marriages among the idle rich; in the first few paragraphs of Bronte's book, we get the first hint of Jane's struggle to survive in a world in which she has no money, no connections, and no prospects.

How you decide to configure characters-from the outside in or the inside out—has a profound effect on the sort of story you end up writing; the cause and effect here are inextricably intertwined.
A comedy, for example, often announces itself right from the start by being funny and staying funny, which requires characters who can be quickly and easily identified. In contrast, a drama often draws the reader in with an intriguing situation, the distinctive voice of a strong character, and the suggestion of more trouble to come.
Jane Eyre's world is more complex and more unpredictable than Emma's, and this extra complexity requires a more subtle and complex main character. Although Emma eventually grows up and learns not to meddle in the affairs of others, she doesn't do much to surprise us. But Jane, having shown us that she's smart and judgmental from the first page, turns out to be surprisingly wrong in her judgments of some of the other characters, particularly Mr. Rochester.

Another way to look at the difference between these two approaches is to consider how much you want the reader to identify with the character.
By writing in the third person and by telling readers directly of Emma's vanity, Austen invites readers to detach themselves from the character.

But Bronte has Jane Eyre address readers directly, inviting us to view the world through her eyes and to endorse her judgments.

The Psychology-Circumstances Continuum.
To understand the exterior-interior continuum from a slightly different angle, think about the difference between a character who is defined by psychology versus one who is defined by circumstances.
We're tempted to think that Emma is determined by her circumstances, but notice that it's the way her particular psychology butts up against the people and the world around her that makes the book funny.
In Jane Eyre, even though we have instant access to Jane's mind from the first sentence, it's the circumstances of her life that largely determine the course of the novel, even though we see that struggle mainly through its effect on her thoughts and feelings.

The books of American realist writers tend to be large-scale portraits of a whole city or class of people emphasizing the social world through which the characters move rather than their individuality.

Another tempting generalization is that character-driven narratives, such as Mrs. Dalloway, rely more on psychology than plot-driven narratives, such as The Maltese Falcon, but that's not entirely true either. Even though we don't have direct access to Sam Spade's mind and even though The Maltese Falcon is packed with dramatic incidents, the narrative mainly works as a record of his decisions. Underlying all his actions are thoughts that drive those actions, even if they are not directly expressed to the reader.

Among the characters who are largely determined by their circumstances we might include many of the characters in Dickens, as well as those in the works of realist American writers, such as Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, and Sinclair Lewis. Even though we have direct access to the thoughts of many of these characters, their thoughts are not as determinative of their conduct as their circumstances are.

There is an intimate relationship between the sort of characters you create and the sort of narrative you write. In fact, they may be inseparable.
You could just as easily say that the sort of characters you decide to use determines the kind of story you write as you could say that the kind of story you decide to write determines the sort of characters you use. You can't really make up your mind about one without making up your mind about the other.
As we've said, however, these are continuums, not either/or decisions, and the same writer will try different sorts of stories and characters at different times. For some writers, choosing to work from the outside in or the inside out is purely instinctive: You just sit down at the keyboard and start to write in the first person or the third person. Even so, sometimes it turns out that what comes naturally doesn't work, and you may have to go back and do it a different way.
You can also be more self-conscious and deliberate about your choices, thinking about what's more important to your story: that the characters are reflective of the larger world they inhabit or that the story is more intimate, told from inside one consciousness. How you answer that question will tell you how to create your character.

Suggested Reads
Emma by Austen.
What If? by Bernays & Painter.
Jane Eyre by Brontë
The Wild Colonial Boy by Hynes
____________The Lecturer's Tale
____________Next.

Writing Prompts
This exercise is drawn from an excellent book called What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter: Pick a character from a story or novel that has already been written, either by you or by someone else, and make a list of everything you know or can infer about that character. Include basic features, such as the character's name, age, gender, appearance, relationship status, and so on, but also include such attributes as the character's fears, obsessions, and politics, even if they aren't explicitly mentioned in the text. Depending on the sort of narrative you're working with, you may not be able to get a complete list for any character. Such a list for Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, for example, would include a great deal about her opinions and personality but nothing about her appearance. In contras, you can detail Sam Spade's physical appearance, but you can't find much about his opinions on anything. This exercise reinforces the idea that different sorts of stories require different types of characters.

Enjoy, Skylights. Another lecture discussed. -Lumna10. Magic_Pyrix Energy_Guardian RoyalBunny7