Hayden Trenholm, Marie Bilodeau and Matt Moore Interviewed by Metro (Ottawa) for Aurora Nominations

A quick note: East Block Irregulars Hayden Trenholm, Marie Bilodeau and Matt Moore were interviewed by the local newspaper Metro. In it, we talk about our Aurora Award 2011 nominations and our writing.

It’s a short piece, so please give it a read.

Voting for the Auroras starts in June, so stay tuned for more information.

Getting Back on the Horse

The hardest thing about writing, for me at least, is getting started.  I will spend hours, sometimes days, trying to get that first paragraph written.  The funny thing is – I almost always change it.  I guess it is pretty much true of any new thing in your life – whether it is as trivial as learning how to use a new phone or as important as beginning a new friendship – getting started is the hard part.  Mess up the beginning, you think, and you set the pattern for the whole future.

Not true really.  First impressions are seldom lasting ones and bad habits can always be amended.

But still, starting a new story is always tough.  A couple of weeks ago I finished my novel, Stealing Home.  It was not only the end of a novel; it was the final book in a trilogy.  I’ve got lots of ideas for more books and even had a deadline to finish a story for an anthology.  But it was a beautiful spring.  There were walks to be taken, gardens to plant, wine to drink. 

Plus, my last book was nominated for an Aurora Award.  Wait until that’s over, I thought, think how motivated you’ll be if you win.  Right.  And if you lose, no worries; all the other nominees are good friends.  And you’ve lost things before – more often than you’ve won.  Sure.

The weekend at KeyCon was great.  The nominees, calling themselves the Magnificent Basterds, held a joint party on Friday night that was a roaring success.  Programming was fun as usual and I had lots of positive feedback – people saying they loved my book and had voted for it.  Still, I tried to contain my optimism.  Then, Dan O’Driscoll won for Artistic Accomplishment for my novel’s cover!  Maybe, just maybe…

But no.  Robert J. Sawyer won for his excellent novel, Wake.  A deserving win (and besides Rob had already suffered a bigger disappointment – the cancellation of Flash Forward, the ABC TV series based on his novel).  I think I was gracious, smiled, hugged, said all the right things.  And I meant them too.

But I have to say, I shed a tear or two when I got back to my room.

And the next day, I had pretty much decided to give up writing.  I’d just see my third book launched and then take it easy for the summer – reading, gardening, travelling, drinking wine in my backyard.  The next day, I started planning a search for a new job – one that would pay a lot more and fill up those empty hours I normally spent writing.  That was the new me – a workaholic bureaucrat working 60 hours a week for the big bucks!

Then I thought about it.  I still had that anthology deadline.  So Saturday, having spent a couple of days working out the plot, I sat down to write.  God, it was painful.  The first hundred words took over an hour and by the end of the day, I only had a thousand words.

No, that was it.  No way.  I lost the drive, the zest, the skill.  I really was finished as a writer.

Sunday morning I avoided my office like the plague – quite literally since I’d come down with either the flu or a severe allergy attack.  There was no way… unless, maybe if I approached it this way.  By deadline day – Tuesday – despite frequent unpleasant interruptions, I had a five thousand short story.  Is it brilliant?  That’s not for me to judge – but it was certainly good enough to let the editors of the anthology make that decision for themselves.

So I guess I’m back in the saddle.  Oh, I still intend to enjoy my summer (we’re off to Europe in 18 days for a three week holiday) but I’m not looking for a new killer job.  And I’m not giving up writing.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll win an Aurora next year.

Advice on Dealing with Rejections: Let Yourself Grieve

As a writer—rookie or experienced—a rejection notice can sting. I don’t mean the “I found your story lacking believable characters, the plot is unrealistic and your themes smack of racism. Do not submit here again.” I mean the usual “Thanks for sending your story, but…”

Even if you’ve been writing for years and have a stack of rejections taller than you, every now and then you submit to a market you’re convinced is perfect for your story, but 6 weeks later that envelope or email comes saying “Thanks for sending your story, but…”

You tell yourself it’s the process, it’s nothing personal and your story’s terrific, just not “right” for that particular market.

Yet all that rationalization doesn’t hold back those nasty thoughtsthat your story is crap, you’re a terrible writer and maybe it’s time to give up.

And you hate yourself for having those thoughts and doubts.

So how can you deal? Well, it’s important to understand what’s going on inside your head: you’re grieving. Those thoughts are part of a mental process we all go through. Best to let them play out and not do anything rash.

The Grieving Process

Usually, we talk about grieving when someone we love dies. “Grief” is a heavy, emotionally-laden word not used lightly. But grief can be used to describe any loss, including the lost hope of making that sale, regardless if it’s at pro rates to Asimov’s or the small antho that will pay one contributor’s copy.

Grieving has 5 steps:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Keeping the above in mind, consider the thought process we go throughwhen we get a rejection:

You read the letter, then read it again to make sure you understand correctly: You’ve been rejected. You read it one more time, looking for some glimmer of “Please revise and resubmit” or “We’ve rejected it, but still might buy it.” [DENIAL] But you realize it’s a flat out “no” and think “Damn it, three months down the drain when I could have sent it someplace else.” And it would have been nice if they gave some clue as to why it was rejected instead of a form letter. [ANGER] Maybe if you’d changed something—amp up the tension, better define the characters, tighten the dialogue. Or was there a typo in your cover letter? [BARGAINING] But what’s the use? It’s a crappy story that’ll take too long to fix… assuming you even have the skills to fix it. Maybe all these rejections are trying to tell you something. [DEPRESSION]

But after a while—half an hour, a few days—you calm down, realize it’s no big deal and send the story off to someplace else. [ACCEPTANCE]

Hopefully, you still have the story and haven’t wiped the hard drive in an outburst of self-pity.

So What Should You Do?

Understand that grieving is like getting nervous before an exam or interview—it has nothing to do with your preparation or competency. It’s how your body deals with stress. Grieving is the same: a process hard-wired into our brains.

When you get that rejection letter and feel angry, think of how you could have improved the story, and begin to question your skills as a writer—don’t fight it. Acknowledge you’re grieving, let your brain work through the process and don’t do anything rash. It’s just how your mind files away bad news.

Resist the temptation to madly revise the story, erase all your stories or announce you’re quitting the writing game. Be aware of the stages as they come, let your brain work, and hunker down until you’re back on an even keel.

You’ll get through it.

Ad Astra ’10

Had a great, but exhausting, time at Ad Astra this weekend.

Friday

Arrived around 5:30 and got settled in, wandering the lobby and meeting friends I’d not seen since WorldCon in August or Ad Astra ’09.

I kicked off the con at 8, moderating the “Critiquing Groups” panel with old friends David Nickle and Suzanne Church and new friends Megan Crewe and Lorne Kates. This group was a lot of fun, with each panellists bringing a slightly different take on and experience with critiquing groups.

At 10, I moderated the “Grassroots on Virtual Soil” panel about using online tools to market yourself and make connections as a writer with Justine Lewkowicz, Cathy Palmer-Lister and CZP author Douglas Smith. Though it started a little slow (thankfully, I had an agenda to keep us going), we quickly picked up steam, covering different tools and tactics one can use online, and we ran about 10 minutes long—thankfully we were the last panel so no one came to kick us out.

I then retired to the Green Room, where a good chunk of the CZP family had taken over part of the room and stayed up to much too late.

Saturday

The 11 o’clock ChiZine Publications Panel felt a lot earlier than it was, but it was the first time CZP staff and authors have come together in such a large group. Representing CZP was:

• Brett Alexander Savory
• Sandra Kasturi
• Gemma Files
• David Nickle
• Claude Lalumière
• Douglas Smith
• Helen Marshall
• Laura Marshall
• Erik Mohr
• And yours truly

With Bob Boyczuk out in the audience.

After lunch with friends, I went for a swim with my wife and was then off to the 3 o’clock panel for The East Block Irregulars (Hayden Trenholm, Derek Kunsken, Elizabeth Westbrook-Trenholm, Marie Bilodeau, Peter Atwood and me). It felt a bit self-indulgent, but the EBI has been a strong and effective critiquing group and I think the audience learned a lot from how we’ve run ourselves.

After flaking out for a bit and supper with Doug Smith, the CZP Launch Party started at 7 with readings from David Nickle, Claude Lalumière, Gemma Files and Douglas Smith. I went up to the bar to grab a drink, but ran into the East Block Irregulars and stayed with them for a bit before heading back up to the Green Room, where again I stayed later than I should. But, I got to talk to some people I hadn’t had the chance to like Michael Rowe, Gemma Files and Michael Kelly.

Sunday

I passed the morning in the dealer’s room with Brett Savory, making rude jokes and talking about next steps for CZP (which are not mutually exclusive topics!). At noon, I moderated the “Writing & Time Management” panel with Suzanne Church, Sephera Giron, Eileen Bell and Michael Rowe. This panel, which I had pictured as being about “trying writing while waiting for the laundry to finish in the dryer” or “Set deadlines and stick to them” quickly evolved to something else: The idea that writers do have the time, but the internal critic tells them “This is a waste” and “You’re no good.” It’s hard to capture, but the panellist really got at the heart of what it means to be a writer. You have to want it and be willing to sacrifice other things. If you can do that, writers will find the time. Otherwise, if you don’t truly want to be a writer, you will keep making excuses.

The “Publicity – The Good, The Bad and the Bonkers” panel with Kelley Armstrong, Peter Watts and Carolyn Clink was a bit more upbeat, trading amusing stories of publicity gone wrong and publicity gone right.

When that panel wrapped up, I said some quick good-byes and was back on the road to Ottawa, where I managed to get some much-needed rest.

Ad Astra

I spent the weekend at Ad Astra, the annual Toronto SF convention now its twenty ninth year.  I’ve been a regular attendee the last six or seven years and it’s always fun to see my many friends.  Often it’s the only time I get to see many of them so I try to make the best of it.

Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink generously offered Liz and I accommodation in their condo, along with Buffalo friends Herb Kauderer, Isabelle Fournier and Al Katerinsky.  Rob and Carolyn were staying at the Con hotel this year as he was one of the Guests of Honour.

Liz decided to spend the evening visiting her son, Steve, his wife, Amanda and their son James while I trundled off to the convention.  I only had one panel Friday evening: “The Electric/Alternative Car.”  My fellow panellists, Al Katerinsky and Stephen B. Pearl were lively and knowledgeable and we had great input from our audience of about 15 or so.  Then it was off to the party rooms where I had a chance to talk to lots of folks, including aurora-winning author Doug Smith, David Nickle (Monstrous Affections from Chizine Publications) and Chris Jackson, author of Scimitar Moon.

Saturday was a busy day and began with a panel called “Each Character’s Voice.”  I was joined by authors Grant Carrington, Karin Lowachee, Kate Story and Gregory A. Wilson.  I learned a few new techniques for keeping characters distinct and shared a few of my own tricks of the trade.  There was a good turnout for a Saturday morning and I think people generally were both entertained and informed.

I had a nice lunch with members of my writing group – Peter Atwood, Matt Moore Derek Kunksken and their partners/children.  After lunch I chatted with Rob Sawyer, Rick Wilber and Nick DiChario for fifteen minutes or so before heading off to my next panel, another science topic: “The Energy Mosaic: Why we don’t need to freeze in the dark.”  Al and Stephen from my first panel were joined by Don Shears.  The room was packed and the sun was shining through the south facing windows, so none of us had to worry about freezing that day!  The general conclusion was that we needed to move forward as quickly as we could with alternatives to fossil fuels (especially coal) but that success would largely depend on economics and government policy.

The most fun I had was participating in “The East block Irregulars,” which consisted of the six members of my Ottawa writing group, the three mentioned above plus Liz Westbrook-Trenholm and Marie Bilodeau.  We chatted to a small but enthusiastic crowd about the pros and cons of writing groups and how we think our formula – professional, ambitious and dedicated writers all at the same level with a focus on the writing rather than the group – works well for us.  It was a very comfortable session and reminded me again how much I like all these people.  An autographing session followed where I got to share a table with fellow Bundoran author, Matthew Johnson.  We both sold a few books and had some nice chats with fans.

That evening Liz and I had supper with Herb, Isabelle and Al, along with poet and punster, David Clink.  We ate at the Mongolian Grill and the food and the company were both great.  We checked in at a few parties – notably the one for the new Toronto Con, SFContario, which will take place this November.

Sunday started way too early with a 10am panel called “Writing the Future,” with Matthew Johnson and award-winning writer, Karl Schroeder.  Another good crowd listened while we described how we crafted credible futures by projecting current trends and predicting possible shifts in technology, economics, the environment or social mores.  Next, David Stephenson and I talked to a small group about the after math of the Copenhagen climate change conference.  My last event of the day and the Con was a reading (time shared with Marie Bilodeau) from my new novel, Stealing Home, the first public presentation of the material.  It was nice to see Nick Matthews who gave a great review to Steel Whispers. Then it was good-byes all around and the long drive back to Ottawa.

Ad Astra: Schedules for the East Block Irregulars

The East Block Irregulars will be attending Ad Astra in full force! Here’s where you can find some of our various members:

Friday

8:00 PM

Fairytale Inspiration
Salon 241
Panelists: Leah Bobet, Ken Lillie-Paetz, Miriam Harrison, Marie Bilodeau

Critiquing Groups
Ballr. East
Panelists: Matt Moore (m), David Nickle, Suzanne Church, Megan Crewe, Lorne Kates

9:00 PM

The Electric/Alternative Car
Salon 241
Panelists: Hayden Trenholm, Al Katerinsky, Stephen B. Pearl

Same Old Settings

Salon 343

Panelists: Rick Wilbur, Karina Sumner-Smith, Gregory A. Wilson, Karl Schroeder, Derek Künsken

10:00 PM

Grassroots on Virtual Soil
Ballr. Centre
Panelists: Matt Moore (m), Justine Lewkowicz, Douglas Smith, Cathy Palmer-Lister

Saturday

11:00 AM

ChiZine Publications Panel
Ballr. Centre
Panelists: Brett Alexander Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Matt Moore, Gemma Files, David Nickle, Claude Lalumiere, Douglas Smith, Helen Marshall, Laura Marshall, Erik Mohr, Bob Boyczuk

Each Characters Voice
Salon 243
Panelists:  Gregory A. Wilson, Hayden Trenholm, Grant Carrington, Karin Lowachee, Kate Story

2:00PM

The Energy Mosaic: Why We Don’t Need to Freeze in the Dark
Salon 343
Panelists: Hayden Trenholm, Al Katerinsky, Gillian Clinton, Don Shears, Stephen B. Pearl

3:00 PM

The East Block Irregulars
Crowne Room
Panelists: Hayden Trenholm, Derek Kunsken, Matt Moore, Elizabeth Westbrook-Trenholm, Marie Bilodeau, Peter Atwood

4:00PM

Autograph Session
Ballroom East
Hayden Trenholm and many, many others

6:00 PM

Stories That Inspire the Genre
Wynford
Panelists: Marie Bilodeau

Putting the Science Into Science Fiction

Salon 243

Chris A. Jackson, Derek Künsken, Peter Watts, Karl Schroeder

7:00 PM

CZP Launch (to 9:00)
Antons’
Attending: Brett Alexander Savory, Douglas Smith, Gemma Files, Matt Moore, Sandra Kasturi

Sunday

10:00AM

Writing the Future
Salon 243
Panelists: Hayden Trenholm, Karl Schroeder, Rebecca Simkin

11:00AM

Copenhagen was a bust, now what?
Ballr. Centre
Panelists: Hayden Trenholm, David Stephenson

12:00 PM

Writing & Time Management
Ballr. East
Panelists: Matt Moore (m), Suzanne Church, Sephera Giron, Eileen Bell, Michael Rowe

1:00 PM

Publicity – The Good, The Bad and the Bonkers
Salon 241
Panelists: Kelley Armstrong, Peter Watts, Carolyn Clink, Matt Moore

2:00PM

Reading
Anton’s
Reading: Hayden Trenholm, Marie Bilodeau

On Character Part 2

Character arcs are another useful way to make sure your characters develop as the plot progresses.  Once you have a broad plot outline (and I’m generally talking about novels but the same general rules apply to shorter fiction as well) and know who the major characters are, you can begin to think about how they will interact with each other and with the events of the story.  You begin to ask questions like: Where do their lives intersect?  How do the actions or reactions of one character impact the reactions and actions of the others?  How do the characters change as a result of these interactions? 

In thinking about changes it is useful to categorize what type of change is occurring.  I generally use four broad categories.  How are the physical circumstances of the character changed?  This may include changes to their body (illness, injury, death) or to their material circumstances (wealth, social position).  What changes occur in the character’s emotional and psychological life?  The distinction is important.  One may fall in love without becoming more loving; feel fear as opposed to becoming fearful.  For example, a brave man may feel fear but a fearful man will seldom express courage.  Finally what moral changes does the character experience? A brave man who becomes fearful could make several different moral conclusions: bravery is a foolish conceit; true bravery consists not of the absence of fear but acting despite its presence; that he is a weak man not worthy of respect.

Characters may make several changes in the course of a story but each change must flow from what was in place before.  The character at the end of the story may be a very different person that the one at the beginning but these changes must – to make sense to the reader – be as a result of some event or interaction, some conflict and resolution.  While in real life most of what happens seems random, in fiction, everything happens for a reason.

Once you have written out the arc each character must follow in their journey from whom they are to whom they become, you can lay them out on a sheet or a chart alongside the plot and chapter outline.  What you are almost certain to find – especially if you have been doing the three things separately – is that there are places where they simply don’t match up.  The events of the story won’t bring the characters they way you thought or won’t create the kind of changes you envisioned.  You could try to mash them together and make them fit or you could let one creative process dominate the other two but I suggest that you instead engage in a dialogue with yourself.  Asking questions about why and how can often improve both the plot and the process of character development and make your outline unfold in a surprising and powerful way.

What’s Your Greatest Day?

On the elevator, I heard someone say “It was the greatest day of my life.”

This got me thinking: What was my greatest day? What does that say about me and how I can use that realization in my writing?

A Great Day Changes You

If a day was the greatest of your life, you must be changed by it. Even if you don’t recognize it at the time, you are a different person.

In fiction, a good story must have characters who change as a result of the situations unfolding around them. A hero who starts and ends a story unchanged makes for some boring reading.

But usually the events that change a character are negative and how that character deals with adversity is what shapes them. In Star Wars, Episode IV, Luke:

• Loses his aunt and uncle, so goes with Ben
• Ben is killed and Luke escapes with Han
• Han takes off, leaving Luke to trust Biggs and Red Leader
• Biggs and Red Leader are killed (and R2 is blown to hell and Wedge has to leave the formation), leaving Luke alone to blow up the Death Star

Through it all, Luke embraces the Force, hits the thermal exhaust port, and becomes the hero of the rebellion.

But it was hardly “the greatest day of his life.”

A Great Day Defines You

So the greatest day of a character’s life might not be the climax (unless it’s a teen romantic comedy where George McFly knocks out Biff Tannen). So how can the greatest day of a character’s life help your story? If not the climax, then what about the call to action or first disaster?

Call to Action

Call to action is a change to your protagonist’s world that he (I will stay with a masculine protagonist in this example) usually resists. Think Luke telling Ben he can’t go to Alderaan with him. This helps ground the character, making one of his obstacles to overcome his own inertia in life.

By using the greatest day, you show what the character values. Is his greatest day winning the lottery? The day he discovered a favorite author? A drunken bender on spring break?

You also show everything the protagonist could lose.

By showing what’s important to your character and how does he reacts when something changes gives you a tool to reveal a lot about him or her.

First Disaster

The first disaster is what starts the action. For example, Luke’s aunt and uncle are killed, setting him on his adventure with Ben Kenobi.

A better example is Bruce Wayne where (in some iterations) not only are his parents murdered in front of him, he just had a great time at the movies. (Perhaps his greatest day?)

By having the first disaster relate directly to the greatest day, you can take the character through a range of emotions. This runs the risk of being clichéd if done on too grandiose a scale—the Silver Surfer crashes the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards—but this effect can be done on a small scale.

Imagine a bookish girl on the farm, an outsider in her rural community, finally getting a chance to go into town where she visits a second-hand bookstore. She spends the day reading, discovering voices and ideas she’s never contemplated. She vows to return, gathering what meager allowance she has, only to hear the store has closed. How would this change her? What action would she take as a result from a simple, but crushing, event?

What’s Your Greatest Day?

Think to yourself what your greatest day was and what that says about you. What did you learn? How did you change? Why was it so great?

And what did you learn about yourself?

Consider that realization—that introspection—and apply it to how to develop your characters. You’ll probably learn a lot about her or him.

Technology and Technique

I know I promised another post on Character but — later.  First this.

A few days ago, I organized a trip to the National Gallery of Canada with my writers’ group, the East Block Irregulars.  The idea was to walk through the galleries to see what story ideas the paintings and sculptures might inspire, followed by a quick chat and drink.  As a group activity went, it was a bit of a dud.  Everyone had to bow out at the last minute, leaving just my wife and me.  But we were there so we decided to carry on and I promised the others that I’d blog about it.  The plaza in front of the gallery is dominated by a massive metal sculpture of a spider, complete with egg sack.  Some people find it rather scary but I take comfort in the idea that it is, in fact, the final fate of Shelob, petrified by Galadriel’s light and the destruction of the One Ring.  But that may just be my geeky side showing.

The Gallery itself is a beautiful structure of steel and glass, designed by Moshe Safdie and the towering Great Hall with its views if Parliament Hill and the Ottawa River is worth a visit for its own sake.  The many skylights create a natural and ever-changing quality to the light and permit such unusual features as a flower garden buried in the centre of the building.  The large interconnected halls permit an easy flow from one period and style to another and encourage the juxtaposition of art work that present a different view of the same idea.  The galleries are generally quiet but if you need contemplation there is a beautiful reflecting pool in a dim lit room surrounded by sculpture.

Our brief tour took us mainly through the Canadian galleries, beginning with a small sample of prehistoric Aboriginal art and artefacts and moving quickly through colonial and post-colonial work.  I’m not a big fan of 19^th century art – at least until you get to impressionism – and Canadian artists were lagging some ten to twenty years behind their counterparts.  I was familiar with the Group of Seven of course so they didn’t offer much in the way of new ideas to my Thursday night brain.  The first piece that really struck my eye was Allelulah by Bertram Brooker (1929).  At first glance it seemed like a collection of metal rods and balls but I gazed at it, I began to see the organic quality of the matrix within which the metal was placed.  I’ve been writing a lot about cyborgs lately but I hadn’t really thought of how it might look at the cellular level.  Now, I’m thinking about which will inevitably lead to a story somewhere down the road.

The next painting that grabbed me was from 1950.  The Lovers by Fred Ross made me think of the passion of ordinary people.  These were not the pretty Hollywood images of beautiful people embracing but ordinary, almost ugly, caught in the hunger of sex and forbidden love.  The woman had an almost ferret-like expression and the man was rough and slick at the same time – maybe a salesman or shop-owner.  There was a noir quality (another resonance for me) and I had the impression that they were meeting in a warehouse or a storeroom, illicit and secret.  Thinking about what brought them there and what their normal lives are like is a good exercise in character development.

A painting by Gordon Raynes (I didn’t note the title or date) presented an abstract color study that could easily have been an alien landscape.  A black oily sea laps against a rough shore, covered in cobalt blue vegetation.  In the foreground a gelatinous mass in phosphorescent blue crouches on the rocks and reaches to the orange sky with two dead-white tentacles.  A few paintings away an orange-hued gibbous moon sprouts strange structures – a moon base perhaps.  Down the hall a large canvas seems completely black and it takes a minute to see that there are two distinct versions of black on the canvas, differing in finish, tone and density.  A good reminder that distinctions in fiction can be subtle and are often the more powerful for their subtlety.

The last few paintings we looked at were good examples of what is so fun about modern art.  One entitled “Why do you always burn my toast?” combined a painting of a toaster with two actual pieces of burnt toast.  It made me laugh out loud when I realized what I was looking at. 

The final ten minutes in the gallery was spent in a multimedia exhibit by the contemporary artist David Hoffos entitled Scenes from the House Dream.  The exhibit closes on February 14^th, 2010 and I encourage anyone reading this and in Ottawa to get out and see it.  The gallery web-site describes it as:

These works were executed over the past five years by Canadian multimedia artist David Hoffos. The series consists primarily of small, realistic-looking dioramas of dwelling spaces as well as urban and suburban landscapes that are hallmarked by Hoffos’ signature low-tech but highly effective illusionism.

That’s not a bad description but it doesn’t really capture the impact of the work.  The room is dark almost to the point of being difficult to navigate.  There are lots of people moving around each trying to get a glimpse of the works.  They can only be vied by one or two people at a time.  Each one is consists of a window so it’s a bit like looking into someone’s house or if the art depicts an outdoor scene, like having snuck into someone’s house to gaze out their window.  The dioramas, especially those of interior room are remarkable life-like despite being quite small.  Using TV screen placed outside the windows and mirrors inside the dioramas Hoffos creates the illusion of three dimension figures, men or women, boats and airplanes, moving through the spaces he has created.  No funny glasses are required to see the 3-D effect.  The people you watch are doing ordinary things, drinking coffee, talking on the phone, looking out the window, but each of them project powerful emotions, mostly sad and alienated but occasionally joyful as well.  The inanimate objects often tell stories too.  One shows a yacht wallowing in a swampy cove.  There was nothing to tell me this but I knew that everyone on the boat was either dead or gone. 

As I looked at Hoffos amazing little narratives I immediately thought of Avatar, which I’d seen the week before.  The technology and the sense of immersion in another world was, of course, far superior in Cameron’s movie than in Hoffos illusions but the story telling technique that Hoffos used was better, even though much simpler, than anything Cameron achieved.  Avatar will probably win the Oscar for best picture this year and as a technological achievement maybe it should, even though in many ways there are several better movies in the running.  But, to paraphrase a sixties slogan, technique will get you through times of no technology better than technology will get you through the times of no technique.  Cameron has created a breakthrough in film technology – I can hardly wait to see what a real story-teller can do with it.

On Character, Part 1

The most scathing review I ever saw contained the line, “to say the characters were two-dimensional is an insult to the second dimension.”  It may have been Dorothy Parker – it certainly sounds like her.  Another of my favourites runs: His dialogue is so wooden, I got splinters listening to it.  Character isn’t everything – just look at some of the people we let run our country – but it is a critical, though clearly not essential, aspect of fiction.  Though there are lots of stories where the revelation and development of character is the raison d’être of the work, there are lots of successful books and movies – however you might want to define success – where characterization takes a back seat to plot, idea or atmosphere.  Genre fiction is famous, some would say infamous, for the willingness to neglect character development in favour of other elements of storytelling. 

For example, in many mystery series characters may or may not be well-developed but they seldom change over the course of a book and sometimes not even over the course of the series.  The use of stock characters in science fiction and fantasy are not limited to red-shirts doomed to die at the end of the first act.  And romance novels seem to revel in the use of stereotypes and clichés.  And really, as a reader or viewer, you can enjoy a piece of fiction enormously even if the characters are little more than cartoons (witness the recent success of Avatar).  Nor does the lack character development and transformation limit a work from taking a major place in the history of literature.  Sherlock Holmes is essentially unchanged from the first story to the last and yet is viewed as the quintessential detective character.  I would argue it is his lack of change, his solidity of character, you might say, that makes him so appealing over the decades.

In my view though, a story, and particularly a novel is not complete if there is not a character we can get inside of, can follow through his journey, and at some level can care about.  This is not about likable characters – indeed some of the most memorable characters in literature are not particularly likable.  Yet they all face real human dilemmas and how they solve them (or don’t) not only reveal something about their character, it reveals something about ours.

So how do you begin to give life to the characters in your novels?  I think the first rule to remember is that character is not unchanging.  Every human being is a work in progress.  At least I like to think so.  We are impacted by the events of our lives and changed by the choices we make.  No doubt our experiences are mediated by our genetic make-up and our up-bringing but nature and nurture in themselves only take us so far.  There is that spark, that essential “I,” which in the end helps use find out not only who we are but why we are who we are?  And that is the interesting part.

If you don’t care about the character, it hardly matters what happens to them; if nothing happens to the characters it is hard to care about them at all.  So this is the task of the writer, to present people who seem real, that other people can care about and then over the course of the novel, show how they change in the face of the events they experience.

Let’s start with the first part: creating real people.  When I used to act and direct, one of the ways in which we were able to flesh out characters was to create back story.  Ideally, this was completely grounded in the text; at the very least, not contradicted by it.  Back story may be details of education or family background implied by the way a character speaks or the kind of stories they tell.  Some actors would develop lists of favourite foods, music, clothes and so on.  My job as the director was to make sure that this supported the performance and didn’t get in the way of it.  As a writer, my job is pretty much the same – develop sufficient character details to create a sense of verisimilitude without letting the exercise get in the way of the story.

As soon as I have an idea of the broad plot outline and who the main characters are, I begin developing character bios.  Starting with a name and an age, I then outline the characters early life, their education, work history and life, their physical characteristics and social life and then move on to their internal life and values.  I finish with three brief writing exercises – a 250-word obituary, a 500-word typical day in the life of the character and the response in as many words as it requires to the question: What happened a week, a day and an hour before the story starts?

So what might that look like?  Here is an excerpt from the character of Grace Patterson from my play, “The Infallible Laws of Love.”

NAME:  GRACE PATTERSON

AGE:                      25                                           BIRTHDAY:                          FEBRUARY 29, 1892

EARLY LIFE

WHERE WAS HE/SHE BORN?       Maccan, Nova Scotia

WHAT SOCIAL CLASS?                    Working

FATHER’S NAME:                              Robert James Patterson

FATHER’S OCCUPATION:               Various, Coal miner, carpenter and, in his later years, gardener.

MOTHER’S NAME:                           Sarah Anne (McLeod) Patterson

MOTHER’S OCCUPATION:            Seamstress

BROTHERS AND SISTERS:              Seven brothers, all older (David, James, Robert Jr., Andrew, Douglas, Michael, Steven)

                                                                  Six children died in infancy – four sisters, two brothers.

EDUCATIONAL LEVEL:                    Four years of formal education (age 7 to 11), but she can read and write quite proficiently and has a solid grasp of basic mathematics.  She reads widely.

SUCCESS AT SCHOOL:                     Did very well in her four years – actually completing at an informal level the first eight years of instruction.  Being in a one room school house helped this process.  Her eldest brother, David (6 years older than James and eighteen older than Grace) grew up when the family was more prosperous and actually went to school for seven years.  He works as an accounts clerk in Amherst and helped Grace with her studies.

DID SHE SOCIALIZE?                        Grace was very tomboyish and big for her age.  She gathered quite a following of children, including for a few years Winnie who attended the same elementary school for two  years.  Though two years younger than Grace, Winnie was in the same age cohort.  This early experience as a leader and organizer was an important factor in her present activism.  The two years with Winnie is the first building block in their present day relationship.

DESCRIBE FIRST DATE:                    Grace went to a church social with a cousin when she was fourteen.  He raped her on the way home.  She never told anyone but several years later had an opportunity for revenge that left the cousin permanently lame but unable to assign blame to her.  Since then she has been wary of men – though she doesn’t hate them.  She sees her cousin as a bad sort – representing only a certain type.  Her “fraternal” relations with union members has shown her both the possibilities and limitations of equality.

If you want to see the full list of questions, you can find it here.

Once I know the starting point of my character, the next step is to figure out how they will be changed by the actions of the plot.  These changes cover the gamut from physical to financial as well as changes to their emotional life and value system.  This is called the character arc and I’ll talk more about that in my next post.