Writing itself is not hard; it's shaping the product into a well-crafted form that creates panic in most of us. Through analyzing my own approach to fiction writing and through studying the methods of other authors, I've developed techniques that help turn creative expressions into polished and publishable forms. One that's particularly useful focuses on the main character's dilemma as it grows out of his or her need and out of what I call a Continuum Trait. At the base of this technique are five questions to ask of our character.
The first question to ask characters is this: "What do you want?" It's a simple question, but within the answer often lies the story. For instance, let's say my main character, a college professor, says he wants to climb a mountain. He looks in good enough shape; why not? Sure, this will be a story about climbing a mountain. But in fiction, just as in real life, there's usually someone or something that'll make it hard. So the second question is: "So what's stopping you?" All of a sudden, in my mind's eye, I get an image of a woman dressed in climbing gear and hear a name, "Sarah." This in itself is enough to begin a story: we've got the main ingredients--a character who wants something and someone who'll stand in his way.
The third and fourth questions should be asked of all characters who want to make an appearance in our stories. They are: "What's your greatest strength?" and "What gets you into the most trouble?" Frequently, a character will answer one, but not the other. For instance, I have a con man in one of my stories, and when I asked him what got him into the most trouble, he laughed and said, "Nothing. Nothing gets me in trouble." When I asked him his greatest strength, he answered, "I can talk anybody into anything." Easy to guess what also gets him into the most trouble.
The answer to these two questions will usually be the same because just as in real life, what gets a character in trouble is often that character's strength. Think of the reports your grade-school teachers sent home. The teachers who admired tenacity would often comment positively on how "determined" Suzy was; the teachers who weren't such fans of tenacity might call her "bullheaded." I call Suzy's tenacity a Continuum Trait because it does have both its good and bad sides, as Sophocles illustrated well in Oedipus Rex.
In Sophocles telling of this old tale, oracle foretold that Oedipus would murder his father and marry his mother. As a baby, he was given to a shepherd who was to leave him on a mountaintop to die. This shepherd, however, took pity on the boy, and gave him instead to a shepherd from the other side of the mountain, who took him to be reared by the king and queen of Corinth who were childless.
As a man, Oedipus learned of the prophecy, and he determined to thwart the fates by leaving his home. On the road, he came across a man, whom he murdered Once he arrived in Thebes, he solved the Sphinx's riddle, which lifted the plague, and, thus, he was given the widowed queen as his wife. It was only many years later that he learned that the old man on the road was his birth- father, and the queen, his birth-mother. In trying to beat the fates at their own game, he'd fallen right into their hands. But it's out of his Continuum Trait that his tragic error comes.
In his notes to his translation of Aristotle's Poetics, James Hutton points to Oedipus's Continuum Trait: "Oedipus' hamartia or mistake is the slaying of a man who might be his father but whose relationship to himself he does not know, and this after warning from the oracle that he was destined to slay his father. This mistake might seem incredible had not Sophocles provided Oedipus with the hasty and irascible temper that makes it probable that he would act thus in circumstances of extreme provocation," (pg. 95, W.W. Norton & Co., 1982).
But it isn't his temper that got Oedipus into trouble: it's the Continuum Trait out of which that temper grew, a Continuum Trait Oedipus exhibited when he thumbed his nose at the fates and left his "hometown." Oedipus would bow to none: not to the fates, and certainly not to a contentious old man on the road.
It should be easy to see, however, that what brings about his downfall also brought him his successes. And that's why I call it a Continuum Trait; it has its positive side as well. It is strength unless pushed to an extreme. Think of a Continuum Trait as a number line:
-1 0 +1 ________________________________________________________________________
On the positive side of the number line, we'd write what Oedipus's friends might have said of him: "he knows his worth" or "he bows to no man." On the negative side, write what his enemies might have said: "he heeds none" or "he thinks himself greater than the gods." At zero on the number line, we'd write a word or phrase that describes Oedipus but that lacks any emotional connotation: "confident." Confident is "value neutral": it isn't "good" or "bad"; it just is.
This then is Oedipus's Continuum Trait. And as in all good stories, this trait leads him to make each of the several choices that brings him to the story's conclusion. Because that conclusion grows out of his action, it satisfies the reader.
But knowing our main character's Continuum Trait alone does not a story make. We need our readers to care about our characters. This does not require them to like the protagonist or even respect him or her, but the reader has to feel enough to continue the story to the end. Here the key is dilemma--but not any dilemma: it must grow out of the character's Continuum Trait, which it will do automatically if we let our characters tell us their stories.
Take for example Mabel. Mabel is a woman in her sixties, a woman who collects things. She collects newspapers, magazines, string. Imagine her sitting in her chair in her living room, surrounded by stacks of newspapers. Why does she do this? Many reasons may come to mind, but in writing fiction, the source is always the character: we ask Mabel. The page in a writer's notebook might look something like this:
- Mabel, what's your greatest strength?
- I don't know, really. I'm not sure I have any, really.
- Well, what gets you into the most trouble?
- [she laughs] Collecting things, I guess.
- Why do you collect things?
- Oh, just to be safe. You never know when you'll need a bit of string.
Although she hasn't said much, she's given a wealth of information. What does she want? She's told us: to be safe. A need for security of some sort motivates her. And what's her Continuum Trait? It's easy to imagine her friends calling her things like "provident" and "thrifty," but those who didn't like her would probably call her a "pack rat" or worse. But what's a "value neutral" word for her Continuum Trait? "Frugal" seems a good one. So our numberline would look like this:
packrat frugal provident/thrifty
-1 0 +1 ________________________________________________________
So, now we know Mabel's Continuum Trait: she's frugal; and we know what she wants: to be safe and secure.
Art resembles life. Anytime we want something, there's always someone or something ready to stand in our way.
Enter Sam, Mabel's husband. He stops by the door, not even attempting to navigate the maze of newspapers stacked floor to ceiling. Sam sees Mabel sitting with her arm on a stack of magazines, rolling string around the huge ball in her lap. What does Sam say? Right: "Mabel, I can't take it anymore; either these things go, or I go."
When I use this example in classes or workshops, I have the participants experience it in their mind's eye as though they were reading it in a book. When I say Sam's words, their faces express emotion. Mabel's cluttered room might have sparked curiosity in them; evidence of her "frugality" might make them interested. But when Sam delivers his ultimatum, they become engaged. It's a good illustration of the power of a dilemma that grows out of a Continuum Trait: it makes the reader care.
And Mabel's got a dilemma. Not the watered-down "dilemma" of the weakening of this word's meaning. No, this is no mere quandary. This is a "damned if you do/damned if you don't," right "on the horns of the bull" dilemma. If she gives up either her collection or her husband, she gives up something she needs.
But consider June: June loves to travel. All her forty years of adult life, she's been on the move, and as she went from country to country, she collected curios and knickknacks. Now, imagine June in her living room, surrounded by her collection. June's husband Harvey comes into the room and says, "Look, June, either these go or I go." What does June say? Right: "What's stopping you?"
Because June's collecting doesn't tie to her Continuum Trait, no dilemma's created when she's asked to choose. (Ask her, however, to choose between a travel-averse husband whom she loves and a continuing life of travel, and we may have another story.)
Once you know your characters's dilemmas, you can follow a fifth question to the story's end: "What's this character going to do?" And that's the question that leads to not only a well-crafted story, but to one that holds a reader's attention. As the fiction author and teacher John Gardner said: "In the final analysis, real suspense comes with moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damned thing after another," (p. 49, On Becoming a Novelist, Harper Colophon Books, 1983). Mabel's story will grow out of the choices she makes that propel her to the win or the lose or the draw of the story's conclusion. Her dilemma forces those choices, but they are hers because they will be made from her Continuum Trait and, concomitantly, from her need.
The use of dilemma for shaping a story doesn't stop here. After the story is written, there are a few more questions, such as: Is your character's dilemma clear from the beginning? Does every scene have an action that grows out of this "damned if you do/damned if you don't" situation? Does the conclusion resolve the dilemma?
At this stage, a character's dilemma can be seen as the hub of the story and all the scenes, spokes. Nothing is extra--and if it is extra, it'll stand out. It may by itself be good writing, but if it isn't connected to the dilemma, it doesn't further the story. It should go.
Many questions can lead to a well-crafted story, but these, by focusing on a character's need, Continuum Trait, and dilemma bring the story into its most emotionally powerful form.
© 1994 by Colleen Mariah Rae
