Character Archetypes: The X-Files had them

by Jamie Freveletti

I was unable to write today due to the need to allow workmen in to replace our water heater. Bored and in a wish to drown out the banging from the lower level, I flipped on the television and found an old rerun of an X-files episode. I used to watch this show religiously back when it was new and I was working as a lawyer. Now, as a writer, I was struck by the broad, but classic, archetypes used by the creators.

There's Mulder, who believes in supernatural and alien forces, and who's mind is always open to the impossible and unique.

Scully, who's scientific and has an earthly explanation that not only makes sense, but is designed to give Mulder the opportunity to shine with his own, eccentric view.

And there are the evil forces. The Smoking Man, nameless government forces, and of course, the aliens.

What I loved about watching this show again was the character of Scully. She ushered in a series of smart women on television. She was pretty, worked hard, tough when she needed to be, but not shrill. She had a lot of sympathy for Mulder, and ends up loving him toward the end of the series.

The relationship between Scully and Mulder, before they hooked up, was one that I imagine most working men and women recognize. Friends, but not really, business colleagues, but a bit more, caring but not family in the traditional sense. They pulled together to get the job done.

This dynamic is present in a lot of buddy teams--Holmes/Watson comes to mind, but I'm sure there are more--the names are escaping me at the moment. I have teams in my thrillers also, although the main character acts alone, which is a key difference. A team with diametrically opposed characters provide built in conflict. It must have been a lot easier for the writers on the show to write the episodes week after week because they could count on a few minutes of Scully and Mulder battling it out over his, (to her) absurd take on the latest mystery. In fact, I found myself eagerly awaiting the moment when Mulder would go on an alien tear and Scully would start ripping apart his theory with scientific knowledge.

Great stuff, and I'm reminded to put this in my own writing.

Now if I could just remember those other teams in literature!

Opposites Attract: Making a big point with imagery and dialogue

by Jamie Freveletti

I'm a huge fan of classic movies (and songs). If you're a writer you need to watch the old ones to see just how conflict between women and men or evil and good should be done. I've been fairly outspoken about my dislike of the current "torture porn" movies and books. I'm not really blaming the writers, we all realize that the world we live in is getting more vicious by the year--one only has to watch the political attack ads to see that civility is long gone, but I do think that there is still a lot of room for finesse.

There's no putting the graphic scene back in the corner. We're seeing way too much violence in our world and media now to act as though it's not happening.

Do these books work? Yes. Are they going to last? Maybe. Should you write one? If you want, but before you go straight to the scene where the woman is strapped to the bed and being attacked you should probably watch some classic movies. These writers had to produce the same thrill and do it by igniting the imagination, not by writing an overt scene.

Case in point: What are these two going to be doing next? (Spoiler alert)

If you said making love, you would be right. This scene oozes sex, and just about everyone over a certain age can see it. They're at the end of their dinner (the coffee's on the table), he's doing something for her -an act of deference and a courtly gesture--and she's holding his hand lightly as she responds. Now, if you wrote this scene, but changed his behavior just slightly, everything changes:

What if she had asked for a light and he simply handed her the lighter? Would those two be racing to her room? I think not. And if you wanted to show that he is even more uninterested, or perhaps even a boor, you would have him toss the lighter on the table.

Second shot-- Look at the photo of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant above. Who flirting here?

Clearly the woman. Audrey Hepburn's next line, "How do you shave in there?" Great bit of dialogue that points out his cleft chin. If this scene was in a novel the fact that he had a cleft chin and she points at it and you added that line it would speak volumes about his looks without using the word "handsome" anywhere. These two also end up in bed, but only after he insists on marriage. Nice twist, and Cary Grant is the one who wanted to have the woman chase and the man hold out.

Contrast that with this scene:

He's definitely on the move and Doris Day is considering her next one--should she say yes or no? Since it's a Doris Day movie she says yes only after safely married. But if you write a scene that describes a man stepping up behind a woman, gently placing his hands on her bare shoulders, and whispering in her ear, that paragraph screams intimacy and approach, and you never once have to clarify his intentions.

But conflict is always best when writing mysteries and thrillers, and this photo says it all:

What I like about this scene is he's angry--his face shows it and he's got her by the wrist--but look at her, she's not intimidated at all. Her chin is up and she remains relaxed and doesn't try to pull her arm away--all moves that a writer would describe if she wanted to send the message that the woman is not worried. Here Grace Kelly's character looks like she's still got the upper hand: and she does, because he doesn't leave--they end up...

Having sex-okay some behavior is universal and I guess when you're Cary Grant you end up having a lot of sex in your movies, but in this case it was unclear whether he was going to go for it. For most of this movie Grace Kelly's character spends her time chasing him in order to unmask him as the famous cat burglar and he was fascinated by her but more often than not angry, too. In the actual movie the ending was changed. Initially Hitchcock had them going their separate ways, but he was pressured to change the end to a more "hollywood" happy one. He does it with a funny little twist.

I like the subtlety of the classics. I like the challenge of making a statement without overtly saying it, and I don't always get it right, but I hope to keep working at it. Thrillers generally require broader images, but readers notice the small ones too. Here's to adding more of those!

Don’t lose it. Use it!

by Michael Dymmoch

Sunday evening I was driving up Halsted when my left front tire started making an unfamiliar sound and my car started tracking to the left. I pulled into a CTA bus turnaround to investigate and discovered the tire was flat. Damn! As it happened, I hadn’t had a flat since I bought the car—three years ago. And I hadn’t checked recently to see if the spare was good. Plus I had a trunk full of assorted junk that had to be removed to get to the spare.

Fortunately, it had stopped raining, and I had an hour of daylight. So I shifted all the junk to the front and back seats and got out the spare and the jack and the owner’s manual. None of the CTA drivers who had to drive around me called the cops. A very nice drywall salesman stopped to offer assistance. In a short time I was back on the road.

As a driver, I was really bummed. Flat tires are a waste of time and money. Sometimes they can be life threatening.

As a writer, I was happy to be reminded that anything you do or encounter can be used—something I learned when I had a job with a narcissistic supervisor. Nothing I ever did was good enough for the guy. He was a genius at making every thing my fault. The only time he ever listened was when I prefaced my remarks with, “I spoke to an attorney.”

But he taught me to be a better writer. At some point, I started to take notes, to record what he said, and how it made me feel. When I really worked at finding the words to make a reader feel what I felt, I forgot to be hurt. Or angry.

Conflict is a bitch in life, but it’s the life force of fiction. So when you encounter it, use it. Get out a pen or your pocket computer and record the details. Not just the facts of the event, not just what was said, but what it felt like. What did the guy who got in your face say? What would you have said to him if only you could think faster? Was he scary or just infuriating? What did he smell like? What did he look like? How was he dressed? What was he driving? Why does he behave like that? (He’s just a jerk isn’t an adequate answer.) Be precise. Make your reader feel your rage and all the physical sensations that go with it.

Years ago I was driving a bus through a construction zone. One of the flaggers was busy yakking with his buddy, not paying attention to traffic. Suddenly he looked up to find a 47-foot bus passing him two feet away. (This isn’t particularly close for a bus driver. Sometimes we have only inches of clearance.) The flagger was startled enough to use the c-word to express his displeasure. I laughed and kept driving. But if I’d been able to think faster, I might have stopped and asked if I’d scared him. Someday I’ll use that incident in a story. My protagonist will stop and ask. The flagger will probably have to defend his masculinity with an R-rated comeback. The whole thing may develop into a huge fight, maybe even a murder!

The act of recording a conflict, concentrating on the details, searching for the exact words to describe how you feel, may dissipate your anger and give you something you couldn’t have made up.

Conflict

by Michael Dymmoch

Conflict, the cliché goes, is the essence of story. Movie slug lines follow the formula: (protagonist) vs. (antagonist) in a world where... Fictional conflict tends to be glorified and hyperbolic. In his last blog, Sean confessed that bullets ripping through inanimate objects in slow motion was “utterly beautiful.” He didn’t show a video of bullets tearing through human skulls (or as shocking—and to some, more horrifying—through live animals) but we see it happen frequently in movies, and we read vivid (if inaccurate) descriptions in books. (Who, after all, would find the odor of putrefaction entertaining, or the smell of shit—as when the sphincters loosen and the bowels let go? Where’s the romance in scraping splattered brain tissue off a wall, or scooping human road kill from a highway?)

Violence has replaced conflict in most popular fiction. It’s easier to throw in a fight, car crash or gruesome murder than to convincingly simulate a gut-wrenching marital conflict, or the subtle but systematic verbal abuse that occurs every day, all around us. Everyone “gets” Jason Bourne, not many have the stomach to watch, much less appreciate the genius of Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe.

In real life, most of the conflict is subtle or banal. It makes us uncomfortable so we avoid it or tune it out. And most conflict takes place inside the protagonists (us, of course, the heroes of our own stories), often unnoticed (even by ourselves until the ulcer perforates or the heart seizes). In art, conflict must be externalized—the artist must behave oppositely in art as in life, must seek conflict out as diligently as he avoids it in his daily dealings, must study every subtle squirm and grimace. And he must understand conflict’s genesis.

So what? The Bourne Identity is entertaining. So is Pulp Fiction. And Shoot 'Em Up. What’s the point?

The point is what’s the point? When conflict exists purely for entertainment, it doesn’t satisfy. It’s like a diet of popcorn. You may keep consuming it—even past the point where you’re full—but it hasn’t much nutritional value. Conflict in art, leaves you sated. And wrung out. Unable to consume more until you’ve digested what you’ve just experienced. Great conflict has you revisiting a story for days, often for a lifetime. And great stories rarely allow for sequels. Can you imagine Two Hundred Years of Solitude? Hamlet III? Or Mystic River VII?

On a lighter note: Best wishes for a healthy, prosperous new year. And may all your serious conflicts be in fiction.