A few things came together for me, piecing together the thoughts of Robert McKee in Story, James Wood in How Fiction Works, and the thoughts of my very smart friend Joe Ponepinto.
Here's what I've come up with:
Characters can have as many as four layers.
1) A conscious, announced motive - the face they show to the world.
2) A conscious, unannounced motive - the goal they keep hidden.
3) A subconscious motivation - usually this desire is self-contradictory to a conscious desire. Although the protagonist is largely unaware of this desire, the audience senses it, perceiving the inner contradiction.
4) A motive beyond explanation - This is a layer frequently seen in Dostoevskian characters that Wood asserts can only be understood "religiously." That is, "These characters act like this because they want to be known; even if they are unaware of it, they want to reveal their baseness; they want to confess. They want to reveal the dark shamefulness of their souls, and so, without knowing quite why, they act "scandalously" and appallingly in front of others, so that people "better" than they can judge them for the wretches they are." ~ How Fiction Works
I think this last layer, which seems to be missed when many authors are developing their characters, is important in that it provides a role for the reader. To me a reader's role, in addition to just being entertained, is to interpret the story in a way that has meaning for them, and to possibly make a judgment on the characters, or at least get to know them.
This is an idea I've been formulating for a while. I'm curious to hear how others think about the layers to a character.
Hi Christine!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if sometimes the hunt for assembly parts and instruction manuals for building characters strip or limit the writer's ability to create an engaging, compelling character. A tremendously talented artist friend of mine told me a while back that he quit talking about art because the more broke it into component elements, analyzed and discussed it, the more his talent seemed to fade.
Hi Rick. That's a great point. Sometimes getting caught up in craft and trying to do all the "right" things can make the writing voice, which should be natural, mechanical. I still think this stuff is interesting to learn about, but I try and push it into my subconscious when I'm writing.
ReplyDeleteSo it seems that murder, and other aspects of the character, must advertise. When you think about it, there are forces that drive us to do things that our conscious (both external and internal), and even our subconscious tell us not to do. The hopeless chance taken by a gambler or a lover, the decision to strike out on one's own even though home offers security -- these are the strange choices we and our characters make in our lives. And when the author truly understands the character (at Wood's religious level, that is) that's when those actions work for the reader.
ReplyDeleteJoe - Great insight, as always!
ReplyDelete