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The decision is
simply to walk in the woods, but in following this "new line of action" he also
"changes from one state to another," in that he acknowledges his mortality.
TRYTHI84.S
Take a monologue you have already written and add actions, in the form of either
narration or stage directions. Make the action contradict or qualify the speech. ("I'm
not worned about it at all. These things don't throw me." [She twists her hands.D and
so forth. Remember that a good way to reveal characters' feelings is through their
relationships to objects.
Character as Thought
Although discovery and decision necessarily imply thought, image, speech, and
action are all external manifestations-thingsthat we could observd. ImaginatiVe)
writing has the power also to take us inside the minds of characters to show us
what they are thinking. Again, different
of the revelation of thought are
appropriate to different forms of literature:
In a m~!!l0!~ or personal essay we count on the honest thoughts of the author
but can't credibly see into the minds of other characters. (Even this quasi-rule
quently turns what his interviewees say into a kind of mental patter or stream
Many characters in modern drama speak directly to the audience, and usu
do so with an assumed honesty toward what is going on in their minds,
whereas in dialogue with other characters they may lie, conceal, stumble. or
become confused.
Fiction usually (except in the case of the objective narrator) gives us the
A persona in poetry is usually sharing thoughts. Poetry also has the same
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at these trees. I will look at them now. My apologies to Housman for this rude
paraphrase-but it does show not only Aristotle's understanding of the thought
process, but also how crucial to the beauty of the poem is Housman's diction.
Thgyght, like dialogue, is al~Q .action when it presents us with the process of
ch~ge. Since both discovery and decision take place in the mind, thought is
i material to every character and is in fact the locus of action and the dwelling
; place of desire. In the first lines of any poem, the first page of every story, the
curtain rise of every drama, you can find a human consciousness yearning
for whatever might occur in the last line, on the last page, in the last scene. The
action proceeds because that consciousness makes a lightning-fast leap back
ward to the present moment, to decide what action can be taken now, at this
moment, in this situation, to achieve that goal. At every new discovery, the mind
repeats the process, ever changing in the service of a fixed desire.
Pick a character. What is your character's deep desire? What is the situation that
character is in now-where, doing what, in the company of whom? Make a list,
inventing as you go, of the character's thought process, backward from the ultimate
desire to the specific action (or inaction) that would lead eventually toward that
desire.
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Character as Voice
As a writer you need to hear a character's voice in your head in order to bring him
or her to life successfully. This involves moving beyond inventing or remember
ing the character to inhabiting his or her persona, a challenging task if your char
acter is significantly different from the person you are. As a first step, it's always
good practice to write a monologue in your character's voice. Thinkingfrom the
point ofview of that character will help you to find the diction and the rhythm of
his or her speech and thought. Keep going even if you feel you haven't "caught"
the character, because sometimes the very fact of continuing will allow you to slip
or sidle into the voice you seek.
Write a qUick sketch of a character you have already worked with-no more than
two or three focused details. Then pick one of the trigger lines below and write a
monologue in that character's voice. Keep going a little bit past the place you want
to stop.
It doesn't take much, does it, for ...
And what I said was true ...
I know right away I'm going to ...
as the outer. But when people talk in literature they convey much more than the
information in their dialogue. They are also working for the author-to reveal
themselves, advance the plot, fill in the past, control the pace, establish the tone,
foreshadow the future, establish the mood. What busy talk!
So just fill me in a bit more could you about what you've been dOing.
SHaNA: What I've been doing. It's all down there.
NELL: The bare facts are down here but I've got to present you to an employer.
SHaNA: I'm twenty-nine years old.
NELL: So it says here.
SHaNA: We look young. Youngness runs in our family.
NELL: So just describe your present job for me.
SHaNA: My present job at present. I have a car. I have a Porsche. I go up the
Ml a lot. Burn up the Ml a lot. Straight up the MI in the fast lane to where
the clients are, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, I do a lot in Yorkshire. I'm selling
electric things. Like dishwashers, washing machines, stainless steel tubs
are a feature and the reliability of the program....
NELL:
(Fill me in; it's all down there; but I've got to present you; I'm twenry-nine; so it
says). This is known as "no dialogue," in which characters are in many and var
ious ways saying "no" to each other. They may be angry or polite, disagreeing,
contradicting, qualifYing, or frankly quarreling, but whatever the tone, they
spark our interest because we want to find out what will happen in this overt
or implied conflict.
Notice also how Shona's description of her job reveals the subtext. She falters
between concrete imagery and flimsy generalization, contradicting in general
ization what she tries to prove by making up convincing details. She is spinning
lies without sufficient information or imagination, so it's no great surprise when
Nell ends the exchange with, "Christ, what a waste of time ... Not a word of this is
true, is it?"
Dramatic dialogue is always direct as in this example, all the words spoken.
In fiction, nonfiction, or poems, direct dialogue of this sort is lively and vivid,
but sometimes the narrative needs to cover ground faster, and then dialogue
may be indirect or summarized. Summarized dialogue, efficient but textureless,
gives us a brief report:
Shona claimed she had sales experience, but Nell questioned both her age and
her expertise.
Indirect dialogue gives the flavor of the dialogue without quoting directly:
Nell wanted her to fill in the facts, so Shona repeated that she was twenry-nine,
claimed that looking young ran in the family, and that she drove a Porsche up to
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Staffordshire to sell dishwashers and washing machines. But she couldn't seem
to come up with the word "appliances."
There's a strong temptation to make dialogue eloquent (you are a writer,
after all), and the result is usually that it becomes stilted. People are often not
eloquent, precisely about what moves them most. Half the time we aren't really
sure what we mean, and if we are, we don't want to say it, and if we do, we can't
find the words, and if we can, the others aren't listening, and if they are, they
don't understand.... In fact, the various failures to communicate can make the
richest sort of dialogue, just as the most stunted language is sometimes the
most revealing of character.
In this example from David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, thirteen-year-old
Jason Taylor comes home from school. Notice how in this short space Mum's
actions contradict her words, her "sarky" (sarcastic) tone conceals her secret, and
Jason's thoughts contradict his responses. Notice also that we are never in doubt
who's speaking, though there is only one "he said."
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Mum was at the dining room table ... Dad's fireproof document box was
out and open. Through the kitchen hatch I asked if she'd had a good
"Not a good day, exactly." Mum didn't take her eyes off her calculator.
"But it's certainly been a real revelation."
"That's good," I said, doubting it. I got a couple of Digestives and a
glass of Ribena. Julia's snaffled all the Jaffa Cakes 'cause she's at home all
day revising for her A levels. Greedy moo. "What're you doing?"
"Skateboarding."
"Toad."
-she has expressed an opinion, but little of her inner life is revealed: her emo
tions, her history, her particularities. This is the dialogue equivalent of the vague
category images described in Chapter 2. But if she says:
They should lock up that builder. He's massacred the neighborhood.
I remember how the lilac and wisteria used to bloom, and then the
peonies, and the daffodils. What fragrance in this room! But now.
Smell the stink of that site next door. It just makes me sick.
-the same opinion is expressed, but her emotions-anger, nostalgia, and defeat
also are vividly revealed, and through parncular detail.
;';Write a "dialogue" between two characters, only one of whom can speak. The other
l,isphyskally, emotionally, or otherwise prevented from saying what he/she wants to
tsay. Write only the words of the one, only the appearance and actions of the other.
Character as Action
By our actions we discover what we really believe and, simultaneously,
I have said that a character is first of all someone who wants. Whatever the nature
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of that desire, it will lead the character toward action and therefore toward potentialSh~qge. The action may be as large as a military charge or as small as remov
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ing a coffee cup, but it will signal or symbolize for the reader that a significant
change has occurred. The characters who interest and move us are those who are
capable of such change.
Playwright Sam Smiley observes that "Any significant discovery forces change
in conditions, relationships, activity or all three." And, he says, "The quickest and
best way to know someone is to see that person make a significant decision.... At
the instant a character makes a choice, he changes from one state to another; his
significant relationships alter; and usually he must follow a new line of action as a
consequence."
If we grant that discov.ery ahd decisio1l! are the two agents of human change,
characters will be in action when these are possible. Action as in action-packed is
a crude but effective way of getting discovery and decision into a work:
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There's the bad guy! (discovery) Quick, I will load my revolver, hide behind
this pillar, turn and shoot. (decision) But wait! There's his accomplice on
the catwalk above me! (discovery) I will roll under this forklift to avoid his
bullet! (decision)
The thriller, the cop show, the alien, and the spy are enormously popular (and
money-making) genres because they simplify and exaggerate our experience of