CHARACTER, CONFLICT These Questions Will Make Sure You’Ve Accomplished an Ironic, but Vital, Task—Thwarting Desire

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« REVISING YOUR WORK » Checklist focuses on CHARACTER, CONFLICT These questions will make sure you’ve accomplished an ironic, but vital, task—thwarting desire

By Gregory Martin

our character come naturally. Far too often, writers are to the reader’s moral imagination, allow- wants something unwilling to let their characters make ing the reader to participate in the life of badly. Your reader mistakes and get themselves into trouble the story—so that the reader has to ask: wants your character that has both cost and consequence for What would I do? to get what he wants. which the story holds them accountable. The following checklist is a craft guide Your job is to disappoint In stories with this kind of trouble, the to characterization and conflict. It’s not a both of them. protagonists are too passive, too coddled crutch or simple remedy. It’s asking a lot Ironic? Sure. Narratives are by their author, to make the kind of of you and your story. It should make you driven by desire: 1) the char- graceless mistakes born of the yearning feel slightly despairing. It’s designed to acter’s desire, 2) the read- and desperation that create good fiction. help your draft become more of a story, er’s desire that the You, the writer, can be as poised as you less a rough assemblage of unsuspenseful, character succeeds, or at least, the reader’s want, act with aplomb, reserve, tact, pol- incoherent narrative-ish moments. desire to see what happens to all this ish. But your characters can’t. Your task is The checklist is also a form of triage. It yearning, and 3) the author’s desire to to put your characters in true dilemmas, helps you to focus on necessary elements, thwart both the character and the reader. where they make hard choices, and don’t without which your draft is not a story. It’s this thwarting of desire that begin- always make good decisions. These situa- The movement from an early draft to a ning writers need to cultivate. It doesn’t tions, and these choices, ought to be open middle draft is predicated entirely on

When are you finished? 9 steps to the final revision • By Elizabeth Lyon

AS A VETERAN free- guage, disembodied voices, plot with a wound needing draw out the punishment or lance book editor, I have info dumps, plot but no char- healing, a psychological need prolong the joy. Plot lows writers send me their books acter, a slew of to-be verbs, that must be satisfied. mean burrowing into charac- for a “final” look and “maybe no movement, no raised 4 Flat, middle-class news- terization to show character a few corrections.” They questions, no scene structure. commentator voice. Give weaknesses, vulnerabilities, think the works are ready for 2 Absent or unclear scene your characters original lan- fears, needs, and traumatic publication. Guess what? goals and scene structure. guage. Dress ’em up or dress past events; then help them They’re not. Well, maybe a Goal-opposition = conflict = ’em down but give ’em style, rise from the ashes into their few mutants have sent truly suspense. Check every scene. including an attitude, a burn- strengths, powers, and plans finished novels, but it’s rare. Prune rambling roses. ing passion, and rich meta- to move forward. In any case, the following 3 Two-dimensional protag- phoric language befitting 6 Omission of subtext. Sub- list will help you reach that onists. Cardboard cutouts. who they are. text is what is happening utopian state of finished. Stereotypes. They speak, they 5 Plot highs and plot lows. beneath the surface. Subtext act, they see. That’s all. Give A flat line is you know what. may be the “hidden agenda” 1 The hook doesn’t hook. your characters significant Put big scenes on steroids. of the viewpoint character, Check for forgettable lan- pasts that intrude into the Raise the stakes, and then revealed through thoughts.

34 | The Writer • July 2011 focusing on major flaws. Your job is to your character’s existential dilemma? After this happened, I was the same as I stop the bleeding where the bleeding is Dumbo’s problem is not his big ears. His was before.” That’s not a story. most profuse. Don’t worry about hang- problem is how he feels about his ears. nails. Too many beginning writers think 12 How is this reversal both related to that tinkering around with syntax and 5 What’s in the way of your character a) action—to something that happens punctuation constitutes revision. Not at getting what he or she wants? in the story and b) a choice the charac- the early stages it doesn’t. Steven Koch, in ter made, and how is it related to some his great book The Modern Library Writ- 6 What happens to make this static sit- kind of c) recognition on her part? er’s Workshop, says, “Don’t polish a mess.” uation dynamic? I sometimes call this Some students find applying a rubric the story’s trigger. Things were like this 13 Do your characters get what they CHARACTER, CONFLICT like this “constraining”; they feel less in- and this, and then one day ... a wig turned want? They shouldn’t, at least not in tuitive and spontaneous. It’s supposed to up in the garbage ... a blind man came to some meaningful way. feel constraining. Form is a container, a spend the night. constrainer; it gives shape to what was Are these questions hard to answer amorphous and lacking. You need it be- 7 How does this trigger change the without first having a draft finished— cause your intuition and spontaneity are nature of the ground situation? How without a beginning, middle and ending? not enough to render meaning to readers. does this trigger present new obstacles Yes, so write your draft first. How do you that weren’t there before? write something that has a beginning, 1 What is your character’s ground situ- middle and end, without first knowing all ation? The ground situation, according 8 Are these obstacles formidable? the subtle, profound complexities? Here’s to John Barth, is the unstable but static How? (Each one needs to be formidable.) how. Write down the basic sequence of (tense but unchanging) situation prior to events. This happened. And then this hap- whatever comes along and kicks the story 9 Is there complication or rising pened. And then this happened. And then into gear. action? Are these obstacles of a different this happened. Until you’re done. kind? (They can’t just be, in essence, the Then, apply the checklist. Revise 2 What does your character want? same obstacle but in a sequence.) accordingly. Then, go back and make it subtle and profound. 3 Why? What are your characters’ 10 How is the story a record of choic- motivations? Why do they want what es? Are these choices true dilemmas, Gregory Martin they want? Often this is related in some open to the reader’s moral imagination? Gregory Martin is the author of the memoir Mountain City, which meaningful way to the answer to ques- was named a New York Times Notable Book. He teaches at the tion No. 4. 11 Describe your character’s reversal. University of New Mexico. In order for your story to be a story, your 4 What is your character’s problem— character must, in some way, change. No This article first appeared in The New Writer’s Handbook rooted not in the situation but in the one grabs your collar and says, “You’ve 2007: A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft and Career, edited by Philip Martin, from Scarletta Press. character? Put another way: What is got to listen to what happened to me.

Subtext may involve nature— can you render your story to and that means opening up 9 Significant stakes. Make storms, snarling dogs, flesh- be different from all others? your descriptions of charac- potential losses huge in con- eating bacteria, a collapsing Your first drafts are crappy. ters and setting and using sequences, whether it means bridge—foreshadowed and How do I know? Anne riff-writing—choose a set- threat of death or dismem- peripheral to the surface Lamott said so. Problem is, ting, for instance, and let berment, or threat of shame action or goals. your “finished” work may be your imagination run wild, or dishonor. Tuck lower- Sometimes subtext offers full of it. too. Consider each like a jazz player blowing his stakes scenes into higher- more tension and conflict scene and ask What if? Keep horn. Well-written narration stakes scenes or summarize than the external plot. Sub- inhaling helium until you must be necessary (for reader them. Use a suspense meter: text can be the woman hum- squeak out truly original understanding), relevant (to 1-5, one being of lowest in- ming a song in the shower scenes, characters and out- the immediate action), natu- terest, and rate each page. while lathering herself with comes. Revise. Make Mom ral (woven in, through the Dove when she feels air proud. You’ll sell the next point-of-view character (not Now, you’re truly finished. movement. She thinks noth- version, or the next. showing the writer’s hand), ing of it, but readers knows a 8 Underdeveloped narra- and proportionate (short, Elizabeth Lyon psycho with a knife has just tion, i.e., telling. No, “show, medium or long, depending Book doctor Elizabeth Lyon’s books include A entered the bathroom. don’t tell” is not the end-all upon the place and pace of Writer’s Guide to Fiction and Manuscript Make- 7 A humdrum plot. How and be-all. You must tell well, your passage). over. Web: elizabethlyon.com.