It's Complicated
If you look over at my picture, it says I am a "bundle of contradictions." I am a woman who is unafraid to stand up for what's right and argue about politics, but who shuns confrontation in her personal life (Buddhists tend to look for the path of peace). I am a complete homebody and loner who loves to throw a party. I love Beethoven's Ninth along with Nine Inch Nails. I like martinis with a "sidecar" of a Coke. A woman of deep faith who cries--aloud--over every child abuse story that makes the newspapers, but who will go a year or more without ever crying over anything in her own life because she believes "it is what it is; suck it up and move on." You get the idea.
And when I write my characters, I search for those complications. The nuance of us as human beings is what elevates characters from the ordinary to the extraordinary. In something I am working on now, I have a priest who kills; I have a heroine who teeters between faith and atheism. I like the little details about a character. Their complicated baggage. In Invisible Girl, another book, and don't you LOVE this cover (the back of the cover is even better), the heroine and her family are the most complicated assortment of characters I have ever written about. Nothing is as it seems. They are a bundle of contradictions and right up to the last page, I don't think you know who's going to do what. Oddly enough, the tagline (which did not come from me, but marketing) is a contradiction itself. Sometimes being invisible is the only way to find the truth. In the context of the book, rife with members of the CIA, Air America, and Hell's Kitchen bad guys, it makes sense. But then there are elements of Buddhism, Catholicism, and ghost children. So invisibility is everywhere in the book.
It's complicated.
Just like me.
Just like my characters.
And when I write my characters, I search for those complications. The nuance of us as human beings is what elevates characters from the ordinary to the extraordinary. In something I am working on now, I have a priest who kills; I have a heroine who teeters between faith and atheism. I like the little details about a character. Their complicated baggage. In Invisible Girl, another book, and don't you LOVE this cover (the back of the cover is even better), the heroine and her family are the most complicated assortment of characters I have ever written about. Nothing is as it seems. They are a bundle of contradictions and right up to the last page, I don't think you know who's going to do what. Oddly enough, the tagline (which did not come from me, but marketing) is a contradiction itself. Sometimes being invisible is the only way to find the truth. In the context of the book, rife with members of the CIA, Air America, and Hell's Kitchen bad guys, it makes sense. But then there are elements of Buddhism, Catholicism, and ghost children. So invisibility is everywhere in the book.
It's complicated.
Just like me.
Just like my characters.
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:49 AM
6 Comments:
Hi Erica,
I agree with you: Humans are bundles of contradictions (well, the majority of us are). I'm sure that's why when I read stories, I tend to steer clear of the ones peopled with archetypes. The complex, who-knows-what-they'll-do-next characters pull me into the story and keep me glued there until the end.
Invisible Girl sounds fascinating.
Michele
Hi Michele:
Read your blog entry on archetypes, and I totally agree. I much prefer characters like real people--full of baggage, exasperating, difficult, courageous and inspiring when you least expect it, puzzling, interesting. It's like my circle of friends. They range from age 20 to those in their eighties and every kind of belief system, intellectual background, profession, race, sexuality, etc.
E
My favorite characters are the sympathetic villains -- the bad guys who you feel sorry for because if it weren't for their fate/bad childhoods/etc. they WOULDN'T be bad.
DH and I are also a bundle of contradictions. I'm fond of saying that I'm an extrovert who hates people and he's an introvert who loves to be surrounded by people. It really baffles some people when I tell them I just want to be left alone, because I'm usually so loud and obnoxious. And you can frequently find my DH in the middle of a bar, surrounded by people but not saying anything.
Karm:
You sound like me. I really prefer to be totally alone, but love to entertain. I like to "party," I guess--just lively conversation and a really hip, sort of with-it dinner party . . . BUT then that's enough "people" for me for a solid month. :-)
As for villains . . . I hear you. I like anti-heroes myself.
E
I love this post. And I love your contradictions. Some of them are strangely similar to mine. :)
As for my writing, I don't try to put contradictions in, but they just happen as I let the characters "tell me" the story. When they do, I'm often surprised, but I can see where the characters are coming from and it's always a fun surprise.
:) dana
Hi Dana:
In thinking about it, I guess I don't search for them either. They just happen, because, like Karmela alludes to, any other sort of character just isn't terribly interesting to me.
A long-ago feature in Vanity Fair included a quote from someone whose name escapes me now, and he said, "I don't trust a man who doesn't suffer the dark night of the soul for his faith." I.e., someone for whom faith is effortless. I think that's how I feel about characters. I like to know they have suffered for who they are . . . and emerged as the people they are now.
Post a Comment
<< Home