3 Terrific Quotes on Character Flaws and a Poem

.
Howdy, Campers ~ and Happy Poetry Friday! The link to today's PF host is below, as is my poem.

TeachingAuthors' current topic is Creating Characters. Bobbi started this series, discussing characters' inner struggles. JoAnn gives us the questionnaire she uses to get to know her characters, Carla shows us concrete examples of how small details reveal character in nonfiction characters, and each Wednesday in May, Esther offered us Wednesday Writing Workouts.

And me? I need help pulling 3-D characters from the blank page.

One criticism of my W.I.P. novel in poems is that except for the narrator, the other characters are one dimensional. Ouch! As a teen, I saw everyone as black and white. It's still hard for me to see people as three dimensional, hard to accept the fact that they are/we humans are imperfect. But we all have flaws, darn it.

I'll never forget the example Barbara Bottner gave in a class at Otis Parsons in the 1980's. The gist of what she said is this:

Let's say you want to tell a story about three characters in search of buried treasure. 

Okay--that's fine. 

But what if you told a story about 

Richard Nixon

Lucille Ball 

and Godzilla 

searching for buried treasure? 

NOW you have a story.

(I've forgotten the specific characters Barbara suggested--insert your own favorites.)

Wow. Talk about flawed characters! That's the moment I began to understand the interconnectedness between real characters (with real bitten fingernails and real raspberry jam stains on their clothes, who sometimes stomp on their little brother's toe) and story.

illustration from my book, New Year at the Pier by Stéphane Jorisch (Dial)

Still I struggle--both on the page and in real life--to see flaws in those I love. Or alternately, I dismiss a person entirely if I do discover a flaw.

One evening at a memorial service, I realized that everything that annoys me about my friends will be exactly what I remember fondly when they die. 

Ann Whitford Paul agrees:
"We all have flaws. Our characters must have flaws, too....Think about your imperfections. Think about imperfections in others that annoy you or maybe tug at your heart...Often...the strength and weakness are two sides of the same issue. Think of Frances in Russell Hoban's Bedtime for Frances. Her great imagination is exactly what makes her so fearful. It's what makes her sure spiders and tigers and monsters lurk in her room...Whatever the specifics, the main characters in our picture books must be human, and that means imperfect." ~ Ann Whitford Paul in Writing Picture Books

Ann Lamott makes this point, too:
"[Characters] shouldn't be too perfect; perfect means shallow and unreal and fatally uninteresting...I like them to be mentally ill in the same sorts of ways that I am; for instance, I have a friend who said one day, 'I could resent the ocean if I tried,'and I realized that I love that in a guy." ~ Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird

As does Madeleine L'Engle:

"I like the fact that in ancient Chinese art the great painters always included a deliberate flaw in their work: human creation is never perfect." ~ Madeleine L'Engle

For today's poem I thought I'd describe a character by including a flaw and some eye-poppingly original details. But that's not exactly what turned out. The first line came to me immediately: "She takes out her teeth to chew on that." Hmm, I thought. We know who that must be.

But...you're a writer--you know how it goes. You fiddle and rearrange and think and unthink and finally that first line seems too cliche, so out it goes.
.

I didn't include a fatal flaw or raspberry jam on her skirt, but here's a draft that came from my tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumming today:

CLARICE

by April Halprin Wayland

Ding-a-ling-ding, the telephone rings.

Her cat bats away a spec on wings.

She doesn't answer that telephone call.

Forget them all,

forget them all.

She watches this brave day's afterglow

then picks up the cat, tunes her radio,

leans into the umpire's gritty call.

It didn't have to happen at all,

it didn't have to happen at all.

She stares into space, chewing on that.

Her cat jumps into her tired lap.

How can it be the sun still sets

since Daniel's death,

since Daniel's death?

poem (c) 2017 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.

Thank you, Buffy for hosting Poetry Friday!

posted with love by April Halprin Wayland with help from an invisible bee named Spinach.

A Rose by Any Other Name Can Be...a Heather: Naming Characters

     There are two things about writing that never get any easier for me. . .coming up with a good title and naming characters.  I still have a hard time with titles, but I have developed strategies to give my characters good names.

    I spent most of my pregnancy struggling to come up with just the right name for my daughter, a name that would be all her own. In writing, I do not have the luxury of spending eight months on one character name.

    I believe that name is the single most important aspect of a character. It is usually the first thing a reader learns about him.  The name should reflect the character's personality is some way, however subtle.  Sometimes that is a mysterious process that goes on in the author's head, unexplainable to anyone else.  I do not know how E.B. White decided on Charlotte and Wilbur, but can you imagine them named anything else?  A book called Barbara's Web?  A pig named Bob?  No, somehow Charlotte and Wilbur, along with Fern and Templeton and Mr. Zuckerman are so right, they could not be anything else.

    Since I write historical fiction, I have a second barrier to finding just the right name. My names need to fit the time period.  The characters in Yankee Girl were pretty easy.  The book was about my sixth grade class.  I used names that were popular in 1964, as well as names that were popular in the South.  Jimmy's Stars, which takes place in 1943, was a little more difficult.  I knew that my main character was born in 1932, and would have graduated from high school in 1950. I scoured libraries and second-hand stores for 1949-50 high school annuals. (There were an awful lot of girls named Betty.)

    Contemporary fiction isn't much easier.  Names change as quickly as any other fashion.  Some names scream a particular decade.  I am a baby boomer, and I was usually the only Mary Ann in a class full of Debbies, Karens, Cathys and Sharons.  When I was a middle school teacher in the late 80's, I taught more than a few Farrahs. My friends who had babies about then named them Ashley and Kate (not after the Olsen twins!)  When I had my daughter in 1994, I was the only one in my childbirth class who did not name their child Tyler or Taylor (regardless of sex).

   Then there are adult names. In children's books, they are usually not a central character but occasionally they are.  (Miss Gruen and Reverend Taylor in Yankee Girl come to mind.) How do you name adults?

   Here is a list of sources I have compiled that help me with The Naming Game.

   1.  Baby name books.  These often reflect the popularity (or lack of popularity) of a name, as well as give a cultural origin. (Warning:  I learned not to carry one of these in public unless I wanted to start rumors about a possible new addition to my family.)

   2.  School annuals.  These work for both contemporary and historical fiction.

   3.  School directories, websites, newsletters, newspapers, class lists.  Schools in my neck of the woods generate an enormous amount of student information. If you don't have access to your own personal student, read the school news pages online or in your neighborhood paper/website.

   4.  Obituaries.  Yeah, I know it's kind of morbid, but I have collected a number of "old-timey" names from them.  Around here, they usually include the person's nickname as well.

   5.  Observation.  I live a mile away from the fastest growing immigrant community in the country.  Call me nosy (or a writer), but I notice workers' name tags.  I ask the employee where they are from and how they pronounce their name.  No one has been insulted (yet), and I have collected names I would never have thought of on my own.

    6.  The Social Security Index of Popular Baby Names. This site is unbelievably cool.  It lists the top 200 names for boys and girls for each decade, from 1880 to 2010.  Not only is it searchable by decade, but by each state as well. (Apparently Mary and James were the hot names of my decade.) http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/decades

   What do I do with all these names?  I list them in a notebook, separate from my regular journal. Right now, the 1910 Social Security list is getting a heavy workout from me.  My characters are named.

      Now if I could just think of a title...

     Don't forget about our current book giveaway.  For more information click here.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman