October 15, 2008

I will be brief: it has been a good month for resources. If I were to lament anything, it would be that I do not get enough (or any) suggestions about what to focus my articles on. This month, I have picked characterisation and hope that you won't find the article redundant.

What you will find in this news article: Caricature vs character -- A list of resources on characterisation | Recent finds | Resource news | Read this | Literature Daily Deviations: September 2008 | I need your feedback

Caricature vs character

I'm not the best person to write about characterisation: it is important to poetry, no doubt, but it seems to be largely the domain of the prose writer. At the same time, it is something I've thought about. The problem, for the writer, seems to be creating someone surprising -- not original, mind you, but someone about whom you can make discoveries as the novel progresses. (Although shorter works of fiction sometimes have extraordinary characters, I wonder if the project of creating a truly spectacular one is exclusively that of the novelist and playwright.)

Caricature, then, is bad. Or at least, it is not fun if the protagonist and other main characters in a work of prose are caricatures. For the most part, only minor characters should be caricatures. This is popular opinion, and I neither accept it wholly nor challenge it outright.

One of the most popular distinctions of characters or "people" in a novel was made by EM Forster in his book, Aspects of the Novel: he divided characters into flat and round (which would correspond to "caricature" and "character" in my own division). Unfortunately, this book is not yet available at Project Gutenberg as a free ebook, but do try getting yourself a copy or borrowing it from the library, if you can. Here are a few things Forster says of flat characters:

Flat characters were called 'humours' in the seventeenth century, and are sometimes called types, and sometimes caricatures. In their purest form, they are contructed round a single idea or quality: when there is more than one factor in them, we get the beginning of the curve towards the round. The really flat character can be expressed in one sentence such as 'I never will desert Mr Micawber.' [...]

One great advantage of flat characters is that they are easily recognized whenever they come in -- recognised by the reader's emotional eye, not by the visual eye which merely notes the recurrence of a proper name. [...] It is a convenience for an author when he can strike with his full force at once, and flat characters are very useful to him, since they never need reintroducing, never run away, have not to be watched for development, and provide their own atmosphere -- little luminous disks of a pre-arranged size, pushed hither and thither like counters across the void or between the stars; most satisfactory.

A second advantage is that they are easily remembered by the reader afterwards. They remain in his mind as unalterable for the reason that they were not changed by circumstances; they moved through circumstances, which gives them in retrospect a comforting quality, and preserves them when the book that produced them may decay.

(emphasis my own)

Clearly, the flat character (or caricature) is of importance in the novel, but it's the round characters -- the "real" people -- that steal the show. Forster does not theorise much about round characters. Instead, he offers numerous examples, like Madame Bovary, all of Dostoevsky's and Austen's characters, and Tom Jones. If these examples are not familiar to you, perhaps this will be more useful:

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round. It has the incalculability of life about it -- life within the pages of a book. And by using it sometimes alone, more often in combination with the other kind [i.e., flat characters], the novelist achieves his task of acclimatization, and harmonizes the human race with the other aspects of his work.

(emphasis my own)

To simplify, flat characters are one- (or at most two-) dimensional, and round characters are complex, layered, more psychologically interesting. ~writers-in-progress has a series of writeups on round characters that should be useful: Rounded Characters are Flawed; Rounded Characters Make Decisions; and Rounded Characters Change.

Yes, round characters are flawed. If you remember Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice (if not the novel, you would have at least watched the movie), you'll see that she was not perfect. Sure, she was beautiful, intelligent, gutsy and had a great sense of humour, but she was proud, and, well, prejudiced. Yet, as ~Cei-Ellem writes in her excellent essay, Murdering Mary Sue, "The alluring temptation of a perfect character taunts the author from one side while his muse urges him to keep writing from the other." A Mary Sue is one of those irritatingly perfect characters in books that you can't help but want to murder. Read the essay for advice on how to steer clear of creating monstrous Mary Sue's in your story.

Try ~writers-in-progress's series on character development, as well: Physical Description; Past, Motives, Personality; and Character Development: Speech/Voice. =illuminara's Character Creation Tips should also be useful.

Choosing the right name for your character (I'm thinking of you, Akaky Akakievich*) can give your character another dimension, or reinforce certain qualities s/he has, or bring a sense of humour to the page. The following articles are worth a read or two: An Essay on Naming Characters by ~Cei-Ellem; What is in a name? by `Beccalicious; and How to name your characters by ~Xancsia.

In conclusion, I'd like to reiterate the value of reading EM Forster's Aspects of a Novel. It may be simplistic, old-fashioned or too conventional, but I still think it an excellent starting point. You may find yourself disagreeing with certain things Forster says, but contention is also a way of learning and growing as a writer. Besides, he doesn't just talk about characterisaton, but also plot, narrative, point of view, prophecy, fantasy and rhythm.

A last word on character (by Forster, again):

The historian deals with actions, and with the characters of men only so far as he can deduce them from their action. He is quite as much concerned with character as the novelist, but he can only know of its existence when it shows on the surface. [...] The hidden life is, by definition, hidden. The hidden life that appears in external signs is hidden no longer, has entered the realm of action. And it is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: it tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be known, and thus to produce a character who is not the Queen Victoria of history.

_{*Akaky Akakievich is the protagonist of Nikolai Gogol's famous novella/long story, The Overcoat. Akaky is a government clerk working in St Petersburg, Russia. His life is pathetic and impoverished, and it doesn't help that he's socially inept and rather talentless. His name is rather like "John Johnson", boring and a bit funny. Moreover, it sounds rather like obkakat, which has something to do with excrement. An unpretty name for a man with an unpretty life.}

Recent finds

Poetry (Japanese)

Senryu by ~jadepandora, posted at *Writers-Workshop
A Memo On Haibun by =Keraness
A Memo On Renga by =Keraness
Renga Introduction, Renga Structure and Bashó Linkage by `Laurence55

Poetry

A Memo On Elegies by =Keraness
Kyrielle, A Memo On by =Keraness

Publishing

Call For Submissions For Online Poetry Magazine!: Clearfield Review, edited by William Soule/`fllnthblnk
Publishing FAQs 1, 2 and 3 by ~writers-in-progress

Resource news

In case you missed it, here is last month's interview: `SparrowSong on writing, critique and her passions. Look out for my interview with ~wordworks coming this month.

^StJoan posted a detailed recap of September's Daily Deviations here. (Since I had already compiled my own list, I'll leave it in here, but ^StJoan's has some extra goodness.) Meanwhile, *WordCount has an ongoing project, documenting all of this year's prose Daily Deviations. Have a look!

Resource Central: Part One and Resource Central: Part Two have been updated.

Congratulations to the latest lit seniors, who received their ticks from our new Director of Community Operations, $chix0r: `poprocksandcharlotte, `GaioumonBatou, `Amberlouie, `PunknEra and `Laurence55.

Read this

Where do you get your ideas? by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman rants about the most annoying question writers get asked. A fun and edifying read. Thank you to the deviant you linked me to this some months ago.

Literature Daily Deviations: September 2008

Poetry - Fixed

Political Limericks by ~beccasai (Sociopolitical, Limerick)
Leonard Cohen Never by *msklystron (General, Villanelle)
April's House by ~ThimbleIsland (Cheap or Tawdry Romance, Modern English Ghazal)

Poetry - Open

Consequence of Purity by *Cyantre (General)
Pilgrim by ~FelixT (Spiritual)
In Search of an Old Recipe by ~Moonbeams (Human Nature)
Faded Sonata by *mossi-mo (General)
the descent by ~sodachains (General)
Suicide, Such A Womanly Word by *sonicbutterfly (General)
The First Movement by *xiooua (General)

Prose - Fiction

Gravedigger - One by *Autumn-Hills (Fantasy)
The Causal Principle by *clownscape (Mature Romance)
the surgeon's lover by `conorschild (Fantasy)
Death on Roosevelt Ave. by :deveilecea: (General)
Small Damask Hat by ~Oulipo-Hobo (Children's)
Love Letter From a Machine by *Snow-Machine (Science Fiction)
Death of Death by =Squarix (General)
Tilda by *ThornyEnglishRose (Children's)

Theatre & Scripts

Welcome Home by *IfrozenspiritI
Names on the Ground by =psychol-bob

deviantART Related

Hosting a Contest on dA v.2 by `Beccalicious

Some of these Daily Deviations were suggested by `Beccalicious, `conorschild, ~fm-vorassi, `GaioumonBatou, `GeneratingHype, ~Iscariot-Priest, =k1k0r0, =lady-shirakawa, *Memnalar, *Negated, *rottenpeeches, *TheFavoritesProject and `WineWriter.

_{Sorry if I have missed anyone out. It was not intentional. Let me know and I will rectify the mistake.}

Write #1: Proof it! | Write #2: Why haiku? | Write #3: To publish or not to publish | Write #4: Figuratively speaking

I need your feedback.

How can this news article be improved? What topics should I tackle next? Is my resource central missing certain articles? Have you a question or answer for me? Note me! -- ^lovetodeviate