Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors (17 page)

Which also meant, like the others, she bled out in just a minute or two. Must have been an awful lot of blood.

I stirred the sauce, keeping my eyes averted. “Did he tell you what time she died?”

Trent set down his glass. “How much do you want to know? It gets kind of technical. And . . . gory.”

I shivered. We were talkin about a person I knew. As much as I’d disliked Erika, I wouldn’t have wished this on her. I steeled myself. “Tell me.”

A shadow dropped down Trent’s face. “They can never tell time of death exactly. But I did learn the condition of the body when the coroner got to the scene around 10:00 a.m. She was nearly in full rigor mortis, which normally takes about twelve hours—but there are all kinds of variances to that.”

Hope lifted its head. Could Erika have been killed as early as 10:00 p.m.? Stevie was still at work.

“But the pathologist said Erika had one kind of partially digested food in her stomach—brownies. Food normally goes through the stomach in four to six hours. I’d gotten a tip that a woman had been eating brownies with Erika, maybe as late as 10:00—”

“Who?”

Trent shook his head. “Anonymous source.”

“Oh, come on, Trent.”

“I can’t. Maybe later.”

My heart kicked around. “So she was killed sometime between 10:00 and 4:00 in the morning?”

“Well, based just on stomach contents. But when they put it together with everything else like rigor mortis and body temperature, they narrowed it to between 11:00 and 2:00.”

No.

The sauce started to bubble. So red. Why hadn’t I cooked somethin else? I turned off the burner, fightin to look calm. “You sure she ate a brownie at 10:00?”

“That’s what I heard. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t eat one after that. The visitor left at 10:00, so who’s to say what happened later. Still, when you look at all the factors, the timeline looks pretty good.”

No it didn’t. It looked
horrible.

I threw a glance at Trent and nodded. The expression on his face snapped my eyes back to him.

He surveyed me. “Why are you so curious? You never asked me this about any of the other murders.”

“No reason.”

“You sure?” He tilted his head.

I couldn’t relax around Trent, not tonight. He was too keen on gettin his story. “Of course.”

The noodles looked nearly done. I busied myself with pluckin one out to sample. Al dente. I turned off the burner and lifted the pan to the sink to drain. I could feel Trent’s eyes borin through my back.

“If you know something, Deena”—Trent’s voice had gone quiet—“I need to hear it.”

“What could I possibly know?”

“You tell me.”

I set down the drained pan of noodles none too lightly and turned around. “Is this the only reason you’re here, to find out what I know? I thought we were friends.”

He flicked a look at the ceilin. “We
are
friends. And there’s no need to be dramatic.”

“Fine then. Let’s eat.”

“Fine then.”

Exploration Points

I’ll leave these for you to answer.

1.
How are the TIME elements—thought, inflection, movement, and expression—used to convey Deena’s initial Action Objective?

2.
What is Deena’s Action Objective when she suddenly turns confrontational at the end of the conversation? (“Is this the only reason you’re here …”)

3. Think of a conversation you’ve had with someone in which you wanted to hide your Action Objective. What was the subtexted conversation? How did you control your inflection, movement, and expression to keep from giving yourself away? Were you successful, or did the other person see through you?

Moving On

The samples above depict how Subtexting enriches dialogue and deepens characterization. We’ve seen how subtexted conversation, while calm on the surface, can be roiling with underlying emotion. Now we turn our focus to these emotions themselves. How do we portray them to their utmost? How do we infuse in our characters three-dimensional qualities while remaining true to their basic personality traits? How do we create characters who will tug at readers’ hearts?

Let’s look now at Secret #4, Coloring Passions.

SECRET #4

Coloring Passions

ACTOR’S TECHNIQUE:

To portray human passions to their fullest, an actor must focus not on the overall passion itself but on all the individual
colors
that make up its palette. For example, love under varied circumstances can encompass such feelings as embarrassment, shame, jealousy, anger, fear. The more sweeping the passion, the more varied and even contradictory these feelings will be.

NOVELIST’S ADAPTATION:

Just as in acting, three-dimensional characters in novels require three-dimensional emotions, for in real life no person is entirely one thing. When you focus not on the general passion of your character, but on its component parts, its opposite and its growth, your character will deepen in richness and represent human nature to its fullest.

The Challenge Of Coloring Passions

When I use the word “passions” here, I’ll be referring at various times to both
emotions
and personality
traits.

Stanislavsky’s teaching on portraying passions to their fullest is one of his most eye-opening. In his book
Creating a Role
, he is scathing in describing actors who portray passions “in general.” He mentions the operatic tenor whose specialty is to play “love.” (Stanislavsky was known to be hard on opera stars, as their acting was often wooden and pretentious.) This particular tenor’s idea of love comprised such gestures as pressing a hand to his heart, striking thoughtful poses, kissing his leading lady, proclaiming his desire for her, dreamily staring into the distance, sighing with melancholy, etc. How naively one-sided and simple, Stanislavsky disdained, to portray love as merely
love.
Or to portray hatred as merely hatred, jealousy as merely jealousy.

I see this same mistake a lot in novels. Emotions often are shown to be “all one thing,” plus they’re separated from one another. In one scene the character is happy. In another she’s mad. This is not the way real life works. In real life emotions ebb and flow, then surge back again. One leads to another—or two, or five at once.

This mistake can also be made in terms of traits. If the character’s a grump, he’s always a grump. Talkative—always talkative. People don’t work this way either. Our traits can be strong, yes. Always present, yes. Until … they’re not. What changed? Not the trait, but the
circumstance
.

In Secret #1, Personalizing, we saw that traits spring from your character’s inner values. For example, your character may have an inner value of: “Controversy is to be avoided at all cost.” From this inner value could spring the trait of keeping his opinions to himself. Or perhaps your character has this inner value: “God can be trusted to take care of all things.” From this could spring the trait of stability in the face of trouble. These traits have just as much tendency as emotions—if not more—to force characters into a one-dimensional level. What’s to keep a “non-opinionated” character from being nothing but passive about sharing his opinions? What’s to keep a character who trusts in God from being always trusting, always stable? Or for that matter, what’s to keep a mean, harsh, or selfish character from always being that way?

As for emotions, their origins also lie in part within your character’s inner values. Blend these inner values with your character’s overall Desire (or Action Objective in a certain scene), then add opposition to that Desire (conflict). Result: emotional reaction. Depending on the circumstances, the emotions may be minor or all-encompassing, but they will certainly be present.

(Inner Values + Desire) + Conflict = Emotion.

The above equation plays out through a person’s day,
every
day, in even the smallest of things. Say your Action Objective during a certain work day is: “To buy an energy bar from the machine downstairs because I’m so tired.” So you go to the elevator—and find it out of order (conflict). Resulting emotion: frustration. Now you have to take the stairs, and you’re already tired. So you take the stairs and reach the machine. You put in the money and make your selection. The machine doesn’t work (more conflict). Resulting emotion: higher level of frustration. You pound the machine. Nothing. Your frustration leads to anger. Which makes you pound harder.

I know you get that scene. You’ve either witnessed it a dozen times—or have done it yourself. But how does the boxed equation above play out in your novel as a whole?

We can learn to color the passions—both the traits and emotions—of our characters with their full range of hues by taking a three-part journey through a passion itself.

Part I: Find The Passion’s Components

Stanislavsky likens a human passion to a necklace of beads. Standing back from the necklace, you might think it appears to have a yellow cast or a green or red one. But come closer, and you can see all the tiny beads that create that overall appearance. If the necklace appears yellow, many beads will be yellow, but in various shades. And a few may be green or blue or even black. In the same way, human emotions are made up of many smaller and varied feelings—sometimes even contradictory feelings—that together form the “cast” or color of a certain passion. So, if you want to portray a passion to its utmost, you must focus not on the passion itself, but on its varied components.

For example, in my novel
Cast a Road Before Me
(Bradleyville Series book 1), twenty-four- year-old Jessie falls in love with Lee, a man a few years older. As the story unfolds, there is no doubt that this love is growing. But how does Jessie portray the passion of love? She first meets Lee with trepidation, then watches with a cynical eye to make sure he keeps a certain promise. She argues with him, ignores him, refuses to call him back, goes on a date with him, and kisses him. She judges his actions, thinks ill of him, tells him he’s wonderful, embraces his family, sticks by him in tragedy, plans to leave him, judges him some more, says she loves him, fights with him, pledges never to forgive him, opposes him in further tragedy, ultimately forgives him. All of these occurrences are but a few of the varied “beads” that, when strung together, create the “necklace” of Jessie’s love for Lee.