In this month's EWA I honor author James McBride [Deacon King Kong, 2020, a great novel] for his ability to write unforgettable characters. Each time I open McBride's novel, I whisper to myself, "Class is now in session." You see, his writing speaks to me. It says, "This is how it's done."
Here's one way McBride does it in Deacon King Kong: He introduces us to Guido Elefante, The Elephant, a now middle-aged man raised by a mother who consistently refused to tell him anything about his father.
Guido is sought out by an older man who lets on that he knew this man's father many years earlier. Forgetting the words McBride used to set-up this situation, doesn't the barebones situation itself make you want to hear what this older man has to say about Guido's father? In my case it certainly does.
This is a scene in Chapter 5 of McBride's Deacon King Kong where an Irishman, Driscoll Sturgess, meets Guido for the first time. Here's a dialogue exchange:
"'Salvy Doyle told me you could be trusted.…'
Elefante was silent for a moment, then said, 'Salvy, last I heard, was pushing up worms in Staten Island someplace.'
The Irishman chuckled. "Not when he knew me. Or your father. We were friends."
"My father didn't have friends."
Notice how James McBride has his character say, "Or your father. We were friends" which makes it sound like an afterthought. It's not an afterthought to us. We want to know more. We want to lean it and listen to every word. But Guido doesn't care. He claims his father didn't have friends. Do you see the genius of how James McBride pulls us deeper into the scene and makes us care about Guido? Because Guido cares less, we care more. That's James McBride's genius.
So what has James McBride taught me? Or, what have I chosen to learn from him? If you want to make readers care more about your characters, sometimes, at least, consider telling your readers less, not more. Show what is known, but don't forget to show what the character doesn't know about him or herself, or what doesn't fully make sense to the character about his past. Don't forget your character's inconsistencies. There's mystery in all our pasts. It's what makes us human. If you steamroller the inconsistencies, all you've got left is a macadam surface. Not very interesting.
So, yes, if you like, show us your character as he's talking to himself. Let us, the readers, see the messy conundrums and inconsistencies of a person's life. Make no attempt whatsoever to clean them up. Life is messy. While reading a novel or watching a film we are all attracted to messy lives that don't quite add up.
For example, this passage while The Elephant is tending his mother's flower garden as he contemplates his life:
"He bent over and began digging. I'm the only forty-year-old bachelor in New York, he thought ruefully, whose mother collects flowers like junk—and then expects me to replant whatever crap she finds. But the fact is, he didn't mind. The work relaxed him, and the garden was her pride and joy… [Then he remembers his mother saying] "There's something going around Brooklyn," she declared. "Some kind of disease." The Elephant agreed, but not the kind of disease she was worried about.
Greed, he thought wryly as he dug into the earth. That's the disease. I got it myself."
And that's what James McBride taught me.
