Getting Into Character

flickr image by Josh.Liba

As an author I have to 'get into' the skins of my characters. How do I do that? Every writer uses his own set of rituals and techniques, so what follows is an overview peculiar to me. Since character is the heart and soul of my stories this is a topic that will be revisited many times, I am sure.

To begin with, there are three sources of inspiration for developing character: research, association and philosophy. Each of these breaks down to its own facets, which we may explore later. For now, I'm going to develop a 'big picture'.

Before we go on, though, it's worth asking: what am I looking for? What do we mean when we say we're 'exploring character'? The sense I have when I set out to write a story is that I am on a historical quest. I consider myself a biographer of sorts, who is investigating the habits and actions of real people; not a daydreamer, fantasizing about purely fictional beings. That mind-set gives a tangible cast to the characters as I investigate.

Research delves into the hard facts of who my character might be. I read books about their eras, visit places they might have been, get a sense of their vocations. For example, the protagonist in Stained Glass, a novel in progress, is an Anglican priest. Step one for me is to establish contacts with practicing Anglicans to flesh out the religious parameters of his life. What was it like to be in seminary? What are the day-to-day duties of a priest? How does a life dedicated to Christ alter the world view of a priest? The book is set in the 1870s, in the Gold Rush Town of Barkerville, BC. The archives at Barkerville will yield a wealth of imagery and journal entries that will further flesh out the life and times of my characters. Research, for me, is like hunting through a crowd, looking for evidence of a character that already exists - things my character might have experienced, internalized and become.

Association brings into the mix all the people I've ever known, who might share some of my character's traits. There is an intimacy to my 'real time' relationships that adds depth to my appreciation of a character. Although I haven't had close contact with any Anglican priests, for example, I did attend Norwood United Church as a child and can remember vividly my interactions with Reverend Kennedy, the minister of the day. Although he was not at all similar to the protagonist in my story, there are some character traits that translate: the tone of voice he used in delivering his sermons; the way he greeted members of the congregation as they entered the church; the swish and billow of his robes; a certain professional aloofness. Other personalities in my life are also great reference points: teachers, psychologists, close friends.

Philosophy (or call it psychology, if you prefer) helps me extrapolate and discover elements of character that I might never have encountered or imagined. My philosophical framework is a home-made 'schematic' I call The Tetrahedron. It categorizes experience into physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual realms, which are all interconnected. Physical experience manifests as pain or pleasure; emotional as love or hate; intellectual as right or wrong; spiritual as infinite or finite. Although this is purely conceptual - The Tetrahedron does not exist - it is a marvelous construct for analyzing human motives and the factors that distort human perspectives.

Eureka Moments!

Flickr photo by Partricia Drury

I am often asked where story ideas come from. I don't really have a pat answer. I've come to see myself as a sort of literary hunter-gatherer, constantly scanning his environment for clues. Dozens of others might walk past the tell-tale signs of a potential story, but they don't see it. What appears ordinary and uninteresting to them strikes me as fascinating, sometimes thrilling.

A couple of examples will illustrate my point.

My next novel, Stained Glass, sprang almost fully formed from a single line in the Oxford History of Christianity. I happened to be reading that stupendous tome in preparation for another novel I was working on called Caution: Prayin' Ahead. One sentence, in the chapter dealing with the medieval church, noted a furor that was created in a French town when the local harlots offered to fund the installation of a stained glass window depicting Mary Magdalen.

I'm sure hundreds, possibly thousands read that line and passed it over without a second thought. I whooped and laughed out loud, knowing then and there I would have to write a novel based on it. My version of Stained Glass will be set in the rough-and-tumble gold rush town of Barkerville, BC, but the trail leads back to that single reference in the Oxford History of Christianity.

Just the other day I was chatting with my father-in-law Fred Durrand. Fred retired years ago from a long career as Municipal Clerk with the town of Central Sannich. A great conversationalist, he has many stories to tell about: growing up in Revelstoke, BC; his experiences as a dispatch rider in the Second World War; and his career in municipal government.

His latest was about a fellow who rolled up to the Central Sannich municipal hall in a Cadillac and stumped into the office to complain about his neighbour - a woman, who insisted on hanging her clothes on a line, thus blighting the view out his back window and lowering his property values. The guy had recently moved from Oak Bay, a well-heeled jurisdiction where such Plebian offenses were firmly discouraged by law. Informed that no such injunctions existed in rural Central Sannich, and that anyone could let their shirts and panties flap in the breeze, the fellow stumped back out again - an unsatisfied rate payer.

A few days later, his sheet flying neighbour showed up in Fred's office in tears. The complainant had taken to lighting up a bonfire in a barrel whenever she hung her laundry, and stirring the cauldron vigorously to get as much soot and ash flying as possible. Carried on the prevailing wind, this malicious pollution would soil her freshly laundered clothes and linens, making it impossible for her to use her clothesline.

Fred's reminisce will become my next Two Minute Story, called The Clothesline.

Symbolism in Stained Glass

flickr photo by jimcintosh

I am mapping out a novel titled Stained Glass. I haven't begun to research it yet, but the plot line has emerged, I already know who the main characters are, and am beginning to sense its voice. I'm pumped.

Stained Glass is the story of a young priest whose first parish is the tumultuous gold rush town of Barkerville, BC. A controversy erupts early in his tenure over the installation of a stained glass window behind the alter of the frontier church. Funding for the project has been sadly lacking, but is finally forthcoming from a very unexpected source: the local brothel operator!

One of the things that excites me about this novel is the explicit reference to its symbolism in the title. I have never given a symbolic element so much prominence in a story and am having to study the use of symbolism in literature to avoid botching the job.

Stained glass is a powerful symbol on many levels:

• It is the boundary between man's temples and the outside world, transforming ordinary light into brilliant, iconic imagery;
• Although it is richly moving, and religious in intent, stained glass is the work of a master craftsman, commissioned by fallible humans, who may have political as well as spiritual motives;
• Stained glass is fragile, and can be easily shattered by anyone willing to throw the first stone.

These symbolic attributes will resonate through the story. In fact, Stained Glass is in part about the rich symbolism of church art.

Stained Glass is also about gold and the greed precious metals arouse in men. So the extraction, refining and exchange of gold will be another symbolic feature of the novel. How can such a pure and valued element be the epicenter of so much lust, degradation and corruption? How can anyone in good faith, allow gold to be part of the Christian liturgy in the form of crosses, chalices and candle sticks, when the methods of digging it out of the earth are playing out before everyone's eyes?