No news like bad news

When you create horrible events and want your poor, unsuspecting reader to gasp and shudder, you need them to know the people who have all those terrible things happen to them. Watching 'Alien,' we cringe when the helmet is cut away and we still can't see John Hurt's face, and we squirm in our seats when that very Freudian alien pops out of his chest. Why? Because we've spent the last thirty or so minutes getting to know him. Yes, his best scenes come after the facehugger drops off. But by the time that 'leathery object' opens up, we at least have a good idea of whether or not Kane would be getting a Christmas card from us, and whether or not we could kill some time with him over a bottle of beer and a conversation about politics.

That's part of how we get involved in a story. Relating to characters, seeing and understanding how they relate to other characters. It's not the only way, just the most well-established. There are one-person plays, and movies and stories with only one character. But even most of those have phone calls or letters or whatever so that we know that our hero is not the last human on earth. Maybe one of the great masters can do it, but fortunately for me there aren't enough of them to give the rest of us regular competition.

That caring is important, because it's what keeps us reading the story or watching the film. It may or may not be set up as such, but the tale is a recording of that character. A slice of their life, and maybe the last one.

You can argue with me, but my humble opinion is that bad news connects us with characters like good news never will. Most of us achieve a kind of equilibrium in our lives, and if we're climbing whatever ladder we're on, we climb it one rung at a time, according to plan. To us, 'normal' is either continuity or slow progress. When we're introduced to Bob and his wife Jane, who are getting started building a life for themselves, we get to know them pretty quickly. New beginnings are a blank slate, one that we often read our on lives into.

In a book or a movie, when someone wins the lottery or has their rich uncle leave them millions, most of us scream 'plot device.' Now, everything is a plot device, because if it isn't, it gets edited out (or it should). But if our heroes move into the creepy mansion not because they inherited it, but because Dad lost his job or Mom is blacklisted for blowing the whistle on the local PTA's cocaine fundraiser, and it's the only place they can afford, then we understand that they're having hard times, and hard times are something we can all relate to. We can give a family who's in a middle of a run of bad luck some sympathy, because we hope that someone would give us a bit of sympathy when we find ourselves in that same situation. A person or family living high on the hog only makes most of us feel envious, which is why you don't see a lot of millionaire protagonists. I remember the hero in 'Bag of Bones' was worth quite a lot, but King is a lot better at this than most of us, and even he had to kill off the man's wife.

Maybe part of it is selfish, too. Empathizing for people in need makes us feel good about ourselves, but envy is a false comfort that only makes us colder. Everyone is a hero in their own mind, and the good guys don't wish a bus would run over their lucky neighbor. Only flesh and blood people do that.

This isn't strictly a random post. Some people that I'm close with decided to call it quits recently. Again, it's a bit selfish, but it seems there's a little less happiness in the world right now. Time moves on, and life changes. It doesn't ask how we feel about the changes, either.

Boy, sounds like the perfect set up for a horror movie, doesn't it? Maybe I'll write something and put one of the characters in a similar situation.

Why do we want characters to change?

So as I'm beating my head against the brick wall that has 'In the Dark' painted on it (graffiti style), I'm slowly getting a better grasp of my protagonist. The first drafting set the framework of the story, but when I wrote it I was thinking about dozens of books and short stories that had the tone I wanted to capture. Now I need to make changes so that I'm playing the notes to produce those tones myself.

One note I realized wasn't right was the fact that my hero, who is not all cuddly and nice to begin with, is the same person at the end of the book that he is at the beginning. A change must be made, but, since knowing the reason helps guide the action, why? Why can't we let our good guy just go through the action, fight the bad guy and win or lose the girl, and then come home and go to bed early so that tomorrow he's ready to do it all over again? Why do we need this person to grow?

In real life, our views on change are selective. If we get a raise, rock on. If we find out our job is moving to the far east without us, well, that stinks. Change can be good or bad, but unless it's the exact kind we're seeking, we tend to view it with distrust. It's a huge, lurking unknown, and I've covered how we feel about that a few times now.

But this is fiction, in print or on a screen. The rules are different, and this fiction has to show us either what we desire or what we fear. For most of us, our lives are filled with struggles. Sometimes we fight to achieve something, but way too often we have to fight to keep what we already have or just to get through the day. We get up, maybe have some coffee and spend a few minutes with our family or the internet, and then we're off to work. The next eight or more hours are spent loading boxes, smiling at customers as they chew us out because they have to read the manual to know how to program their DVR, or whatever needs to be done to pay the mortgage. It's a struggle.

So when John McClean or Douglas Quaid has to fight to try to save some idiot about to get himself killed or find a way to live through his wife betraying him, we empathize. Most of us don't risk getting shot at while we're on the clock (some do. Please don't forget that), but the fact that we both have a fight on our hands gives us something in common with these heroes. It makes them someone we could sit down and have a beer with at the end of the day.

Way back when, my Texas history teacher taught us that one of the characteristics of the people of Texas is our strong work ethic. I think the feeling is not quite as simple as that, and I also think the point is valid for a lot of people, not just those from my home state. We don't just believe that we should work, we believe that if we work hard we'll be rewarded, and not just with our $7.25 per hour. We have faith that if we consistently give our earnest effort, we'll achieve our dream.

Now wouldn't it be great if we could see an example of that play out, right in front of us? If we could see someone who we identify with confirm our deeply-held hope? We could just sit there and nod, saying to ourselves, 'Yep. That's how it should be.'

Let me clarify that this isn't a blank check for our ego. It's safe to say that a lot of us think it would be awfully nice to have a bunch of people that we find attractive at our beck and call. Maybe we'd treat them like a bunch of pampered princes(ses), or maybe we'd keep them in chains and rags because that's what we think they deserve. (I see a future blog post about this) As a fantasy, it's fairly common. Try to make it a reality, and brother you'll open enough cans of worms to fish up every critter in the sea. If our hero doesn't just get the girl at the end of the story, but gets five or six of them, we may cheer and applaud, but we'll also be envious, which would cut back our empathy for him.

Note that this is a cultural attitude mainly of those of us here in the U.S., and that our friends in other countries feel differently. The French in particular seem to be able to be a bit more honest.

Also note that even though I've spoken about a guy through this whole thing, the same principles apply to the heroines in 'chick flicks.' Hope knows no gender, it's just that the movies that try to speak to women directly tend to have less sidekicks and explosions than those aimed at men.

So we need struggle, and we need change. Can we cheer our alter ego saving the farm, getting the girl, or taking the gold-medal for one-armed kayaking? All three? Absolutely. Would we cheer if he loses his home, is asked to be the best man when the woman of his dreams marries his best friend, or succumbs to stage fright just as he's about to enter the kayaking contest? Not unless the denouement shows us that he's learned something about himself. Maybe some day I'll be able to wrap my head around the appeal that tragedies have for some people, but I can't remember the last one I saw or read, and I don't think I've ever seen one willingly.

Damn I can type a lot when I get going on a subject, can't I? Enough pondering for now. Time to write.