Some time ago, I was at a Thursday night manuscript evening at Leicester Writers’ Club when someone stood up to read the opening chapter of a novel that started in the middle of a rape scene. The novel’s protagonist was the victim. My response was that it didn’t work properly because it didn’t establish the character as an individual.
At first, I was surprised at myself, and at my own reaction. The scene was perfectly well written, filled with emotion and tension and danger and all that other good stuff, but still I didn’t care about the character, other than in that general way we care about the victims of mass murders, secret police disappearances, wars, earthquakes, famines, tsunamis etc. In other words, I didn’t care about them like they were a person I knew, more like someone I’d been told about on the News. Another way to say it is this: I felt the natural pull of sympathy, but no empathy.
So the question I began asking myself was this: what’s makes the difference? What gets my empathy kick started? What makes me care about someone totally fictional? Here’s my attempt to answer:
There is a difference between a dramatic, emotional event and an action that establishes character. As human beings, we can only judge a character by voluntary action and only when that action involves a choice (or – at a push – perhaps just an unusual reaction is enough) that might set that character out as different from what an average person might do in the same situation.
Example: a character trips over the edge of a cliff and falls towards swamp of crocodiles. Yes, very dramatic. We may even have much sympathy for the poor victim, and/or feel curiosity for their fate, but we don’t end up ‘knowing’ them. It doesn’t provide a hook that’s going to carry us through a novel. It’s over as soon as the character hits the bottom and either is or isn’t eaten. If they are eaten, it’s over. If not, then I don’t need to know anything else, so no need to read on.
Consider, however, what happens if the character struggles desperately to open an umbrella on the way down, or grabs for the shaft of their walking cane intending to bash the crocodiles with the brass bulldog’s head handle, or – heaven forbid – spreads their arms, calls out the word ‘Rosebud!’ and starts to fly. Now we have a ‘person’, or at least the beginnings of a person, i.e. a character.
My point is that it’s hard to make a judgement of anyone if the first time you meet them is plunging downwards towards a swamp full of crocodiles, because you can’t tell if the screaming and blasphemous cursing really indicates that they are timid Devil-worshipping idolaters, or simply scared. Why? Because everyone would scream. You have to give them enough room to show you who they are, and that’s why simply being a victim of some horrendous act might make the reader sympathetic for a moment, but it will not make the reader care about what happens next.
Contributed by Dave Martin
leicesterwritersclub.com 