Creating Characters (32 page)
The introduction of an adversary can establish fertile ground for exploring the nature of at least one character in the story. That character may be the hero or heroine, or it may not. In any event, the presence of an adversary gives the writer an excellent opportunity to explore just how far one character can be pushed before he rebels, or tries to negotiate, or asks for help, or becomes angry, or runs away, or just gives up and accepts what he feels he cannot change.
The adversary does not have to be human. Some adversaries cannot even be seen; some cannot be heard. Nevertheless, they can bring danger, or cause hardship, or instill fear, worry, or discontent. Some of them can take on an importance that makes them the principal villain—the movie
Jaws
represents one scary example, because a giant shark had developed a taste for humans and it was the constant threat of that creature on the screen that kept moviegoers on the edge of their seats. For the most part, however, nonhuman adversaries playa
subsidiary role
within a story, and only occasionally do they become full-fledged villains.
In selecting a nonhuman adversary, the writer is faced with such questions as these:
Will the nonhuman adversary serve as a temporary plot driver, or will it remain throughout most of the story?
What effect will it have on at least one of the characters in the story?
What will it force the character to do?
The purpose of this chapter is to present a brief profile of some nonhuman adversaries, the use of which might allow the reader or viewer to see the nature of a character in bold relief.
Hollywood has been the unqualified master in developing animal adversaries to scare the pants off us. We have seen heroes and heroines threatened by killer bees, attacked by elephant-sized ants, stalked by tigers, circled by giant sea creatures, victimized by thousands of birds, and chased by saliva dripping wolves, just to name a few. The animal world is rich with potential adversaries, should the writer come to the conclusion that all of the human types have been exhausted (a misconception, surely).
Aside from outrageous examples like giant ants and murderous sharks, some excellent adversaries exist in the animal world, with the power to test the endurance and mental agility of human beings in a story. Turning from the monstrous to the mundane, what if a farmer keeps losing chickens to a fox that he can never seem to catch? Or what if his crops are being devoured by grasshoppers because he doesn't have the money for insecticide? What if it is discovered that the beloved park pigeons of a small midwestern town are carrying a disease that is deadly to humans? What if the neighbors are afraid to pass in front of someone's house because of a dog that likes to chase them? What if someone finds out that his house is being slowly eaten away by termites? And if the appearance of one cockroach disperses the guests at a well-planned party, will this initiate a war between the hostess and those critters that are crawling inside the walls of her house? Finally, it would be hard to convince a prisoner who is driven to despair by bedbugs that he is not the victim of nonhuman adversaries.
All of the following traits are associated with human beings: strictness, leniency, neutrality, appeasement, ignorance, indifference, secrecy, violence, and wastefulness. As seen in the abstract, however, anyone of these traits can serve as the signature of a time period. A character may look at the broad-based immorality that is taking place around him and see it as highly destructive to all the traditions his country holds dear. In his eyes, at least, that immorality would appear as a nonhuman adversary, even though human beings are the ones who are causing it. Again, the character would see immorality as an abstract, rather than identifying one or more individuals as the responsible parties. Indeed, whenever a character believes that the attitude of an age is a threat to the future, that attitude is a nonhuman adversary. While the character may be helpless in his effort to do anything about it, his ability at least to see what is happening gives him an edge over those who are blind to the presence of the enemy.
A character who lives in high-income suburbia would never know blight as a nonhuman adversary, but one who resides in a neighborhood that is changing for the worse certainly might. Someone who once loved his tree-lined city street, his well-kept apartment building, and all the quaint shops that used to dot his surrounding landscape might well be dismayed to see the encroachment of blight. When building after building becomes boarded up, when graffiti offends the eye, when the departures of the shopkeepers seem to multiply, when the streets develop potholes and the signs turn rusty, and when the crime rate increases, what effect might all this have on the character? And what about the landlord's investment as property values continue to decline? As a nonhuman adversary, blight can steadily approach and threaten a place that a character calls home.
When a fundamental change occurs in an established social, business, governmental, or educational structure, that change becomes a nonhuman adversary in the mind of a person who is far from ready to accept it. For example, the livelihood of the typewriter repairman was suddenly threatened by the advent of the computer revolution, just as candlemakers stood defenseless as light bulbs made them expendable. And small shopkeepers all over America have gone down swinging as they fought their elimination at the hands of huge shopping malls.
As a nonhuman adversary, change can come in the form of a modification, transformation, innovation, conversion, reformation, nonviolent revolution, reversal, restoration, an increase or decrease, or a separation. Whatever its particular nature may be, and whether or not it is first seen as a harmless trend that will eventually go away, it upsets our comfortable view of our world, our habit of believing that things will remain as they are. Each new trend threatens the status quo. New ideas saw away at the underpinnings of well-established standards. Questions chip away at long-held wisdom.
For the fictional character, the situation is no different. While he or she may sometimes identify someone who is responsible for the change, for the most part that change will be faceless and will often first seem to be a harmless trend that suddenly appears overnight. It is only later, when this nonhuman adversary becomes too big to ignore, that a character will either marshal his forces to resist it or surrender to the inevitable.
To appreciate the concept of confinement as a nonhuman adversary, one need not restrict one's view to the obvious,
i.e.,
imprisonment within a jail cell. Since confinement is the antithesis of freedom, there are many other examples, but they are more subtle. For example, consider the individual who feels trapped in a marriage. Even though that person's mate may be thoroughly loving and attentive—which, incidentally, the recipient may see as suffocating and even though no bars or fences stand in the way of departure, that person may be obligated to remain with the spouse for any number of reasons, with children being just one of the possibilities. The enemy is not the spouse; instead, it is the inability to be free. Like the prisoner who sits behind bars, that individual may have no one to blame but himself for his predicament.
Confinement may appear as a nonhuman adversary when a worker feels trapped in a job that he hates; when a soldier is unable to leave the military until he is discharged; or even when, say, a city housewife is forced to move with her husband to the wide open spaces out West and she can no longer visit her neighbors, spend time in the shops, or hear the familiar voices of the street vendors.
This category of nonhuman adversaries provides the writer with several options. In the area of geological disturbance, for example, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are by far the most obvious. Landslides and tidal waves are also excellent possibilities. To date, no one has ever written a fictional account of the earth suddenly shifting on its axis. Not only would such an event cause damage far beyond anyone's imagination, but the ensuing tidal waves would reshape the land mass on the globe as well. In time, though, someone will tell such a story.
Because of the devastation that occurs as a result of a great geological disturbance—if it isn't great, it may have no value as an adversary—things like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions almost always take place near the end of the story. Indeed, this type of nonhuman adversary requires the writer to be especially skilled in the craft of leading up to the inevitable, for the reader or viewer must continually be made aware that something dreadful is likely to happen. Prior to the devastation, the writer should take advantage of the opportunity to develop his human protagonists and antagonists, among whom there may be a scientist or a prophet, trying to warn others of the impending disaster. Ofcourse, no one pays any mind. Then, at the proper moment in the story, the nonhuman adversary is unleashed, allowing the author to depict great panic, great heroism, and perhaps a smug "I told you so."
Nongeological disasters would include such things as a bridge collapsing or a dam bursting, as opposed to those disasters that may have a human cause, such as plane crashes and shipwrecks, even though any of these may come about as the result of bad weather. Again, what human reactions does the tragedy trigger? How does the nonhuman adversary bring the traits of a character into sharp focus?
Disease as a nonhuman adversary has long been a familiar story-making tool. It, too, can be used as either a plot driver or as a backdrop to a story. In the first instance, for example, the disease may be employed as an epidemic, which the hero or heroine may be trying to stop from spreading. People are warned, become infected, and try desperately to escape. The authorities show a lack of imagination, and an abundance of red tape ties everyone's hands. There is a race against time. And so on. All of it is a bit hackneyed, of course, but a good writer can make it entertaining reading or viewing nonetheless.
However, to qualify as a nonhuman adversary, a disease need not threaten a whole city or an entire nation. Setting aside the obvious threat posed by such infectious diseases as yellow fever, tuberculosis, AIDS, cholera, meningitis, smallpox, Bubonic plague, syphilis, typhoid, and leprosy, there are other ways to use disease as a threat. If a child comes down with chicken pox the day before the family takes a vacation, isn't that a nonhuman adversary, since it disrupts everyone's plans? If a character wakes up with laryngitis, how will he deliver a very important speech to the stockholders? What does the woman do when she finds out her boyfriend has gonorrhea? Will a case of the mumps mean that a man will no longer be able to bear children? What will the character do if he develops one of the following: heart disease, cancer, Bright's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease, or leukemia?
When a character in the story is physically threatened by a disease, it gives the writer an opportunity to explore the manner in which the victim handles the misfortune, and how it affects his family, friends, and the other people with whom he comes into contact.
For the organized individual, combatting general disorder is tantamount to fighting grizzled, ill-shod rebels who, instead of aligning themselves in parade-like fashion where they might be leveled with a single cannon shot, jump out of alleyways firing and take pot-shots from rooftops. Disorder becomes a nonhuman adversary when the contributors to it are many in number and are essentially faceless—that is, when the blame for the mess cannot be laid upon anyone person's shoulders. Yes, things are indeed strewn about, but who scattered them? Yes, procedures are in a total shambles, but who is to blame? Yes, there is lawlessness, but who is at fault? This nonhuman adversary is a thing out of harmony; it trips over its own devices. It is chaos, it is carelessness, it is freedom run amok. It impedes the success of getting even the smallest thing done; big things are out of the question.
Authors frequently create ghosts and demons to tell a spine-tingling story. To qualify as a nonhuman adversary, however, a ghost cannot simply be mischievous; instead, it will have to frighten the characters in the plot and possibly even endanger at least one of them in some way. A friendly sort like Casper the Friendly Ghost will not do. If the ghost has the ability to do some extraordinary things, so much the better; readers and viewers often enjoy seeing the unbelievable made believable.
Rod Serling, the creator of the widely acclaimed television series
The Twilight Zone,
was highly skilled at fashioning demons out of inanimate objects, including automobiles, a ventriloquist's dummy, and so on. Also, movies have been produced in which the hero or heroine is terrorized by one or more poltergeists.
As a nonhuman adversary, "hard times" can serve as a backdrop in a story or suddenly become a plot driver; but in the latter instance hardship will usually need a particular related event to trigger it. If, for example, hard times caused a little girl to steal bread from the kitchen of an aristocrat and she is killed for it, a town that is suffering from lack of food could erupt into wide-ranging anger. While the conditions that typify hard times may, in fact, have been generated and perpetrated by human beings, as a nonhuman adversary hard times will generally take on a life of its own and become a rather broad menace to the general population. The sweeping presence of hardship will be seen in every aspect of daily life.
Hard times might easily include poverty, famine, economic depression, war, and repression, but any period that is essentially negative may serve as a nonhuman adversary,
e.g.,
the Age of Disillusionment, the Age of Cynicism, the Age of Ignorance, the Age of Anxiety, the Great Depression, etc. While essentially faceless, a period of hard times is usually highly destructive in one form or another. Institutions can become dramatically altered; governments can be capsized; and the entire social structure can be realigned. It is a time when the people become severely disadvantaged and their restlessness boils. In his novel
A Tale of Two Cities,
Charles Dickens expertly wove in the element of hard times as his characters displayed love, courage, and nobility during a time when the French, in an anti-royalist frenzy, were beheading people in a blood lust.