Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors (21 page)

3.
Is the progression of colors from components to opposite believable? Why or why not?

I find the progression very believable. In fact, when Javert commits suicide, it seems his only option. Over and over again, even as he is displaying various colors of his passion, Javert proves his willingness to sacrifice himself for his belief. First we see this intent as he insists that Valjean, the supposed mayor, dismiss him from his position because he has “committed an offence against authority.” Then twice we see him willing to die as martyr, at the hands of the revolutionaries and, later, Valjean. When Valjean lets him go, Javert still asks to die and finally leaves reluctantly. Even when he allows Valjean to escape in turn, Javert is shaken that he would make such a choice: “‘Go up,’ he added with a strange expression and as if he were making effort in speaking in such a way.” As Javert drags himself to the Seine we see all of the past colors of his one passion flowing together to create a dark and dismal picture. Javert has lost his one passion and therefore his reason to live. “He sought himself and found himself no longer.”

FROM:
Capture The Wind For Me
(contemporary, Bradleyville Series book 3) by Brandilyn Collins.

SETTING: Bradleyville, a tiny Kentucky town, 1996. Prologue.

I remember how the sky mourned with us, hanging in shades of gray, chilled and fitful. How the wind moaned through the red-leafed trees in the cemetery. I was only fourteen. Nature’s sorrow seemed right to me, for surely the world could not go on as usual, undisturbed and blithe, in the face of our tragedy. Vaguely, I wondered if others in my family shared the same thoughts.

Looking back now, I know they did. Self-absorption is common to the grieving. Every act of nature shouts our loss—the merest drop of rain a tear for the deceased, a stream of sunshine hailing some bright memory.

My family and I huddled together, trembling more in soul than body, as we faced my mama’s casket. White and gleaming, it rested on wide strips of green fabric above an open and hungry grave.

“Should we lower it?” the funeral director asked.

No!

Daddy’s cheek muscles froze, tears glistening in his red-rimmed eyes. He nodded.

The wizened cemetery worker stretched gnarled hand to metal gear and started cranking.
Chink, chink. Chink, chink
. Slowly, the casket began to descend.

Daddy gripped my shoulder, grief bubbling in his throat. My brother, Robert, age ten, leaned against me, solemn, wooden.
Chink, chink
. Seven-year-old Clarissa clutched her coat around her, as if to wrap herself against the sound. I watched the bottom of the casket disappear, the blunt cliff of earth edge up its side.

Mama, Mama!

Memories pierced me like shards of glass. Saturday morning pancakes. Softball game cheers. Suppertime laughter. The way she hugged Daddy. Our talks of first love.

Cancer. Pain. Dulling eyes. Final words.

Lifeless head on a satin pillow.

Chink, chink.

Grandma Westerdahl wailed for her daughter.

The top of the casket disappeared. Still the man cranked. An errant leaf, brittle and worn, skittered across the ground to snag on his wrist. As if to say,
Stop! Stop your turning, crank the other way, up and up. Turn back time!
He flicked the leaf away.

Chink, chink. Chink, ch—

Silence, save for the wind. The man rocked back on his heels, task done.

The ceremony was complete. Time now for us to go home. To leave Mama behind. My mind numbed. I could not grasp it—my mama’s warm brown eyes, her voice, her love, her life now stiffened, silenced. Covered by a casket, soon by soil. Her light, her dreams
,
her energy—a sputtering candle now spent.

We stood, bewildered refugees, staring at the open earth.

Grandpa Delham put his arm around Daddy. Grandma Delham reached for Clarissa, but my little sister pulled away. Carefully, she inched to the edge of the grave, then peered down. I can still see Clarissa, her blue coat flapping against lace-topped socks, her weight tilting forward on one foot, neck craned. I knew she had to see the casket, had to have a mental picture to take with her, to remember after dirt covered all.

Grandpa Westerdahl held his sobbing wife.

Clarissa took her time, then sidled back to us, bleary-eyed and pale. Daddy grasped her hand.

I, too, had to see. Approaching the grave, I braced myself and looked down. Expectation did not lessen the shock. The pure white of the casket screamed against black earth. I reminded myself that Mama was not really there. That her soul flew in heaven, hovered at Jesus’ feet.

Little comfort the thought gave me.

We had to leave. I had a family to take care of—a grief-stricken father, siblings who needed a mama. God, I can’t do this!

I took a step back, willing myself to say goodbye to Mama. Willing it and willing it. Somehow I managed a second step. A third. Then I forced myself to turn around. Rejoined my family. I hugged Robert, slipped my fingers around Daddy’s arm. Clarissa still held his other hand.

As a group, we began to make our wearied way toward the car. To our home and life—without Mama. I clutched Daddy and trudged forward, even as my mind screamed, I can’t leave her, I can’t leave her, I can’t leave her! I could not look back. I had to go on, all of us did. My family needed me to be strong. I focused on my feet, one step at a time. Forward.

But a piece of my heart jagged loose and took a manic leap down the grave.

Exploration Points

1.
Jackie’s overall passion or emotion in this scene is grief. Yet she never uses that word to describe her feelings (other than her statement about “the grieving” in the second paragraph). Neither does she shed a tear. Her lips don’t tremble. Her throat isn’t described as tightening. So through what “colors” of emotion is her grief shown?

First, through what she describes as
self-absorption
. Even nature is mourning with her and her family. All the world seems to have stopped because of her mother’s death. This color continues to show itself, as when she imagines an “errant leaf” trying to stop the burial.

Next there’s a sense of
high alertness
of her family. Years later as she recounts this scene, she can still remember what they wore, how they stood, what they were doing.

Memories then
pierce
her. They are good memories but only add to her grief, because she’ll never see any of those events again.

After the ceremony is done she experiences
numbness
.
Lostness
. What to do next? (“Bewildered refugees.”) They’re not really refugees. They have a house to go to. But it no longer feels like their
home
.

Almost beyond herself she’s pulled to look at the casket one more time. She still
can’t let go
. She knows what she will see but is still
shocked
by its starkness. She tries to
comfort herself
by remembering her mother, a Christian, is now in heaven. Jackie remains
uncomforted
. Even her faith at this moment can’t help her.

Cold reality
sets in. They have to leave. Jackie wills herself to go. Her
sense of responsibility
overcomes her grief. She must leave and take care of her family. This is the only thing at the moment that keeps her moving.

At the last second the
desperation
of living without her mother kicks in. Only her
resolve
keeps her moving forward.

Questions for you to answer:

2.
How does Jackie’s inner value—“I am responsible for taking care of my siblings and my father”—drive her actions?

3.
What are the different traits of Jackie that are presented in this opening scene? How might her characterization so far set her up for further conflict within the novel?

4.
Take a look at the scene in your novel that introduces your protagonist. How might you write (or rewrite) the scene to portray different colors of the character’s traits and emotions? (Don’t forget that any backstory should be worked in without stopping the action.)

5.
What about your protagonist over the course of your entire story? Have you shown his various colors, both in his traits and emotions? Have you made him change too fast?

Moving On

From the wide expanse of Coloring Passions, we turn now to the actor’s secret that will help you breathe life and believability into individual scenes. We’ll learn how the various unique dynamics of your character—Desire, inner values, mannerisms, and passions—flow together to create the character’s actions in times of conflict. Once again, to discover outer action, we look inside—to Secret #5, Inner Rhythm.

SECRET #5

Inner Rhythm

ACTOR’S TECHNIQUE:

Beneath an actor’s external movements lies the internal “movement” of emotion. This Inner Rhythm, when used correctly, beats through the actor’s very pores and out to the audience. It may be far different from the external action, even its opposite. Through Inner Rhythm a seasoned actor can stand unmoving and silent onstage, yet exude a wrenching internal struggle that makes him appear anything but still. Without saying a word, he is acting.

NOVELIST’S ADAPTATION:

Inner Rhythm betrays a character’s emotions even when he tries to suppress or hide them. Without a sense of a character’s unique Inner Rhythm, the novelist relies on external action to depict feelings in a general way. Gestures and conversation can seem stereotyped, one-dimensional, even false. When an author begins with Inner Rhythm and works toward the external, each action, facial expression, and spoken word then illuminates the struggle within. Readers
feel
the emotion.

We’ve all experienced watching an actor who “lived” his part. Every line spoken, every action was so vibrant with emotion that we felt the character’s joy and pain. Contrast this to another type of actor we’ve seen all too often—the one who is wooden in his role. Oh, the appropriate actions are there, and the voice inflection and expressions, but we don’t believe any of them. The character is flat. He fails to move us.