Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn From Actors (30 page)

The fly buzzes against the family room window, backs up, then buzzes into it again.

Your eyes lift with irritation from the page, first to stare unseeing across the room as you listen, then to blink into a narrowed gaze at the fly. He is annoying. He is big. He is disturbing your peace, your moment.
Why
won’t he go away?

He buzzes, smacks the window repeatedly.

You pull your eyes back to your book. You continue reading, your forehead etched in a frown of concentration.

A few minutes pass. Purposely ignoring the fly, you finish the chapter. Oh, what a hook! What will happen now? You turn the page, eager to continue. Without missing a word you grope for the mug with your left hand, raise it to your lips. Ah, the drink’s still warm.

You read on. The book’s main secret is about to be revealed. You can sense it coming. You think you know, but you’re not sure. You read on, swept here and there as your characters run for their lives. Now through a forest, now facing a raging river. How will they cross? The hero is too weak—

The buzz-against-glass abruptly stops. Zzzzzz. The fly cruises the room again. He circles your head. You wave him away, still reading. He circles once more, exploring, coming in for a closer look,
invading
your space. You smack at him—and miss. He circles. You glare at him now, your eyes following his route. Your mouth tightens; the muscles in your thighs tense. You tap a thumb against the page of your book, reading momentarily forgotten. The fly lands across the room on the television set. You stare at it, half daring it to move.

It doesn’t.

You inhale. Shift your position. Your eyes return to the page, flitting until they find where you left off. Ah, yes, the river.

You start reading. Within seconds you are again engrossed in the story. The water is rising around the couple; their nemesis is closing in. You’re still not sure of what he wants, what he will do when he reaches them. He is yelling something over the boiling waters, his voice fading in and out of the torrents. The heroine screams at him—

The fly buzzes from the television and right by you. The sound reverberates in your ears. Then stops. You swivel your head to see the fly crawling, feeling his way with his nasty little legs along the rim of your cup.
Your cup!
Anger kicks across your nerves. Your arm flashes out and scares him back into the air. The buzzing resumes—right in front of your nose.

“That’s it!” You throw down your book and push off the couch, seething. The ugly creature flies around the room—
your
room—like he owns the place. Who does he think he is, disturbing you like that? Can’t you have even one hour of peace in your own house? After all the company and hostessing and work? Can’t you just be allowed to read your book and enjoy yourself for one lousy minute?

Muttering, you swivel on your heel and head for the kitchen, in search of something, anything, to get rid of this creature once and for all. You grab a newspaper section off the kitchen table, roll it, and pace back into the family room, smacking it against your palm. The fly still cruises. You lurch to a stop, your head on a constant swivel as you follow his flight. From the corner of your eye you notice that your book has fallen shut on the couch. Fresh anger jags up your chest. Now that wretched beast has caused you to lose your place!

The fly lands on the coffee table. You stride three steps and bring down the newspaper hard.
Thwack.
The fly lifts into the air, buzzing even harder. You exhale loudly, cursing under your breath. You were too mad, moved too quickly. You’ll have do this steady-like, smooth. Have to think before you move.

You draw up straight, standing perfectly still, except for your head, which still follows the fly’s path. The newspaper rests in your palm. You like the feel of it, the deadly force it promises. Now if you can only sneak up on that fly. You even breathe quietly lest it hear you. You command control of your own body, centering your focus on killing the fly—nothing else.

You don’t stop to think that the fly is merely foraging for food he needs to exist. It doesn’t occur to you that he means you no harm, that he’s probably seeking a way to get out of your house. You certainly don’t stop to think he may have family, that he may be missed once he’s dead. Such an absurd notion would not last one second within your brain. Who could possibly care about this disgusting creature? And even if someone did, he has invaded
your
space. He
deserves
to die.

The fly lands on the window. Your eyes narrow. You are careful this time—oh, so careful. Stealthily, silently, you creep across the carpet. Your fingers tighten around the newspaper. You hardly dare breathe. Three more steps. Your arm begins to draw back. Two more steps. Your shoulder muscles tighten. One more step. You glide to a halt, eyes never leaving the fly. You swallow. Pull back your arm further, fingers sinking into the newspaper. Every sinew in your upper body crackles with anticipation.

Your arm snaps forward. The newspaper whistles through the air.
Thwack!!
The force of the hit sends shock waves up your arm.

The fly drops like a stone.

Yes! You’ve killed him!

You stand there, breathing hard, eyeing the dead fly. Your arm lowers, your fingers relax their grip. A slow, sick smile twists your lips. Your head tilts slightly, your eyebrows rise.

“Hah!” The word echoes in the room, hard and snide. “That’ll teach you!”

You survey your handiwork, gloating some more, vindictiveness and satisfaction swirling. The fly is such an ugly thing. Black, mangled, dirty. Couldn’t even die with dignity. It lies there, trashing up your nicely painted windowsill. Your lip curls. How disgusting.

That fly deserved everything it got.

One thing’s for certain. If any other fly comes along, you won’t waste precious time trying to ignore it. Oh, no, you’ve got the actions down now. Next time, one tiny buzz, and you’ll be off that couch, newspaper ready. It’ll be so much easier next time ….

But for now you must get rid of your victim. Its very sight nauseates you. Your tear off a piece of the newspaper, and use it to pick up the body—gingerly, being careful not to touch it. No telling what sort of germs and filth it carries. You walk into the bathroom, throw it into the toilet. Flush it down. You watch it swirl faster, tighter, until it finally disappears. You smack down the toilet lid.

Now
you are done.

You take a breath. Where were you? What was going on in your life before you were so rudely interrupted? Ah, of course! Reading! You hurry back to your book, your mind already racing to remember where you left off. You throw yourself back onto the couch, pick up the novel, flip through pages, find your last-read sentence.

Two minutes later you are once again engrossed in the story, living and breathing along with the characters. Your house is so peaceful. Life is wonderful. You are happy.

You settle back, devouring the words. Reveling in your contentment. The fly is forgotten.

Almost.

Except for within that one part of you. That one tiny, separate part that cocks an ear, stands guard over your space, protectively listening for—almost anticipating—the buzz of the next fly ….

Just try telling me you don’t get that scene.

When I teach Emotion Memory at writers conferences, I tell the students I will turn them all into killers within ten minutes. Then I act out this scene as if it’s happening to me. Invariably when the fly “drops like a stone” the students cheer and clap.

See? Killers, all.

And it’s not just the killing. It’s the sneering, cold-hearted emotion that leads up to it. Then the smirking when it’s done. Followed by the focus on the aftermath—what needs to be cleaned up?

If I can turn you into a murderer, you can turn yourself into any character you need to write. Remember, there is no emotion known to man that
you
have not experienced.

Study Samples

Our classic fiction sample is from Mark Twain’s
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
. To see how Emotion Memory was used to create the scene, consider first these short excerpts from Twain’s book about his life.

FROM:
My Autobiography
, by Mark Twain.

SETTING: The South, 1837.

1. I remember only one circumstance connected with my life in [the house I was born in]. I remember it very well, though I was but two and a half years old at the time. The family packed up everything and started in wagons for Hannibal, on the Mississippi, thirty miles away. Toward night, when they camped and counted up the children, one was missing. I was the one. I had been left behind. Parents ought always to count the children before they start. I was having a good enough time playing by myself until I found that the doors were fastened and that there was a grisly deep silence brooding over the place. I knew, then, that the family were gone, and that they had forgotten me. I was well frightened, and I made all the noise I could, but no one was near and it did no good. I spent the afternoon in captivity and was not rescued until the gloaming had fallen and the place was alive with ghosts.

2. In the little log cabin lived a bedridden white-headed slave woman whom we visited daily, and looked upon with awe, for we believed she was upwards of a thousand years old and had talked with Moses. The younger negroes credited these statistics, and had furnished them to us in good faith. We accommodated all the details which came to us about her; and so we believed that she had lost her health in the long desert trip coming out of Egypt, and had never been able to get it back again. She had a round bald place on the crown of her head, and we used to creep around and gaze at it in reverent silence, and reflect that it was caused by fright through seeing Pharaoh drowned. We called her “Aunt” Hannah, Southern fashion. She was superstitious like the other negroes; also, like them, she was deeply religious. Like them, she had great faith in prayer, and employed it in all ordinary exigencies, but not in cases where a dead certainty of result was urgent. Whenever witches were around she tied up the remnant of her wool in little tufts, with white thread, and this promptly made the witches impotent.

FROM:
Huckleberry Finn
, by Mark Twain.

SETTING: The Widow Douglas has taken in young Huckleberry Finn, saying she will raise him and make a respectable boy out of him, which is not exactly the kind of lifestyle Huck has in mind. During supper Miss Watson, the widow’s sister, is “pecking” at Huck about turning his life around so he can go to the “good place” when he dies. By the time he retires to his room for the night, he is depressed and lonesome.

I went up to my room with a piece of candle, and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that’s on its mind and can’t make itself understood, and so can’t rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it was all shriveled up. I didn’t need anybody to tell me that that was an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But I hadn’t no confidence. You do that when you’ve lost a horseshoe that you’ve found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn’t ever heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you’d killed a spider.

Exploration Points