Many a writer, when they are asked about their characters almost always say the same thing “They speak for themselves I just listen and write it all down” or something like that. To someone who has no slaved over every dangling participle, excess adverb or unintelligible piece of prose this transforms the witting process into something magical. Characters come to life and speak to the author who becomes their patient servant as they together craft new worlds for millions of avid readers world wide.
Not so much….
If writing is the process of putting your thoughts on paper (or screen); then creating a complete work worthy of publication is the near endless tinkering with words that will produce something worth reading. However the truth is that characters do take a life of their own as I learned recently.
After finishing my first draft I let it sit inside my computer for three months. Enough time to let it cool down a bit. Meanwhile I posted a few excerpts on online forums . Many people liked my “voice” but one reader pointed out that there was a lot of “telling” and not a lot of “showing”. The MC (the novel uses 1st POV) told the reader what was going on instead of letting the reader see the action for themselves. It also meant that other characters didn’t get a chance to speak, as the MC did all the speaking for them. So I decided that I would use a bit less narration and more dialogue.
No problems there until I came to a complete stop. For some reason I could not find a way to re-write a particular scene. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. In the new scene, the MC walks into his office with a black eye. Later the rest of the office staff arrives. Among them is one Patty Wilson, who is attracted to the MC. The idea was that she would notice the injury, walk over to the MC and make a big deal out of it. She would treat him like a little boy in front of their co-workers. And that is when I hit the wall. Something inside me said that this was wrong. No matter how many times I hit backspace and re-wrote the lines, they felt wrong to me. So I did what any writer with a severe onset of writter’s block does. I abandoned the work.
Oh I still worried about it, day in and day out, but I would not even open the file. I wanted to get going, be done with the second draft so I could hand it over to a Beta reader to evaluate. Alas, the more I thought about it the worse it got. A few weeks later it came to me. Or rather the character talked and said the following:
“I won’t do that!” said a angry voice inside my head.
“Say what now?” I, the bewildered and adverb abusing author replied.
“Nope, that ain’t me! i would never act that way.”
“You’re sure because- -”
“Because nothing. You wrote me, you know better than anyone that I would not go that far. I wouldn’t do it and your readers would not believe it.”
Guess what? She was right. She could be many things, but so far I had not written any of my characters to act in such a way. She could pout, give somebody the evil eye, etc. But she would not smother her boss just because he had a black eye. She would worry, perhaps do the passive aggressive thing, but not make a show of it.
So now I have to go back and tone down the scene, making sure I don’t piss off my characters in the process. Sometimes we writers have to do lest typing and more listening. Our characters might have something important to say.
Thank you Carol. Now for the story at the top of the hour: What is funny to me?
I skipped ahead on the August Blogchain started by my new friends over at the AbsoluteWrite.com forums but having fixed that faux pas I am back in rotation. So far humor dominates the post along the chain with the recent post concentrating on family and children. Mom’s Write over at her blog (Return Engagement) talked about her kids use of certain words in public. A mortifying experience and therefore funny. Not blessed with children of my own, as off yet, mostly because I haven’t found a woman that would have the two sets of twins I would want… wait I hear a knock at the door….
Author steps away from his computer and opens his apartment door. Outside a large crowd angry women glare at me, their leader deigns to speak to the author “Four kids! Two sets of twins, two kids at a time!”
“Would be nice” the Author said.
“No way, no how, not ever” the crowd shouted.
“Duly noted ladies, now if you don’t mind I have a blog post to edit. Thank you for your input” Author said as he closed the door and fled to his desktop.
Where was I? Ah yes, not blessed with children I can’t conjure a story about their uncouth behavior in public, I would be remiss even to try. I could fake it, after all that is part of the craft, but lets leave that to the pages of fiction, shall we?
So what then?
We know that kids can be funny, so can bodily functions and so to baby names for certain parts of the human anatomy. For me funny is anything that is truthful. That which strips away conceit and asks us to accept things as they truly are. You can’t fake funny even if the joke makes reference to fictional people and places. If it doesn’t ring true, it ain’t funny.
So keep the pee-pee stories coming, cause God knows we all need a laugh.
Back to the blog chain with Polenth over at Polenth’s Quill.
Please visit the rest of our excellent crew at their respective blogs:
Religion and I don’t get along. I am not an atheist mind you, but I am an ex-Catholic of sorts leaning toward agnostic. My mother would drag me to the Saturday night service because Sunday mornings where for sleeping (at least for me). Growing up I went through several spiritual stages. From blind acceptance to a need to participate. I even did a stint singing on the choir. In the final stage I sat in the back pews back ignoring the sermon. My disillusionment grew over time. Whether it was the fact that Mom could not partake of communion because she was divorced or reading about the atrocities of the Crusades, I just didn’t have it in me to listen. Sometime around 15 I stopped going and never came back. But not before that I delved into the darker side of the Bible. Revelation became a favorite of mine. For awhile I thought I could talk to the devil himself like some sort of magi from the Middle Ages. Life disabused me of that fantasy as well.
Sundays are sacred though. Its the one day I get to sleep late. So imagine my discomfort when a noise woke me up on Sunday around 8:00. The banging at the front door drove away a pleasant dream of a sunny beach, a fridge full beer and a brown hair girl wearing a tiny bikini. I pulled some shorts on and headed down stairs.
Who the fuck is it? I swear I’ll rip their head off and shove it up their ass!
To say that I was in a foul mood would be the understatement of the century. I swung the door violently; unprepared for what awaited me on the other side. And what was that? Simply the most brilliant smile I had ever seen in my life!
No, it was not Cristina, with or without a bikini. Instead it was the happiest human being to ever walked the Earth. And I mean genuine happy, not the fake and annoying types you wish you could gouge their eyes with your fingernails happy. She had bright eyes and shoulder length golden tresses. They radiated like a nimbus around a her oval face. She was about Michael’s age.
“Hello! You must be Anthony, Michael told me all about you. Is he in?” she asked. The fact that everybody knew who I was before I even was pissing me off.
Girlfriend? If so the moron could have warned me!
I was still ticked off, but somehow my mood went from murderous to annoyed in no time flat. It was impossible to be mad at her, who ever she was. “May I know who is asking?” I said squinting my eyes.
“Michelle!” she shook my hand. She beamed as she spoke. Nobody should be allowed to be this happy this early in the morning. No one.
“Yeah, miss-”
She interrupted me “Michelle, please.”
“Michelle then. This is this regarding?” She had better have a good reason for me to go upstairs and try to wake up the dead on a Sunday morning.
A puzzled look crossed her face for a fraction of a second only to be replaced by vibrant smile. “Well its Sunday” she added as if that would explain everything.
Now I was slipping from annoyed to disturbed “Are you going studying or something?”.
She looked askance and elaborated “No. I was on my way to church and wanted to see if Michael would come along”.
“Well he sleeping but as soon as he gets up I’ll tell him you came by” I said not intending to do that in the least. Two grumps awake at the same time was a recipe for disaster.
“Ok then” she shook my hand again. “Nice to meet you!” She didn’t so much walk away as glided. Simply unnatural.
Later I asked Michael who she was but he merely shrugged saying she was a friend from school.
A friend that did not give up easily. She came back the next Sunday and the Sunday after that until I had enough. As I stood on the doorway the third Sunday in a row I had but one thing to say:
“MICHAEL!!!”
Now Michelle had not invited me but I was awake so I went with them. I sat there uncomfortably watching the young vicar give his sermon. The service was not different from what I was accustomed to. As far as I knew the Anglican church was protestant in name only. I tried hard not to fall asleep and elbowed Michael every time he snored.
The following Sunday Michael volunteered me to take his place because Michelle had volunteered him to read from the good book. The church was half full. Most of congregation looked like to be in their fifties or older. The women dressed in colorful dresses with hats. The men wore suits some as old as the owners if not older. Not the best crowd for sure. The passage was none other than Revelation 6:1. The coming of the Four Horsemen.
Might as well have some fun! The world is a stage after all!
I summoned my inner actor and spoke:
“And Lo and Behold that I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”
That got their attention. A few of the older gentlemen even stired a bit. I pressed on ignoring the young vicar’s panicked stare. I raised my hands as if grasping for my audience and continued:
“And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.“
My voiced boomed. I saw that it had desired effect. By now everybody stared at me. I kept reading until I reached the end of the marked passage. My audience lay stunned before me with a few claps here and there. I sat down beside Michael and Michelle. The look on their faces was reward enough.
As the service closed the vicar pulled me aside “That was most enlightening Mr. Mendoza.”
“Oh I just thought that I might liven things up” I said with a wry smile.
“May I ask which denomination you belong to?”
“None at the moment although I was born a Catholic?”
“Are you seeking a new congregation?”
“Not really. I came” I pointed to Michelle “by invitation”.
“Are you interesting in joining us then?” he said in earnest.
I never thought about conversion. One organized religion seemed as crooked as the next. “What are the fringe benefits?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean if I make the switch, what do I get? Do I forgo purgatory and go straight to heaven. Maybe get a chance to marry a child bride and if she doesn’t give me a male heir I can divorce her and have her beheaded? Is there a limit to how many divorces I can get before I win the male heir lottery?”
He knew I had him by the short hairs. “Well no, we don’t condone any of that, I’m afraid”.
“Ok then. Lovely church you have here. Thank you for everything” I left with a wide smile. Cruel, yes, but satisfying none the less. I doubted I would ever come by here again.
That would be the phrase I would use to describe my first month “in country”. Routine or not, there was always a surprise at every corner. None weirder than my meeting with the milkman.
May rolled in June and the clouds did the same. I welcomed the higher temperatures. Since I come from the tropics, I hardly broke a sweat walking to work. Without a car we depended on Mrs. Cravis to drop off the groceries. Milk and eggs came from the diary via milkman. Good thing to, it fed my addiction to coffee and Michael would drink a bottle between the kitchen and the front door.
I had not seen our milkman yet but that would change one Tuesday morning. As I closed the front door I heard a voice behind me: “Good morning Mr. Mendoza.”
I turned around absentmindedly. I started to answer when I saw that he, well…he was a she! Now before anyone jumps to conclusions I think it perfectly acceptable to have women in the workplace, I wasn’t born in the 14th century you know. But she was not just a she. Shewas hot! Not in a Page 3 kind of way, mind you, more like the girl next door without the creepy old man in robes. About a head shorter than me, with light brown hair that spilled out of the back of her baseball cap and soft brown eyes. Her uniform consisted of a white short sleeve shirt with a tag that read Miller over her left breast plus jeans and tennis shoes. The uniform fitted her well in all the right places.
I was stunned, flummoxed, stupefied, slack jawed, speechless and so on and so forth….
I managed to stammered a hello.
She gave me a warm smile in return “Good to meet you at last” she extended her hand “Name Cristina, Cristina Miller”.
Words tumbled out of my mouth as I shook her hand “Antonio Mendoza, but you can call me Anthony”. Not very smooth but it was better than standing there with my keys in my hand looking like a moron.
“Anthony, eh?” she had a slight Northern accent. She moved forward to place the milk cartons on the front step.
I slid out of the way, stumbling at the edge of the walkway. “Yes, I mean everybody calls me Mr. Mendoza but that just makes me feel old”.
“Your not that old, I reckon” she added as she finished placing the cartons. “Well it was very nice to meet you Mr…. I mean Anthony” she said again with a smile.
The tip of my ears burned “Same here. Well I got to go….”
I started down the street when the milk truck pulled up beside me. “Planning to walk all the way there?” Cristina asked.
“Oh yes, do it every day”.
“Need a lift?” her eyes twinkled as she spoke. That or the morning sun was in my eyes.
“Oh sure.”
As we drove up to Quick Derby Cristina asked a few questions “So you’re from Puerto Rico, right?”
“Yes, small town called Carolina. And you?”
“Born here, spent some years in Glasgow but came back after my parents died.”
“So sorry to hear it.”
“It was a long time ago. Well here we are.”
“Oh yeah” I said as we drove into the garage. She stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the offices. I got out of the cabin and turned to say my goodbye. Tried that is. “Well…erm…thank you for the lift, will make sure to leave you a note tomorrow if we need more, you know milk or something. Thanks again”.
“Sure thing. Nice meeting you Anthony. Hope to see you again soon.”
“Same here.”
As the van wheeled around James came by covered in motor oil and grease. “Thats one hot bird that Crissy!”
I only managed a feeble ‘yeah’ in response.
James shrugged and started talking about broken break lines and such. I didn’t know much about anything mechanical but I figured I could take notes. Charles would probably know what to do with that.
As I climbed the stairs to the office I felt the air crackle around me. No surprise then when I saw Patty starring daggers at my direction.
Our perception of time is a funny thing. When we want time to go fast, it seems to slow down before our eyes yet when we want more of it, it seems to slip through our fingers. For example my first week in country crawled from one day to the next and after that it speed up. By the second week I had settled on a routine. The alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. Those 15 minutes were crucial. It allowed me to fight off the effects of sleep and transition from dreamland to reality. Got up and dropped to the floor beside the bed. Did my one hundred push-ups then propped my feet up against the side of the bed, laying with my back on the floor and did another one hundred sit ups. Nothing like exercise to wake you up in the morning. Something to do with the adrenaline. My stomach growled in protest. Of to the kitchen. Toast, the necessary Big Mug of CoffeeTM and back upstairs. A quick hot shower to shake off the effects of the morning chill. Had to make it quick otherwise temptation would drive me to stay under the hot water spray for minutes at a time. Spring was in the air, but it felt like the bloody Arctic to me. My mind knew where I was, but my body had not fully caught up yet. It would take months before my body adjusted. Shirt, pants, socks and coat rested on top of the bed. I always pre-selected my clothes the night before. Once clothed and with work bag in hand I headed out the door.
“Hello neighbor!” cried a voice behind me. I turned to see Sven struggling to get his troop of kids into the car.
“Good morning!” I hailed back. Around me the suburb of Hesingham awoke from it’s slumber. Streets light went out and house lights switch on. Walking afforded a good view of the village. I headed north along Church Street and took a left on High Street. Music played in my ears from my iPod as I made my way northwest past the Town Hall. As usual a group of teenagers hanged around Vickers’ Market. Two of them wore hoodies and always tried to stare me down and they always flinched when I stared back. The idiots didn’t know that I had grown up in tougher streets than these. It was a macho thing that men do. You either stare your opponent down or acknowledge their presence somehow. The third, a tall black kid chain smoking his cigarettes gave me the old urban nod, which I returned. Crossing the threshold I head to the fridge to pick up a bottle of chocolate milk. Some addictions you can’t fight.
“Will that be all Mr. Mendoza?” Mr. Rogers asked from behind the counter in heavy Indian accent and a smile.
I smiled back “Nope, just the usual.”
Mr. Rogers looked toward the door and yelled “Marcus, get in here. I need you to organize the back shelves before you go to school. And tell Sean that I don’t pay him to stand around in front of my store and do nothing.”
Marcus and I crossed paths at the entrance. “Coming Dad! Hey, aren’t you Michael’s brother?”
“Yes?”
“Oh…I thought you would be…different” he replied.
I looked back into the store “Could say the same thing.”
“He is my stepfather, but….”
“Good man?”
“Yeah.”
“Could be worse.”
“Yeah.”
“Marcus!” yelled Mr. Rodgers from inside the store.
“Coming! Gotta go, nice meeting you.”
“Same here.”
Left the convenience store and continued northwest along High Street. Woodstock is a tourist town. Bars and restaurants line High Street catering to those who want to visit Winston Churchill’s birthplace. Sipping my drink one of his famous speeches came to mind:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day…
By quarter to 8 I reached the Quick Derby Deliver Service. Spent a few minutes checking the deliver schedule for the day before heading into my office. Sat down on my desk at around 8:15 a.m. Started by checking email and my favorite news sites. A message from my cousin Enrique popped up. He was handling the sale and/or shipment of my stuff from back home. The promise of a 7 years worth of comic books, porn mags and DVDs went a long way to secure his assistance.
The office staff trickled in around 8:30, with Charles the first to arrive. Ms. Davis came in second and sat down to discuss the daily and weekly schedule. “Sir, you have a meeting with Mr. Dolan on Tuesday and you received an invitation to the attend the monthly Business Circle meeting at the Town Hall.”
“Do I have to?” I joked.
“Mr. Dolan is one of our biggest clients. As for the Business Circle, that is optional, of course.” She said with a smirk.
“Of course. Anything else?”
“I am still waiting to schedule your visit to the dairy, Mr. Mendoza.”
“That will have to wait. I still haven’t gone over all of the financial reports.”
“Very well Sir, I’ll leave a spot open later on this week just in case.”
“Thank you Mrs. Davis. Is that all?”
“Mr. Dayton wanted me to remind you that the meeting with the sales staff is on Wednesday morning at 9.”
“Understood. Thank you Mrs. Davis.”
And so went the rest of the week. Took me most of the week to go over the financials with the company’s accountant plus a few visits to the bank with Mr. McMillan to settle the last details of the thrust. The week ended with a review of current sales figures and ad buys. Before leaving around 6:00 I had short meeting with Charles and walked home. Saturdays where half day only. Just showing my face around the place in case anything interesting happened.
As routines go, not a bad one. But then there are the things that break even the best routines.
Like what happened three weeks later….
“This the third time this month!” I said staring at one of our trucks jammed under an underpass. The old metal frame had missed the cab by a mere inches, but it sliced off the top half of the trailer. Although it was overcast the road bed was dry and the traffic light. I stood there with Charles and James looking at the same image I saw a week ago. Police officers milled around the site of the accident.
I turned to Charles, livid, and pointed at the sign that clearly stated the allotted height of the overpass “Could someone, ANYONE, explain this to me, PLEASE!”
James shrugged and opened his mouth to speak but Charles interrupted him “Its the sat-nav sir”.
“You mean the GPS thing?”
“Yes. To be honest, sir, it doesn’t work”.
Looking at the mangle mess in front of me I said “Oh really!”
I would have to deal with that later “Get another truck, I mean lorry, and transfer this one load to it. We still need to make the delivery, hopefully sometime today. Jimmie lets get back to the office”.
I turned around and found myself face to face with a police officer. “Are you in charge?”
“Yes officer” and with that he handed me piece of paper. “Good day” he said walking away. It was a traffic ticket, and it had one to many zeroes on it.
Other things that make your day interesting is when one of your employees decides to make a pass at you. Patricia Wilson , everybody called her Patty, was that employee. Can’t say she is unattractive, far from it. Middling height, raven black hair, crystal blue eyes and a deep plunging cleavage which she never failed to displayed in full. If you got, flaunt it, I guess. Now I don’t mind such things, but I do hate to be ambushed as she did last Friday. Just as I entered my office she popped up. And for Patty, that is saying something.
“Good Morning Mr. Mendoza!” Patty said in that silky smooth tone that she reserved for the boss.
“Morning Ms. Wilson” I said.
She answered by closing the door on my secretary’s face. She then approached me with the skill of a lioness hunting a gazelle. How to throw her of my scent? I like assertive women, but I knew what she wanted and that was a big turn off. Of course my anatomy works like all any other male member of the species. That is, endowed with two heads but with just enough blood for one. If it pooled in my pants I was a goner.
“Ms. Wilson I am rather busy at the moment, anything I can do for you?”
She turned her head, her black hair cascading over her shoulder, the smell of her perfume stabbing my nose “Oh I just wanted to see how you where settling in”. She position herself so that my eyes rested on her ample forward expanse “Have you found everything to your liking”.
“Oh yes. Everything is just dandy.”
Lame
“Adjusting to a new place, a new country really must be hard”.
“I can’t complain, everyone has been very nice to me.”
Lamer
“We English are a warm and welcoming people.”
Warm, sure felt like it. If this were a porn flick, the music would change to a rapid beat right about now.
Down boy!
“So I seen, I mean heard. Is there anything in particular you need Ms. Wilson.”
Lamest!
She purred as she spoke “Oh nothing much really, just wanted to see if how you where settling in. Seeing as we do things a bit different here, or at least different from where you come from, you may need some help getting around and such.”
I had to come up with something fast. The best defense is a good offense. So… “I heard that the people in the office like to go down to the local pub. What is it called? The Dog & Whistle?”
Apparently the idea of the company’s President spending his nights at the local watering hole was not what she was looking for “Yes, I think so”.
Injecting as bland a tone as possible I pressed on “Excellent! I’ll have to check the place out. Maybe I’ll see you there Saturday?”
“Sure Mr. Mendoza, well I do have to go back to my station.”
Ever the gentleman I opened the door as she retreated from my office. Mrs. Davis gave Patty’s a withering glance as she sped past her desk. Her whisper carried well across the room “That cheeky tart!”
I looked at her. She had the broad figure of a middle aged woman that have lived a full life and had more than one child under her care. I leaned close and with a knowing smile said “Now Mrs. Davis, that is no way to talk about your co-workers” she was taken aback by this so I continued “even if your 100% correct”.
Her laugh shook the entire place to it’s foundations.
