Who are ya? Who are ya?
When writing a novel, the biggest sin in respect of characterisation is to be inconsistent.
A character must be consistent at all costs, it must follow the rules, it must stay within the confines the author has already built. To do otherwise is unrealistic.
And yet, in life, people are entirely inconsistent. They are contradictory. They are rebellious and irrational and needlessly petty. They are selfish one minute, generous the next. Grumpy and happy, almost in the same breath. Sullen and gregarious, often at the same party. They turn on a knife edge. And when I say “they” I probably mean “me.”
How would I fare as a character in a book?
My wife would say that I have a remarkable memory, but that I’m also forgetful. “I don’t care what the capital city of Bhutan is…you forgot to put the bins out. Again!”
I can be perceptive and well-meaning, but entirely clueless and insensitive in the same sentence. “So, do you miss your boyfriend since he ran off with your sister?”
Someone once described me as being highbrow, perhaps because I like going to the theatre and reading books, but he didn’t know that I still find the word “boobies” absolutely hilarious.
Take this recent interaction with my daughter’s friend, aged 7.
“And what does your daddy do?”
“He mainly just plays with mummy’s boobies.”
After I had stopped snickering I said, “my response to that sentence has just highlighted the difference between my projected self and my actual self. You see, my projected self, the image that I try to present to the world, is intellectual and bright but also caring and concerned. It rises above the petty and the mundane, the vulgar and the smutty. But my actual self, the one that I try to keep covered up is infantile and childish, self-important and selfish. Perhaps that’s the secret of my recurring inconsistency…”
But the little girl wasn’t listening anymore, she was trying to finish her word search.
A friend of mine, also a novelist, once said to me: “just because something happened, it doesn’t mean it’s realistic.”
How true. Or is it?
A character must be consistent at all costs, it must follow the rules, it must stay within the confines the author has already built. To do otherwise is unrealistic.
And yet, in life, people are entirely inconsistent. They are contradictory. They are rebellious and irrational and needlessly petty. They are selfish one minute, generous the next. Grumpy and happy, almost in the same breath. Sullen and gregarious, often at the same party. They turn on a knife edge. And when I say “they” I probably mean “me.”
How would I fare as a character in a book?
My wife would say that I have a remarkable memory, but that I’m also forgetful. “I don’t care what the capital city of Bhutan is…you forgot to put the bins out. Again!”
I can be perceptive and well-meaning, but entirely clueless and insensitive in the same sentence. “So, do you miss your boyfriend since he ran off with your sister?”
Someone once described me as being highbrow, perhaps because I like going to the theatre and reading books, but he didn’t know that I still find the word “boobies” absolutely hilarious.
Take this recent interaction with my daughter’s friend, aged 7.
“And what does your daddy do?”
“He mainly just plays with mummy’s boobies.”
After I had stopped snickering I said, “my response to that sentence has just highlighted the difference between my projected self and my actual self. You see, my projected self, the image that I try to present to the world, is intellectual and bright but also caring and concerned. It rises above the petty and the mundane, the vulgar and the smutty. But my actual self, the one that I try to keep covered up is infantile and childish, self-important and selfish. Perhaps that’s the secret of my recurring inconsistency…”
But the little girl wasn’t listening anymore, she was trying to finish her word search.
A friend of mine, also a novelist, once said to me: “just because something happened, it doesn’t mean it’s realistic.”
How true. Or is it?
No comments have been added yet.
