Character-istics

I’m supposed to be paying attention to character development this summer.  It’s my role in the 100 Days Project.  But sometimes I can’t help but tell stories.  I’ve been called on it once, to my chagrin.  And not once, to my recall out of 38 people, have I mentioned anything about hair or eye color.  Some sketch artist I am!  In trying to be subtle and let the characters introduce through action and dialogue, I am slipping out of my obligation and falling into story mode.  Show don’t tell is such an overdone bird; but how else does one show but through telling?

The intro to a character so compelling his story lasted 20 pages and won high honors at Trinity:

The closet was warm, but not black enough.  He could never get it black enough or quiet enough.  He pulled down a pair of lined woolen pants, and with his small fingers used them to caulk up the gap under the door where the sunlight sneaked in.  That was better.  Now it was stifling in the closet, yet he shivered.  Beads of perspiration sprang up on his lips, nose, temples.  He took a sweater and wrapped it up tightly around his head, bunching his fine blonde hair to one side.  Almost black enough, but it was difficult to breathe.  He could remember when he did not have to breathe, did not need to pull the coarse, death-tasting air into himself.  That was the problem:  he could remember those things.

The beginning of Joshua is what I would consider the opposite of what I’ve been trying to do this summer.  With each day’s character, I’ve been taking a situation, thread, or thought from one of Steve’s stories, and applying it to a person.  Sometimes they’ve been rightthere, so quick to jump to the fore that it was all I could do to type fast enough.  Sometimes they frankly shocked the crap out of me.  One moment I was in the middle of writing about a stupid, winsome girl, (#26), and the next thing I know she’s a conniving witch out to snag some poor dope into preggering her.  I did not know that would happen.  I did not know her very well at all.

And thus I think I come to one of the dilemmas of a lengthy, exercise-style project such as this:  how can one find the depth and quality of “good” writing when there isn’t a lot of time to do it in?  I don’t want to become formulaic; that smells of laziness and noncommitment.  I don’t want to just call in a character to fulfill my slot for the day, though a few times I’ve come close because the obvious path was just so well lit.  It’s a temptation to become complacent and congratulatory when my stuff is done and others are yet to be heard from.   But what does that earn me?

My difficulty remains to find a way into someone’s thoughts, moods, and desires.  Joshua consumed me because he was my answer to a puzzle:  what would someone be like who was born with all the knowledge of the universe?  I don’t know why he’s a boy and not a girl.  (Funny, my first response to most of the project stories has been a  female character.)  I don’t know why Joshua’s so young, either.  He was given to me that way, just as his doctor came on board with red hair and green hi-top sneakers.  My dailies are not so clearly drawn.  Some of them, as I look down my index card of 100 slots filling up with names, are totally forgettable–or forgotten.  Who was that one?  I need to go and check.  Joshua, on the other hand, still sits beside me with his messy blond bangs and old, old eyes.

I need more quiet time.