Opposing Force

One thing you will learn about me if you read this blog for any length of time is that I'm a voracious, rapacious reader.  Sometimes (who am I kidding, all the time), I read several books at once.

Don't ask me if I remember what I read.  Alas, only splinters of outstanding, excellent information remain.  There are some books that require re-reading (Story by McKee is one that comes to mind) and some that quickly start gathering dust.

The one I'm reading now (in addition to three others) is 20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them) by Ronald B. Tobias.  For those with a love of plotting story, this is a must-have.

Here's a thought for the day from Tobias:

Writing a story without presenting a meaningful opposing force is propaganda.

Think on that for a while if you can.  This is an important and deep thought that will benefit almost any writer.

It is also the reason for the downfall of such movies as Lions for Lambs and many politically-motivated movies.  Forcing one's characters into a stereotypical response or characterization is foolhardy storytelling.

Tobias continues:

As a writer you have your point of view—your prejudices, if you will.  Let's say you were a battered wife for twelve years, the victim of a controlling and abusive husband.  When you go to write about it, the story unfolds as it happened:

He storms in from work at night, throws his jacket down on the sofa and demands, “What's for dinner?”

“I made you a lovely duck a l'orange, dear.”  The table is set with their best china and crystal; the candles are lit.  She's obviously gone to a lot of trouble for him.

“Duck!  You know I hate duck.  Can't you ever do anything right?  Make me a sandwich.”

A tear collects in the corner of her eye, but she accepts his abuse stoically.  “What kind of sandwich?”

“I don't care,” he says abruptly.  “And get me a beer.”

He turns on the television and is gone.

Enough.

I don't have to go on.  You know the score and you know the story.  The characters are already defined as types.  She is the silent-suffering, kind-hearted, devoted wife; he is the loud, obnoxious, cruel husband.  You can't wait for him to get his comeuppance.  You hope he suffers.

But this is propaganda.

Propaganda?

The author's point of view here is obvious and one-sided.  I've sided with the wife and exaggerated her just as I've exaggerated the husband beyond belief.  They're types. “Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “begin with a type and you find that you have created—nothing.”  The author is trying to settle a personal score.  The fiction may be therapeutic and help the writer work out hostility, but that's not the purpose of fiction if you intend to show it to someone else.  The purpose of fiction is to tell a story, not to get even or to work out your own personal problems.

You can always tell propaganda because the writer has a cause.  The writer is on a soapbox lecturing, telling us who is good and who is bad and what is right and what is wrong.  Lord knows we get lectured enough in the real world; we don't read or go to the movies so someone else can lecture to use some more.  If you use your characters to say what you want them to say, you're writing propaganda.  If you characters say what they want to say, you're writing fiction.  Isaac Bashevis Singer claimed characters had their own lives and their own logic, and that the writer had to act accordingly.  You manipulate the characters in the sense that you make them conform to the basic requirements of your plot.  You don't let them run roughshod over you.  In a sense, you build a corral for your characters to run around in.  The fence keeps them confined to the limitations of the plot.  But where they run inside the corral is a function of each character's freedom to be what or who he/she wants within the confines of the plot itself.

Jorge Luis Borges said it best: “Many of my characters are fools and they're always playing tricks on me and treating me badly.”

More of a slave than a god.

How, then, do you  avoid writing propaganda?  First start with your attitude.  If you have a score to settle or a point to make, or if you're intent on making the world see things your way, go write an essay.  If you're interested in telling a story, a story that grabs us and fascinates us, a story that captivates the paradoxes of living in this upside-down world, write fiction.

Start with a premise, not a conclusion.  Start with a situation.