Character Arc: Vork's Turning Point Catalyst

In my mind (I'm being a little arbitrary here), there are three main elements to a good turning point for a character.

1. The turning point needs to have motive.
2. It needs to be a logical extension of the character.
3. It needs to come at the last possible instant, when the character is forced from within to make the change.

Also, when you are dealing with a story with multiple characters, it is really great when the turning points harmonize, coming at different places within the narrative, but not in a predictable rhythm, and certainly not all at once. When character arcs rise and fall, seemingly independently of one another, the story can gain strength and depth. Kind of like a choir.

There have been times when I've thought something was written poorly, but it had nothing to do with style, grammar or emotional depth: it had to do with badly timed, poorly placed or unmotivated turning points.

A good example of harmonic turning points can be seen in the scriptwriting for The Guild. (ahem, you have watched the Guild, right?)

Six characters with diverse goals and objectives converge under extraordinary circumstances, and in harmony, build both to the climax of the story and to their own individual turning points.

Take Vork/Herman, played by Jeff Lewis. Vork is a man living in the shadow of society, subsisting off the social security checks of his deceased grandfather. He is thrifty, cautious, and, aside from his online persona (and recognized leader of the Guild), almost totally anti-social. If he ever goes out, which is rare, he sneaks his own beverages into restaurants. Yeah, he's that guy.

He encloses himself in obscurity at home, sealing himself from outside contact even though the people with which he associates online all live within a half hour of his house. He's a hermit, and likes it that way. The first conflict for this character arises when he's asked to venture outside.

His tipping point comes early in the storyline, in episode 3. When Codex/Cyd asks her online friends to meet in the real world for the first time, Vork's resistance to such a thing (which has already been well-established in the subtext of his character) is vocalized. Even after he exhausts his logic-based excuses for not meeting, he resorts to his base emotion:

"...and also, I don't wanna."

His turning point comes shortly thereafter, when Codex insists that it is critical to the group.

Vork's turning point occurs at about the 3:00 mark, and resolves by 3:12:

The moment of transition from hermit to face-to-face meeter passes briefly (A well-placed turning point is often subtle, and usually even more subtle with supporting characters.) but it is significant. Vork agrees to venture out.

Why does it work?

1. The motive for his change is laid early on. Vork is online leader, he's well organized, and, although he has secured his isolation by unscrupulously living off of government checks for the deceased, he was a dutiful grandson, caring for his grandfather while he lived. Herman/Vork has a sense of duty and thrift, organization and an aspiration to lead, all of which lead him to isolation...but also to his willingness to break from isolation. In other words, the conflict stems from "two divergent choices which stem from the same motive." His leadership of the online group provides justification for his hermitage, but also impetus for him to venture out.
2. It is telling that his decision is clinched by Codex's appeal to his acumen for organization. Vork has a choice of two risks, not one. If he follows his nature and doesn't meet face-to-face, he risks the online group. If the offline group falls apart, so does The Guild. More than that, by not meeting, he risks his control. Doing the thing he does not want -- socializing -- is the most certain way of ensuring that he doesn't lose what is most important to him: his (online) friends.
3. The consequences of not meeting will be immediate: Codex is at her wits' end, Zaboo is at a fever pitch, Bladezz has betrayed the Guild. The threat to the group is at the gates, and Vork must make the choice. Had it come any earlier, it would have lacked tension, any later, and it would have been too late to alter the course of events.

Also, and I think this is a key: even though all the characters are persuaded to meet face-to-face in this scene, it is only a turning point for Vork. A resistance to meeting is shared by almost all, but is only a bugbear for one.

If I get the chance, I'm going to look at another Guild character's turning point to contrast the two, and see if I can break the harmony down at the writing level.

In any case, good writers for the screen, stage or print know how to place a character's turning point in the right position.

Character Arc: Elmer Gantry

Before I saw the film, I'd always assumed that Elmer Gantry* followed the predictable stereotype of the religious huckster who demonstrated the ignorance of rural American Christianity (and, by association, all Christianity). In fact, most critics of Christian faith point to the character of Elmer Gantry when attempting to illustrate the hypocritical gap between faith and practice.

But that doesn't explain one of the most surprising and unapologetic character developments in film history, when Gantry, the womanizing huckster, the poser pastor, sets foot in a congregation that he has no intention of steering wrong, or steering at all.



This isn't a turning point for Gantry, but a character development that allows for a fully-realized, complex and, yes, sympathetic character to supercede any 2-dimensional stereotype that might be more comfortable to mock.

So, the next time you hear of a preacher being compared to Elmer Gantry, its probably a good idea to ask, "In what way?"

See also The Apostle with Robert Duvall.

*Note that I'm not talking about the book Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis. That one lives up to its anti-religious reputation with flying colors.** But, in this case, the film is a much more satisfying experience, even at the secular level.

**Often at the expense of the quality of the story. Lewis' internal tangents commit a sin far, far worse than violating religious decorum, they tell without showing, they tip his hand, and they take huge emotional shortcuts.

Rejection is Good

I rarely repeat myself, but I'm going to here:

I don't look at the fiction submission process as an interview where I am the candidate. I think of it as an editor search. An agent/editor is a book's first consumer. Write the right book and find the right first consumer and they'll be best positioned to match the book with a like-minded audience. A query letter isn't a "please love me" note - it is a ruthless way of culling out all the wrong people who aren't a good match for your stuff.

So, getting a lot of rejections doesn't mean you are a lousy writer, it means you are cutthroat and specific. You know what you are looking for, and you have the pile of rejected editors and agents to show for it.

Quick "no's" are critical. It's what the potential readers do all the time.

Agents/editors aren't evaluating you, you are evaluating them. You've got to rip through as many of them as you can in order to unearth the right one. Rejections are good.

Quick rejections are better.

Shut Up and Write You Stupid Writers

Okay, maybe the post title is my own creation, but the inspiration is all Mike Duran.

Now, my posterior is far wide enough to sit comfortably on both sides of the fence on just about any issue, which, according to one of Martin Luther's Lectures on Genesis*, makes me a drunk.

*I think. Don't quote my source, as my memory is addled.

Decanal Adjectives of Majestic Authority

These days, adjectives (and their even more despised kin, adverbs) are as unwelcome as a barnacle on a beauty queen.

Some of this has to do with the prejudice of an increasingly ignorant readership. That's right, I said it again: humans are stupider about words than they used to be. [Way smarter about pictures, though, but don't tell them I said so.]

Some of this has to do with the prejudice of an increasingly prickly batch of publishers who have seen far more adjective abuse than any creature ever should.

Adjectives are easy to strike. Their presence doesn't technically change the objective meaning of a sentence.

But they shouldn't be carelessly expelled. Wouldn't it be great if writers could still get away with absolutely brilliant prose like:

It was truly an awful moment; with terror in that ancient and accursed house itself, four monstrous sets of fragments-two from the house and two from the well-in the woodshed behind, and that shaft of unknown and unholy iridescence from the slimy depths in front.

~H.P. Lovecraft - The Colour Out of Space

I say bury 'em in adjectives. It'll at least give the copy editor something to do.

The Omega Point in Science Fiction

The Omega Point* is a significant spiritual concept that pervades (unnoticed, for the most part) in our culture, many religions, some scientific circles and most definitely in a lot of great science fiction.

I think the best example of the Omega Point in literature can be found in Isaac Asimov's classic tale, The Last Question. It isn't a long read: if you've got a minute, go there.

As charming and well written as many of the Omega Point-type stories are, they also all contain a persistent and strange combination of naivete and dystopia. Although the godlike evolution of mankind is presented as a wonderful and expansive rise in our history, why are my favorite characters in The Last Question the two drunk scientists who are most closely identified with "modern" (i.e. "no further evolved than the present") people? Why does the near-godhood that mankind develops over billions of years seem not just alien, but neuter, bland, and without identity?

On the one hand, the story would have us believe that advancement on the evolutionary scale is a net good, racing against the universe's immenent doom. But when I read it, I become less and less emotionally attached to the characters who eventually become pawnlike subjects of the "Mind"/"Computer"/Omega Point. I think it would be just nifty if they all blew up. Which they do.

No one resists the Multivac or its descendants? No one thinks independently of the enormous, world-saving device?

The Omega Point holds a lot of science fiction writers in thrall, but its weaknesses seem to have caught up with it. Although it has been the source of some great stories in the past, the theory has run out of literary gas. There's a reason why Piltdown Man doesn't show up in science fiction today at all, whereas in another era, the fellow appeared in all sorts of weird tales, even some classics. Piltdown Man was a fascinating concept exposed over time to be unreliable. The same is true for the hope of verifiable, historical, and real Omega Point.

*I'm speaking hear of the concept advanced by Pierre Tielhard de Chardin - that mankind (and all matter, really) is evolving to a point of supreme complexity, by which all things will merge to a supreme collective consciousness, or Omega Point. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Omega Point pre-exists the Big Bang, and is also an idealized evolutionary state in the future. One of the basic assumptions is that man is improving exponentially over time, physically, technologically and even ethically.** There are applications of the term "Omega Point" in other fields that are unrelated to the spiritual concept of the same name.

**Which doesn't exactly account for the Khmer Rouge, but that is another subject for another day.

Rachel Marks Revises Start of The Willow Door

Rachel Marks has a revised first chapter of her work in progress, The Willow Door. I think writers who post unfinished "WIPs" are crazy, but that is because I revise my work ten thousand times and then bury it under an unmarked rock in hopes that it improves, before ever submitting it.

Of course, because the rock is unmarked, I can never find the story again.

Hm. Perhaps she's on to something after all.

Give her a little feedback 'ere.

Character Creation: A Man in Third Heaven

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.

Paul writes this to the Corinthians, almost as an aside.

"Oh, by the way, I know this guy who went to heaven. So, how's life going? Did you see the big game?"

This is a great example of introducing the supernatural to a story. Paul isn't writing fiction, but relaying a history, of course, but the principle he employs applies to storytelling.

Heaven is separate, real, experiential and unique, and Paul nails all four qualities in a short passage. Third heaven is a state wherein the witness was "caught up" (separate), either in the body or out of it (real), heard things too sacred for words (experiential), and whose experience was worthy of boasting (unique.)

Readers of the supernatural who have no real interest in spiritual things will be drawn to the realness and the experience, but have little thirst for separateness or uniqueness. Both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman are masters of the first two qualities. Their strange gods/heroes will have dirt under their nails, and can navigate a fistfight or a brothel with all too humen acumen. They have little use for separateness, for a uniqueness that might be considered pure or holy.

On the other hand, writers like Peretti have a hammer lock on the more subtle qualities. They get separateness. The understand uniqueness. Their strange gods/heroes may lack in a physical reality, but they are endowed with a special sort of clarity - a defined, clean isolation that should be unique to mythic figures.

Then, you've got the rare few who are able to bring forth all four effects into one good character. When a writer can do this, he (or she, although, I've got to admit, all you humans look the same to me) has achieved a glorious thing.

Shelley does it with Frankenstein's monster. C.S. Lewis accomplishes it several times, as does O'Connor (Lewis' best example can be found in the Unman Weston in Perelandra, and I'll just take a stab at O'Connor's iconic Misfit). Lee does it in Demon: A Memoir with Lucian and his ilk. Rice strangely achieves this in Interview with A Vampire and then "over-realizes" Lestat in the Vampire Lestat. Stoker does it with Count Dracula in the abstract.

Somehow, all four cylinders have to hit in rhythm. St. Paul does it here with ease. I haven't done it yet.

A Writer's Plague: E.E. Knight's Formula for Madness

First three sentences.

That sounds about right.

Really Real Writing Advice that the Scientologists Don't Want You to Know

Stephen Granade gets to the brass tacks about the writing life.

Then proceeds to drive them into the flesh with a nuclear-powered hammer (the Sarcasto-8000, if I'm not mistaken.)*

I love the Live Granades. They are random AND purposeful, in a sort of straight-shootin' aimless way.

*Of course, it also gives my top-secret writing disinformation campaign an air of legitimacy that it lacked before.

Secular versus Christian, or Apples versus Oranges: Smackdown

The invaluable Lost Genre Guild has a post up about the monolithic acronymns in Christ-centered bookselling: the ABA, the CBA and the ECPA. In Secular vs. Christian? Sue Dent and Cynthia MacKinnon try to expose the breadth of publishing options open to Christian writers of the strange.

I seem to recall a journal posting by Ted Dekker about the emerging culture and how the line between secular and Christian is arbitrary. Christians both engage and contribute to the culture, or at least they should. Can one understand the culture without falling into sin? Can one address the culture without cloistering?

Yes. If you can let go of rumor and assumption and embrace Christ alone, you can.

Tosca Lee Chernobyls Her Underwood

Just to finish off the invasion of words that Tosca Lee launched on her editors (previous posts here and here):

Her first run-through hit 160,000+. Considering the target was 100,000, I'm thinking that she met her mark. Then punched it in the face. Then kicked it when it was down and rolled it off a cliff.

Poor mark.

Sorry for all the violence, but I've never been one to tack toward the Isle of Appropriate Social Conduct.*

In case you didn't know.

* This also applies to my disgusting disregard for the victims of bureaucratic failure and improper oversight in the old Soviet Union from whom I carelessly appropriated for my title. Also, I lied about Lee and her Underwood. At least, I think I lied. I don't actually know how she first writes her words, but the two things I'm pretty sure she doesn't use are a clay tablet or a manual typewriter. But a clay tablet would be cool. Especially if that's how she wrote Demon: A Memoir.

Tosca Lee Kicks Asterisks

Ugh, in her latest post, world renowned-author Tosca Lee notes that she's hit 131,000 words in the new novel she's working on. This is a big number, especially to me, who tends to think of long-form fiction as anything that doesn't fit in one of my stupid asterisked* comments.

I've mentioned it before, but none of my major publications have ever cracked the 100-word limit. In one of them, I lost the plot twice before the 50-word mark. So, yeah, to have cranked through, oh, 1,310 times as many words and to complain about not being quite finished is a little like Edmund Hilary summiting Everest and complaining that it doesn't go up any more.

By the way, if you haven't read Lee's Demon: A Memoir yet, you probably should. But only if you don't want me uprooting you like the witless stripling that you are and picking my crooked teeth with the remains.

*My asterisk comments are brief, is what that means.