Anatomy of a Bad Man

 “You gonna cut down a tree that size, you better be sure you bring a very big saw.” 

 He tips his head to one side and pins the camera with an emotionless stare, eyes like a cobra's fixed on a bunny. His voice? Pitch perfect, mellow as butterscotch schnapps. He has the smooth inflection of a Baptist preacher, utterly mesmerizing. A cruel mouth and a chilling intensity running just beneath the surface of his cool.

I give you Boyd Crowder. Whether he’s preaching the Good News or elbow deep in his latest massacre, we love him.

           

 

Who watches “Justified”? If you don’t, and you have even the teeniest creative bone in your body, I urge you to tune in. Just for Boyd. Here is a bad man the likes of which we haven’t seen since Bruce Dern gunned down John Wayne in front of God and everyone on the Sunday night movies. Except we hated Bruce. It was clear that we should – after all, he was The Bad Man.

            Boyd Crowder smudges those lines, and as a writer I find this feat most intriguing - not to mention well nigh impossible. Boyd came to us, of course, through the impeccable writing skills of the late Elmore Leonard, and has only been enhanced by the talents of Walton Goggins, who brings him to life on the screen - six feet of rangy height and hair-on-end.  Is that insanity in those cold eyes? Most likely.

            What’s to like? It may just be the voice. I am a sucker for a beautiful accent, and Boyd’s lovely southern tenor is to die for. But I think it’s more than that. The writers have taken great care to keep us, the viewers, invested in the life of this character. This is to say that they have gone to a good deal of trouble to make him a full-fledged, three-dimensional human being.

            Nobody did that for Bruce Dern, and I’m sure it makes all the difference.

             We have trailed Boyd now through four seasons, marking his progression from white supremacist to Born Again and finally to all out bad-ass. We’ve watched him gain and lose fortunes, find and discard religion and maybe even fall in love. Through it all, we have come to know him - and yes, even to like him – and I have come to believe that a shared humanity is the best possible feature a writer can bestow upon a bad man. The lesson, I think, is to make The Bad Man a Real Person. And real people suffer all sorts of real woes, from financial ruin to failed love; these tragedies allow us to bond with The Bad Man and even to sympathize with him.

            Not to mention, of course, if you make your Bad Man as cool as Boyd, everybody across the board is going to love him.

Even if he is rotten to the core.

~*~*~

Related Post and Video:  Tips on Character Development (video featuring clips from "To Kill a Mockingbird")

November Tool Kit

January - at least in Illinois - requires a kit. Snow shovel, extra blankets, Carhartts. August is all about sun screen. Flip-flops and margaritas. April is umbrellas and rubber boots.

            But November, as far as I know, is the only month that requires a mental tool kit. From the dawn of the first gray day (with your optimism already circling and gasping like a goldfish in the toilet bowl) to the final death rales just after Thanksgiving, this month is a struggle.

            A lot of it has to do with sunshine. Which there tends to be less of when daylight savings time kicks in at the beginning of the month. There’s not much good to be said about living in the dark, but, well – shadows are good for hiding. Once my youngest leaped out at me from behind the oak as I came down the sidewalk after work. I splattered twelve ounces of pumpkin latte down my front and we laughed like loons for half an hour. 

            So, tool number one, and most important – laughter. Don’t lose it in the dark.

            Faith, people, faith. Play “Here Comes the Sun” on your iPod and try to believe it. Do not for any reason play “Bookends”. Simon and Garfunkel injected a downer into their harmony that seeps beneath your skin and lays there like a bruise for days. I’m sure there’s a warning label somewhere on the album cover.   

            Search out good winter fruits. Pomegranates are phenomenal! Which, okay, I know sounds absolutely overboard, but have you ever had one? Juicy and crunchy all at once, and what a gorgeous color, never mind the red stain beneath your fingernails. In salads, in desserts, or just out-of-hand, these are sweet and wonderful, and the best thing about them is that they don’t become available, at least around here, until several weeks into the fall. Welcome November!

            Oh wait, did I say that?

            Early evenings are made for reading. Go ahead and be greedy about it – it’s not like you can do yard work! This time of year is awesome for disappearing into a good Victorian mystery – the fog, gas lamps, horse drawn hearses, all so fitting. I can almost feel Jack the Ripper lurking in the shadows, and while there’s nothing uplifting about that, it makes for a great diversion.

            So – laughter, faith, winter fruit and a good book. I think we can make it now. Let me leave you with these lyrics from Kimya Dawson, which I try to keep at the front of my mind on the really gray days. 

When I go for a drive I like to pull off to the side
Of the road, turn out the lights, get out and look up at the sky
And I do this to remind me that I'm really, really tiny
In the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me

But it's only really scary cause it makes me feel serene
In a way I never thought I'd be because I've never been
So grounded, and so humbled, and so one with everything
I am grounded, I am humbled, I am one with everything

 

 

            Oh, do look this up! There is much more to it, and the tune is as fun as the lyrics.

            Happy November!

"Sniffing the Flowers" : Writer’s Guide to Stress Management

Writing a book, I’ve discovered, is only the proverbial tip of the ice burg. Creating the story, the setting, the characters who live in your heart as surely as your own children do – all fluff compared to what follows. The search for a publisher (and yay, I found the most wonderful man in the world, Lyle Perez, and the awesome Rainstorm Press) the creation of a blog, a facebook page, a presence on Linkd, Twitter and oh dear, who else . . . all become a prominent fixation on your day-to-day horizon.

            Which brings me to the meat of this post, and what is likely to be a most unpopular approach to ultimately keeping your sanity. Here it is: take a breath. As when you’re doing yoga and you realize your chest is about to burst. Breathe. Understand that you are enmeshed in what is perhaps the loneliest and most self-serving profession known to man, and so, you are in danger of becoming isolated from, well, life. The very thing you are writing about.

            Steinbeck took Charley travelling for a reason.

            I have two very different jobs, and yet I’ve discovered parallels in the way that each encroaches on my existence, nearly to the obliteration of all else. A neighbor’s house fire, or an infant’s imminent birth can yank me from my home life at any time. Sounds horrible, but the truth is, I love this. I live for it. And my characters (who are lately crying for promotion) have the same demanding shrill as the pager; sometimes I can’t sleep for the noise in my head. I have to respond, and if you are a writer reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

            In my EMT world, we say, “Breathe. Smell the flowers and blow out the candles.” Another lovely parallel because it applies to both of my professions. Candles and flowers are all about the passage of time, and taking notice of them means just that. Don’t let life run away from you – children grown, tasks abandoned, leaves turned to gold – without noticing its passage. Take time to recharge, and while you’re doing so, look around you and realize how beautiful everything is.

            Fuel for the next book.

"Words Like Dandelions" : Breaking the Author’s Rulebook

           This week is devoted to new beginnings. Not only because it’s spring – blooming time, reaching time - but also because I have worn myself out with novel revisions and am ready to chuck aside the old in favor of tabula rasa, the clean slate. “Maypops in September” is my second novel, sequel to “Sugar Man’s Daughter” and ever-present thorn in my pride. Today, I am launching my third run at a cohesive manuscript, and am feeling thoroughly pig-headed about seeing it through. It will flow!

Copyright Karen Ahuja

To that end, I am reading James Lee Burke in my spare time.

And when I finish with him, I think I’ll go back to Steinbeck, and perhaps Harper Lee.

Here is why: when you study writing, you will very early on be bombarded with rules. “Never open a book with weather.” “Limit use of adverbs and adjectives.” “Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.” “Remain in one point of view.”  Etc, etc, etc. Paralyzing, you think? Ah yes, how on earth to write within these limitations?

            The answer, of course, is that you can’t. (Incidentally, another no-no is the word “that”!)  
Relax, kick back for a bit and read the masters.

            “Grapes of Wrath” opens, I’m afraid, with a very lengthy and detailed description of corn crops dying. Oh dear, the very first sentence – “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma , the last rains came gently.” Sounds rather  . . . well, a-hem, weather-related. And exactly whose point of view are we in? Did he just use a pesky “ly” word?

            Who could forget Harper Lee’s lovely opening, “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired town when I knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . .”? Uh-oh, rain again. Sigh. And truly, such over-use of descriptive words! “Old, tired, rainy, red”! Could she not have found a more subtle approach?

            I hold James Lee Burke in the same high esteem as the aforementioned, and I don’t think I’m alone in doing so. But in diving into his “Glass Rainbow” (a sensation, incidentally, akin to leaping into a cool, deep pond mid August - which is to say, an utter release of tension) the reader is immediately confronted with several sentences which are roughly the size of any normal paragraph. Run-ons, you say? Likely, but aren’t they beautiful? Do they not enhance the reading experience?

            And isn’t that what this is all about? I say, write the way you long to write. Pick your words with the abandon of a toddler in a dandelion field, and inhale their sweetness. Wring all that you can from them. We are writers, after all. Words are our currency; we should use them as such.

            Okay, enough said, lol! Here is the new revised opening to “Maypops in September.” I have begun with yet another taboo - a prologue, gasp! - and peppered it, I hope, with enough descriptive words to stupefy even the most seasoned critic.

  Prologue 

Benny Jones woke to the sound of rain, and the slow awareness of blood pooling in her mouth - a raw, salty taste, and there was far too much of it. She fought the strangle of airbag over her face, whimpering when her fingers encountered the slick gushing beneath her nose, and at last finding the seatbelt release. The thud of her body against the jeep roof made a sound like a sandbag slapping mud, and for a time she lay still, absorbing the blow and allowing the blood passage through slack lips.

Gasoline fumes, at first subtle, finally drove intrusive fingers down the back of her throat; she belly-crawled through the driver’s side window and onto the bridge, not noticing the bite of broken glass in her elbows. The night vibrated with the discharge of wind and water, lightning quick as strobes bursting blue over the swollen creek.

Rafe Giancoli was shrimped in the mud on the far side of the bridge with his chin tucked to his chest; Benny approached him, toes en pointe and breath trapped in her chest. His eyes were asymmetrical, the left lid drooping at half mast, and a lacy pink froth trembled on his lips before the rain washed it sideways; his breathing was ragged and moist.

            A turquoise bead bobbed in the puddle next to his head, and Benny hunkered down to reach for it, rolling it absently in her palm. Rafe had been beating her when he lost control in the back-road potholes. Big hand at the back of her neck, up beneath her cornrows, driving her face into the dash so that her nose popped.

            Benny stood slowly, pocketing the bead and sucking her bloody lip while her eyes rested on the dark swell of wet road going into town. At last she crouched again, fixed her hands in Rafe’s armpits, and tugged experimentally.

            His heels dragged, carving furrows in the mud, but overall the disposal was so much easier than it should have been; the black water swallowed him with barely a resulting ripple.

"As Imagination Bodies Forth" : Tips On Character Development

Copyright Quin Sweetman

         

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

- William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Characters are the life blood of any novel, even the more action-oriented tale, and I have always felt as though they should be treated as such. With that in mind, and without further ado, I offer you a few classic tips – with, perhaps, a small Lucy twist – on bringing these folks to life.

1. You have to know who they are. Of course. More than that, you should love them, even the bad guys. But I’m jumping ahead – let’s start with Love Your Protagonist. Ladies, if it’s a “he”, you need to give him that something that makes your heart trip a little faster. Now, this isn’t to say that he has to be hunk of the universe – in fact all the better if he isn’t (unless you’re shooting for fantasy!) But he does need to possess qualities that you, as the author, find appealing. Maybe this means a dimple in his chin, or a lovely singing voice – whatever works for you. The point is, if you find him desirable, that emotion will be all the easier to carry across to your reader.
2. Loving an antagonist can be harder! But I find it so vital in bringing that character to life. Remember that you have created him, lol, and he deserves a multi-faceted existence as much as the next guy. I find it helpful to think about the circumstances pre-dating his “bad guy” status –  nobody is born rotten, right? You may not have a need to share his history with your reader, but file it away in your mind regardless. Understanding him will help you to make him more human and less flat.
3. Another stepping stone in the path to creating a full-fledged person is to endow them with familiar characteristics. My main heroine has my daughter’s generosity and sensitivity. One of my firefighters has my son’s smile, his easy affability. It’s easier to get a handle on a personality when it is already familiar to you. After that, you can add in voice, mannerisms, speech habits – all because you already know that person, at least in part.
4. Once you have created a personality, do not deviate from it! If your protagonist is a man of few words, and you catch him prattling, stop him. Don’t let your shy girl jump into a hot tub with a stranger. Staying true to character is a golden rule of writing for a reason, and your readers will call you out on it if you fail to do so.

           Finally, have fun! Remember, you are in a profession that allows you to play God - these tiny lives are in your hands from beginning to end. Try to be good to them! And enjoy!