Dave's Anatomy #7: My History as a Writer: Seeing My Character from Another Character's Point of View

Sossity

As my writing developed, I set down several more stories about my ongoing character, singer Sossity Chandler. She seemed a good bet. Several stories about her went to press, and I had begun to get a sense of her as a character.  But a good idea is to get as many perspectives as possible to know the character better. I wondered how she would look through the eyes of another figure in a story.

I follow strict rules with Sossity. The stories that feature her are always third person, never first. They are from her point of view, but you never get inside her head. She is a mysterious figure. In my favorite novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman, the omniscient narrator gets inside the head of every character except Sarah, the French Lieutenant's Woman. She remains a mystery and, to an extent, so does Sossity Chandler.

In her character biography, she marries a guy named David Urbanic. But before David there a couple of long-term relationships. She dates Diggory Marks, who will return to her later life as a love interest; and she dates Jerry Watanabe for eighteen months. Their love affair and their split-up is part—though not the entirety—of my story, "Being Caught up with My Ego, I Leave Behind a Beautiful Girl Who Eventually Becomes Rich and Famous."

Quite a title! I did this because Jerry is Japanese-American. There is a

Jerry

tradition in Japanese haiku poetry of long titles. They are sometimes longer than the poet itself. Hence, the title, which nods at Jerry's ethnic heritage but also suggests his lack of connection with it in the slightly parodic use of such a title to tell the story of his lost love.

Jerry dates Sossity Chandler when they are students at Purdue. When she drops out, they start to lose contact, though they do see each other from time to time. Jerry is with her when she get her "big break." They are in his plane (he has a pilot's license) flying above Beaver Island, Michigan, when Sossity gets the call that one of her recording is getting lots of airplay, is selling well, and has the makings of a hit. The two of them spend a weekend together and go their way, Sossity to fame and fortune, Jerry to a job in a computer company in Chicago.

While there, Jerry gets caught up in the pursuit of success. He also begins to have an affair with Anna, the woman who runs his company. He and Sossity drift further away from each other.

Anna

The affair with Anna, though, has a dark side. She is into S&M and slowly drags Jerry into the practice. Like a frog in a kettle, her preferences take him over. She uses her position as CEO of the company to coerce Jerry into servicing her. He has started to like Cynthia Ku, a Chinese-American girl who works in the firm. Anna threatens to fire her if Jerry does not cooperate.

Cynthia

Jerry and Sossity finally break it off. The trauma of this makes him see things clearly. He realizes what he has got himself into and refuses to come to Anna's house. She sends a local thug to beat him up. 

Mistake. Jerry is a martial arts expert. He knocks the thug out and calls Anna, telling her he has recorded incriminating pictures of her from her cell phone and will make them public if she doesn't desist. Knowing she is beaten, she give him a severance package. Jerry eventually marries Cynthia and starts his own software company, which is successful.

He never forgets Sossity, though he knows it is over for them. He sees her at a concert later. She sings a cover song, Neil Young's "Birds," dedicating it to him by name, and gets tears in her eyes when she sings the refrain, "When you see me fly away without you. / Shadows on the things you know. / Feathers fall around you and show you the way to go. / It's over. It's over." The last lines of the story are poignant. They show something of Jerry's personality (and I find them poignant because he is a lot like me).

She cried too. I could not see it when she sang the song, but the next day I came across an item on the internet news:   a close-up shot of her with big, glistening tears on her cheeks. When I read the caption, Sossity Chandler sheds tears during Neil Young song, I wanted to put my fist through the computer screen and wanted to find the correspondent who had written that banal tag-line and pull his arm out of joint like I had for Anna’s hired thug. Of course I did neither. I had a family now and responsibilities. Sossity had gone her way, I mine. But she had given voice to what would have otherwise been inexpressible. That is her talent. That is the direction her life should take. The realization of this enabled me to let go of her.

Like me, Jerry is talented, formidable, and tough. But he is also indecisive and allows himself to be bullied by other peoples' expectations. He is too restrained. Worst of all, he allows his ego to get him into trouble. But he is also able to accept loss and to see the good even in a loss, though this is a sad consolation.

Through this story, readers and an author get a viewpoint on Sossity Chandler through the eyes of someone else. In a later story, "Jergen Kohaut's Blues," and in the two stories "Qualities of Light" and "Mood Indigo," Sossity is seen from the POV of other characters. If you are writing an ongoing character, it's a good thing to do.

I have a new book out! It is titled Mother Hulda, a science fiction story based on a tale of the Brothers Grimm--but with an intergalactic twist. Kindle only. You will be surprised.