Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #18: "Jergen Kouhat's Blues," Creating Characters

 Last time, I talked about the story "Jergen Kouhaut's Blues," which challenged me with its length. Sustaining a story through almost 30,000 words is test of skill. But the story kept going along—kept "working"—and the complexity of the characters, their inner conflicts, the unfolding of their personalities, demanded something more than the usual 5000-7500-word limit that delineates most short stories published online or in print. It also crossed some boundaries into what is accepted and not so much accepted in the modern writing scene

There are two basic approaches to writing a story. One is plot-driven. The story centers around the plot, is fast-moving and has lots of action and incidents that "move the story along." Writers are told to catch the reader's interest and keep it. All action must "advance the plot" (how many times have I read that in an editor's comments?). The plot is the center of the text.

On the other hand there are stories that are character driven. The most important thing in the story is how the characters develop, their inner lives, the emotions they feel as they walk through the story's conflict, and how they change (or, sometimes, do not change) as characters. The plot in a story like this must be strong, but it is not the primary focus. The characters and how the conflict in the story affects them is the focus.

Plot-driven stories are much more important today. In the writer's group I have gone to for about fifteen years, many people want plot-driven stories with lots of action. They complain my stories are "boring" and, sometimes, are "not providing entertainment value." One member, whom I dearly love, tells me my stories are boring and pedantic. The reason those friends of mine say this is because I spend a lot of time talking about what is going on in the characters' minds and hearts. I write about their feelings and reactions and, as a result, my stories 

might be a little short on high-speed chases.

Traditionally, what marks off "literary fiction" from genre fiction (i.e., mysteries, horror, action-adventure, fantasy) is the focus on character rather than plot. Much of genre fiction centers on what happens and on keeping the plot moving. In literary fiction, psychomachia, the battle of inner feelings, motivations, and ethical choices gets more attention. In a James Bond novel you will get in shoot-outs, chases, and cliff-hanger escapes. In high-fantasy there will be battles, attacks by fantastical creatures, and daring missions into dark woods or haunted castles. This difference divides literature into its major divisions.

"Jergen Kohaut's Blues" is about how self-serving choices get a character the thing he has always dreamed off but also deprives him what he loves most. Jergen abandons Hannah, his live-in girlfriend, whom he plans to marry, in order to engage in an affair with rock star Sossity Chandler. He is finally able to play in Sossity's band, and she keeps him in the band even when their fling ends. But Jergen's treatment of Hannah haunts him. He asks if they might reconcile, but Hannah has been too badly shaken by their split and sinks into depression and drug abuse. Jergen resents that Sossity took him up and threw him off so easily, though he realizes the decision to pursue her was his choice. Outwardly, everything goes his way; inwardly, he suffers from what he has done.

The denouement, the final unraveling of the story, occurs when he runs into Hannah at a restaurant. He hardly recognizes her, not because she is disheveled but because she is neatly dressed, groomed in a business-woman style, and looks very socially proper—not at all like the quirky, cute, playful woman he loved. She agrees to talk with him. This exchange follows:

"I don’t think," she said, "you have any idea how much I loved you and how much that relationship meant to me. We construct our lives around the people we love. I made my world around our relationship—around you, Jergen—and when you threw me over for Sossity Chandler, my world dissolved—and so did I."

She paused. He decided not to speak. She went on.

"For a while I did dope to ease the pain—dope and bad relationships. Then I realized that if I

wanted to survive and stay sane I would have to leave the old world and the old life I had made. Reality had changed for me, Jergen. I knew things would never be the same and could never be the same. I saw three options: suicide, mental illness, or become a new person—not the old Hannah who loved you and had centered her being in a world with you, but a new woman with a whole new world. But it’s all over, Jergen. I’m a new me. I’m happy, I’ve found a man I love, and I have children and a fulfilling career. But I’m a different person. Too bad. I really liked the way I was. But I can never be that Hannah again—not for you and not for me."

After a long silence he said, "I guess not."

"I’d say we could be friends but we can’t. I don’t hate you, Jergen, but you hurt me more than anyone else in my life has hurt me. And, as I said, I had to stop being me to get over you. So I think it would just be better if we didn’t talk. Do you see what I mean?"

Jergen leaves and goes to the home of his best friend, where he weeps. Ironically, he, a blues player, has learned what the blues really means:  losing everything you held dear and having nothing left it all. The group Everlast sang: "But God forbid you'd ever walk a mile in his shoes—'cause then you really might know what it's like to sing the blues." Jergen learns this, at last, and can do nothing but face what he has done and who he has become.

 Who he is, the person he becomes, is the focus of the story. It has a plot, the story moves, but plot is not the main thing; or, to put it another way, the plot involves more inward issues than things that happen in the outward world. It is a character-driven story rather than a story driven by plot.

Some of the people in my writer's group think this is "boring and pedantic." But the story was published, along with 177 others to date and seven novellas and novels. Character-driven story is not such a liability and some may think.

Character-driven sci-fi appears in my novella, Mother Hulda. Lakshm Parvati struggles with her past and her identity. But it has a lot of good plot elements as well.

For more titles check out my Writer's Page. 

Sorcery, witchcraft, and the conflict of good and evil. Read The Sorceress of the Northern Seas.

 

 Comments always welcome!