Pushing Your Characters to Their Tipping
Points
When someone snaps and it seems like the break
comes out of nowhere, those of us who have made a good number of trips around
the sun know that such outbursts actually come from somewhere and everywhere.
We understand overflowing buckets, and know
how untended boiling water boils over, but we’re often startled if in the room
when a person buckles under pressures, both seen and unseen. We’re
uncomfortable, sometimes defensive or offended. If we’re interested, we can
guess at the factors that brought on the boil. To do so is an act of humanity
that the collective we should probably consider more often.
One of the things I enjoy most about writing
fiction is the chance to take those deep dives with characters and find ways to
help readers consider the many factors that result in moments of unbearable
tension. One of my favorite such moments takes place in God Bless the Child,
the first novel in The Women of Paradise County Series.
By the time readers get to the scene, they
don’t know everything that has happened to the primary character, Mary Kline.
Not even close; but they do know that she’s in way over her head, having taken
in Pearl Davis, a vulnerable girl who has given birth to a daughter, Elizabeth.
Mary believes herself to be the child’s mother until she sees the undeniable,
biological truth:
“ …I do indulge in forbidden emotions, like
love and lust, and envy and anger. I exercise my rights as a part of the animal
kingdom. Female animals often take on the role of mother to abandoned infants
of another species. They feed these babies, hold them, love them, clean them,
and naturally feel territorial…
…Once, when Elizabeth was about seven
months old, I hauled off and slapped Pearl as hard as I could. Mother and Daddy
were already at the store, so it was just us three girls. I’d put water on to
make hot chocolate. The teapot whistled, so I left the girls in the parlor.
When I returned to the doorway with a tray of hot chocolate, I saw the thing I
dreaded most…
…Pearl stood there in her long nightgown,
holding Elizabeth to her cheek. She was humming soft mama songs in her baby’s
ear, swaying the instinctive mother-sway: back-and-forth, back-and-forth,
foot-to-foot. She was a natural. Elizabeth snuggled into her mother’s neck,
looking more contented than ever. I froze.
That
sweet scene frightened me. Would I be relieved of my duties? Would Elizabeth
and Pearl abandon their captain with a
mother-daughter mutiny? Was I to be confronted with a natural and
understandable coup?...I would not allow it. I put the tray down on the coffee
table and snatched Elizabeth from Pearl. I gently laid the baby on a blanket on
the floor and worked myself back to my feet, finally reaching eye level with
Pearl. She smiled dimly, that smile I’d grown so sick of seeing. I hated the
simple stare she gave as she watched me lavish her baby with my love…My slap
had more heft than I intended. Really. It was a full and jealous swing..I
should never have slapped Pearl…She was just a confused child. Bewildered by
all that had happened to her, she trusted me, and I guess that’s why I slapped
her. Pearl was counting on me to make things right, but I knew nothing about
this situation would ever be right.”
Letting Mary describe what happened here was
really valuable. Even she seems surprised that she’s behaved so irrationally,
so violently, to someone she thinks she loves. The reader knows that Mary is
not really backed into a corner. The only other people in the room are a baby
and a childlike young woman, but letting the reader inside Mary’s head, we see
all that she thinks she has to lose. The slap is an act of desperation, and it
is just one of many surprises this character reveals throughout the book.
In Books Two and Three of the Series, Violet
is Blue and House of Teeth, readers
get a chance to be with a little boy-turned
young man named Jules Marks, another primary character who gets pushed to the
brink more than once. He’s quiet, intelligent and has come to understand in
spades just how cruel and kind the world can be. He’s been beat up plenty, but
still fancies himself protector of those he loves.
When Jules learns that his own father, the
feckless Lem Hauser, was the one who put a tattoo on the lower belly of his
only friend, Violet, he makes a move that seems out of character. He comes to
the confrontation committed to a verbal spat, but his father’s cruel taunts
push Jules to a new brink that turns physical:
I hated him. I hated every last thing about
him.
“Now, Jules, I hate to tell you this, but I
got there first, you know. I saw that before you ever did. I saw that before
your little gal let me work on her. I saw that clean and white as a brand-new
sheet, my boy.”
He laughed some more, nearly choking on the
dark tobacco juice sloshing around in his mouth. The childish, but powerful
nature of his laugh stung. He wasn’t taking me seriously. I lunged for him. I
caught him off guard, and we both tumbled to the ground. I could feel the dust
on my teeth and the smell of his wet tobacco breath. My body was on top of him.
I started swinging as hard as I could. His ballcap had fallen to the ground, so
I could see his greasy black hair, slicked down with pure meanness. I landed
some good punches and kept swinging until he stopped me and pushed me off him.
The push was hard enough to knock down the burn barrel…The air between us
bristled. Hungry dogs barked in the distance. My face throbbed…
“Hey, Jules, you come back any time and
wrestle with old Lem. Anytime, Sir.”
Angry tears started to pool behind my eyes.
I didn’t want them to drip down my face until I’d put more distance between us.
They started falling anyway.
Writing this part of Jules’ story challenged
me, not because I thought the attack on Lem wasn’t justified. After the willful
neglect and cruelty that this character and his five little sisters have
endured, he deserves to throw a punch and have it land. Lem’s involvement with
Jules’ only friend, Violet, pushes an already distressed Jules over a very
natural edge. Showing readers this break makes a character who is beyond heroic
by any standards, more believable and layered.
The layers matter to me as a writer. Making
decisions about how and when and who will reveal new pockets of humanity in a
story is my idea of a good time, but there’s more to it. Giving fictional
characters room to grow and to be fully human has the potential to do work
beyond the page, and I think that has more value in the long run. Is it
possible that by reading and writing stories that lay bare more than one truth,
we expand our capacity to extend similar considerations to the people who live
and breathe around us? To this, I say yes, yes, yes.
Jules Marks and his five little sisters can finally relax. Their feckless parents from Shakey's Half are doing time in the Paradise County Jail, and their Uncle Larry, Aunt Sally and Aunt Clarice have swooped in to give them the safety and security they deserved all along. As they settle into the closest thing to normal they’ve ever known, their neighbors and classmates are quick to remind them not to get too comfortable. Poulson’s only dentist makes a generous offer to help the Marks children fix their long-neglected teeth, but many folks object to the free treatment they receive. Meanwhile, Jules is figuring out how to be a man as he holds onto an ugly secret involving his dear friend, Violet Sellers. When cancer strikes the family, Jules decides to right a wrong that’s gone unchallenged for far too long.
You can purchase House of Teeth and the other books in The Women of Paradise County series on Amazon.
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