Read Online Creating Characters: How to Build Story People by Dwight V. Swain - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dwight V. Swain
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me, how many people cheer for a horse grazing in a pasture, as compared with the number who evidence excitement when the same equine’s leading the pack at a racetrack?
3. DRIVE: THE “GIVE A HOOT” FACTOR
Drive , as I use the word here, may be defined as inner pressure, the intensity with which a character wants to change or reshape his situation.
It also, again, points up the absolute necessity of building your story around people who have the capacity to care, to feel that something or other’s important.
The end product of drive is attainment of a goal. Thus, given a particular goal, is this goal truly important to Character? How highly does he value it? To what extremes is he willing to go in order to attain it?
In brief, does he really give a hoot about it? Because if he doesn’t, for all practical purposes he’s useless in a story.
This factor of drive is devastatingly important. It’s the key ingredient of the vital element we call commitment. Couple it with direction and goal, and you equip yourself with the priceless “desire plus danger” combination that keeps pages turning far into the night. Failure to provide it in major characters can prove the kiss of death where your story is concerned. For regardless of writing skill or literary values, the thing that leads most of us to read is still the age-old question that focuses on the hero as he fights against fate: “Will he succeed or won’t he?” Where the overwhelming majority of us are concerned, it remains the most solid foundation upon which to build a story.
This brings up a related question: In life, are most people really motivated? And the answer is, no. Not to bog down in semantics, but the majority of us have drift , not drive. That is, we fall into things through happenstance and follow the line of least resistance. The term that best describes our progress is random . The job the average person chooses likely is the first one offered. The girl he marries is his sister’s friend or his neighbor’s daughter or the double date that proves amenable to heavy necking. Given a menu that includes octopus or truffles, he’ll choose roast beef and mashed potatoes every time.
Why does one person have drive, another not?
Partly, the issue likely is inertia, or ignorance of a special sort an inability to grasp the potentialities of impinging situations. Or, call it fear of change, an overweening doubt that change might be beneficial or desirable or fun. Most of us live like Jean Giono’s villagers in Le Moulin de Pologne: “. . . we fear knives and wild beasts less than a life style which is different from our concept of how life should be,” and so automatically answer, “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” to most possibilities.
So, most people drift.
Or, as my wife succinctly puts it, “Most of us, most of the time, are impulse buyers in the supermarket of life.”
Beyond this, however, can it be that drift, in its own way, constitutes a sort of drive—an unverbalized goal of avoiding the discomfort that comes with involvement and “giving a hoot”?
It seems at least possible to me. Thus, some years ago I knew a handsome, cultured, literate man in his thirties who worked at an extremely routine job in a film library. The tasks assigned him clearly were far below his capacity and everyone knew it.
Finally one Friday afternoon the supervisor called him over.“Ed,” he said, “you rate a better spot than this. I’m promoting you.”
“If you do,” Ed retorted, not so much as blinking, “then I quit.”
“Go on,” the super laughed. “You take over as chief of section Monday morning.”
“Goodbye,” Ed said.
He never came back after the weekend.
What was behind it all? I’ll never know, though certainly I’ve speculated enough. Fear may have been the issue, as when you’re afraid you can’t deliver what’s called for, or when in the past you’ve made some tragic error and can never forget the possibility of
3. DRIVE: THE “GIVE A HOOT” FACTOR
Drive , as I use the word here, may be defined as inner pressure, the intensity with which a character wants to change or reshape his situation.
It also, again, points up the absolute necessity of building your story around people who have the capacity to care, to feel that something or other’s important.
The end product of drive is attainment of a goal. Thus, given a particular goal, is this goal truly important to Character? How highly does he value it? To what extremes is he willing to go in order to attain it?
In brief, does he really give a hoot about it? Because if he doesn’t, for all practical purposes he’s useless in a story.
This factor of drive is devastatingly important. It’s the key ingredient of the vital element we call commitment. Couple it with direction and goal, and you equip yourself with the priceless “desire plus danger” combination that keeps pages turning far into the night. Failure to provide it in major characters can prove the kiss of death where your story is concerned. For regardless of writing skill or literary values, the thing that leads most of us to read is still the age-old question that focuses on the hero as he fights against fate: “Will he succeed or won’t he?” Where the overwhelming majority of us are concerned, it remains the most solid foundation upon which to build a story.
This brings up a related question: In life, are most people really motivated? And the answer is, no. Not to bog down in semantics, but the majority of us have drift , not drive. That is, we fall into things through happenstance and follow the line of least resistance. The term that best describes our progress is random . The job the average person chooses likely is the first one offered. The girl he marries is his sister’s friend or his neighbor’s daughter or the double date that proves amenable to heavy necking. Given a menu that includes octopus or truffles, he’ll choose roast beef and mashed potatoes every time.
Why does one person have drive, another not?
Partly, the issue likely is inertia, or ignorance of a special sort an inability to grasp the potentialities of impinging situations. Or, call it fear of change, an overweening doubt that change might be beneficial or desirable or fun. Most of us live like Jean Giono’s villagers in Le Moulin de Pologne: “. . . we fear knives and wild beasts less than a life style which is different from our concept of how life should be,” and so automatically answer, “Oh, I couldn’t do that!” to most possibilities.
So, most people drift.
Or, as my wife succinctly puts it, “Most of us, most of the time, are impulse buyers in the supermarket of life.”
Beyond this, however, can it be that drift, in its own way, constitutes a sort of drive—an unverbalized goal of avoiding the discomfort that comes with involvement and “giving a hoot”?
It seems at least possible to me. Thus, some years ago I knew a handsome, cultured, literate man in his thirties who worked at an extremely routine job in a film library. The tasks assigned him clearly were far below his capacity and everyone knew it.
Finally one Friday afternoon the supervisor called him over.“Ed,” he said, “you rate a better spot than this. I’m promoting you.”
“If you do,” Ed retorted, not so much as blinking, “then I quit.”
“Go on,” the super laughed. “You take over as chief of section Monday morning.”
“Goodbye,” Ed said.
He never came back after the weekend.
What was behind it all? I’ll never know, though certainly I’ve speculated enough. Fear may have been the issue, as when you’re afraid you can’t deliver what’s called for, or when in the past you’ve made some tragic error and can never forget the possibility of
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