Thomas Sullivan: SEGAMI RORRIM
If something has to be kept secret, it must be true. Secrets are self-proving. Lies are loud and wear red hats, e.g. Santa Claus. Okay, I’m being a tad glib here. I do not mean that only secrets are true or that all red hats – i.e. loud proclamations — are lies (your red hat is still true blue, Santa). But secrets tend to be true, else they wouldn’t need hiding. I think that most people believe this at some level. In fact some OVER-believe it, glomming onto every “exposed” secret as innately true because life after all is run by conspiracies and manipulative forces. Consider the power that this reflex gives to persuasion. Want someone to believe something outlandish? Present it as a secret.
And in this way my premise statement moves from being a truism about content to a truism about style. Because if you pretend something is secret only to make it seem valid when you expose it, you’ve given it the style of truth but not necessarily the substance. And that can be a literary device to disarm the reader. An effective literary device. In fact, take it a step further. Let the secret be some discovery you make contrary to what the writer is saying. No truth is more acceptable than underlying truth you think you perceive by yourself, after all. Better yet if you have to pry it out, testifying to your astuteness. In this model the falseness is the literal statement, parading itself as truth. The truth is the secret you discern hiding behind the falseness, and it is its opposite. Thus we have Mark Twain giving us his truth about all humans being of equal worth by having Huck Finn believe he is going to hell for helping the runaway slave Jim escape. The world has it backwards, Twain is showing us. Social morality is the real falseness and Huck Finn in the simple purity and honesty of his soul has it right though he believes he will go to hell for his choice. Edgar Allen Poe gives us an even more direct stylistic example in the beginning of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “True!” his first person narrator tells us too loudly in the very first word, “nervous, very dreadfully nervous I was and am, but why will you say I am mad?” Already you know the character is mad. (“Methinks he doth protest too much.”) He is in your face, asserting his “truth” so loudly that you immediately know it’s a lie.
Life is full of opposites, isn’t it? It is tempting – particularly in an improbable life like mine – to put more faith in the counterintuitive then into the face value of things. But that would be another grave error. Nevertheless, it is counterintuitiveness that seems to yield the most insight into truth when it comes to understanding people and presenting characters. We are devious, after all, you and I; yet relatively transparent as well to the observer who has developed objectivity. So, in human behavior, it is often enlightening to look for opposites, contrasts, and apparent contradictions lurking beneath the surface.
These show up most clearly under stress, but with some people the occurrence is pathological. I find these pathological types to be the most predictable because they always try to be unpredictable, and I often use them for catalyst characters. They are people who have discovered a game, a posture, an attitude, or a tone that works for them. They are usually one-trick types who continually use the single gimmick of reverse psychology. Over time they tend to lose credibility, and so they wear their audiences down to the gullible, the susceptible, or the impaired. You might see them holding forth where education is scarce, or playing the victim, or sounding witty under neon lights just before “last call.” Drunk or sober, “in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Their conflicts are seldom internal but instead come from trying to manipulate the external world. That’s why they make good catalyst characters.
More fascinating to me are people who are internally conflicted, because they are not neatly consistent or as predictable. Especially if their emotions are strong. This happens more with women than men. And, no, I’m not saying that women are less rational than men. But I am saying that they tend to be influenced by a more complex range of emotions than men usually are. In evolutionary terms, anger and aggressiveness work strongest for archetypal men, while a fuller range of emotions has more survival value for archetypal women. The former (male) tends to solve immediate tactical problems and be direct; the latter (female) may address long-term strategic goals and be indirect. Which is probably why women get hung with the tag of being unpredictable. In any event, if this makes sense to you, you can easily see why marketing biases favor physical action books for men (external conflicts) and emotional tension books for women (internal conflicts). Of course, just as in reality these stereotypes of men and women exist as a mix within individuals of either sex, fully developed writing reflects a mix of simple action and character complexity no matter what the genre or gender. The nod, though, goes toward internal conflicts with its focus on substantial characterization, if only because most readers are women. I like that. It takes me right back to the deliciously counterintuitive wildcard that emotions introduce.
Think of how many things can go wrong with internal conflicts as opposed to external. In external you have things and events; in internal you have things and events plus all the interpretations and psychological/emotional consequences of external happenings. Internal is where external crosses into human experience, the nerve center, the point of impact – if a tree falls, does it make a sound? (Does it matter to you, if you don’t hear it – if you don’t internalize it?) If you want to experience and communicate life fully, free your characters to be human. Let them become contradictory, confused, emotional, unstable and changeable – then let them find their way back (or not). And while you’re at it, free yourself from being that writer/person who has a one-trick pathology and writes/sees with one eye open in the country of the blind. With two eyes open in life, you have twice the chance of seeing the magic.
Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued.
Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
I devol ruoy noitatressid Thinking about internal conflict vs. external actions, actually babies begin having internal conflicts when they are hungry, and the only way to resolve that issue is by crying and flailing their arms and legs about. As adults, we have to learn along the way to resolve inner conflicts in a more mature manner, by working through them and not flailing about. I think we all know people who are still crybabies at heart, as well as those who think things through and have learned to do the dance in life instead of flailing about. As an example, I think you’re a dancer. What do you think?
Hey, I do a mean hokey pokey, Dorie! Gee, if I’d seen this question coming, I would have used the Tin Man for a lead photo instead of the Scarecrow. Srsly, I like your metaphor, and yeah, we all must learn the basic steps that go with the basic rhythms of life. I think the trick when it comes to answering basic needs and inner conflicts is to know the difference between society’s ordered quadrille and the sacred anthems of your dreams. Get out of sync with the formal graces of a ballroom cotillion and you’re going to step on some toes for sure. But become a wallflower when the secret song of your heart is playing, and you just sat out life. Sort of like the difference between doing a cakewalk and marching to your own drum, I guess. I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten it right, but I can hear the music. My music. And discovering that a pas de deux was even possible in my life was a transcendent revelation for which I’ll be forever grateful. You can dance on with that knowledge, alone, or in bowers and hours TBD.
Sully, this was so wonderfully (and I’m not using the word lightly) complete that I have nothing to add. I’ve heard the music since birth and have only joined the cotillion briefly at a few stages of life, for research you might say, and then abandoned my fan as I swiftly exited (or escaped) the ballroom.
Most appreciative Jeani, and I like the point you make, i.e. “…research you might say.” People who truly have the twin sparks of romantic idealism and individuality within them invariably feel that way about the forced dance of society — that it gave them the perspective they needed to be themselves. But you should’ve taken your fan with you…then you could’ve danced the Fandango. (Groan)
With a Midas metaphor touch, you expound on counterintuitiveness and relate it to reading and writing in the same essay with great vision. When one struggles with character inconsistencies in writing or in personal interactions, someone is bound to advise don’t over analyze or READ into things. Herein lies a great temptation (aided by manipulation or denial) to take face value and miss seeing truth. Counterintuitiveness can’t be flipped off like a light switch. Once engaged mind’s eye can’t ignore the neon neuron warnings: mismatch actions and words, isn’t this that same scenario, sums don’t equal the whole, or a diamond in the rough. Is one born with a counterintuitive gene or sense or is it developed from the journey? Perhaps, it is learned experientially from a mix of overcoming struggles and appreciation for what IS true. Thanks for shining the light my way. Interesting topic of how we know truths and the role of reader and writer in creating mirrors of it. Maybe the blind can see counterintuitively when the sighted have distorted vision.
“Midas metaphor touch” — man, see if I ever wash my hands again! Thanks for the spiffy imagery and the marinated wisdom, Anne. I’ll vote for “nurture” over “nature” in the matter of counterintuitive perceptions. But then maybe that’s because I rocked the cradle totally from the left side – logical, logical, logical. Somehow in the accumulation of experience that changed for me. Trusted everything. Believed everything. That said, if you told me that others have a gene for mistrust that overrules observation, I’d believe that too, cause I still can believe anything. And if that’s the case, I think it has to originate in emotions rather than rationality. I don’t think I have an emotional preset for counterintuitiveness, in any case. I say this because even though my logic has learned to factor in counterintuitiveness (a species of illogic really), I am not at all judgmental, and if I were emotional about that I believe I would be judgmental. Huh? Even more convoluted thoughts are jumping up and down in my alleged mind, but I sense a hook coming from the shadows off stage…
“but I sense a hook coming from the shadows off stage…”
Well I always sense that hook, but it seems I never run fast enough, and thus, hooked am I!
Great article
I’m rather impressed with Anne’s Midas metaphor touch as well, but I’ve not decided whether that should be a secret or not.
Fade to beige….
Then there are my favorites: those whose internal bugaboos can’t help but erupt like volcanos in the most surprising yet, in hindsight, seemingly inevitable ways, to infect the whole world around them. Your across-the-hall neighbor from last month’s Yuletide column is a sterling example of that.
And has there been any type of story that takes this to the max like noir does? That inner, secret darkness just can’t be confined under a placid lid, no matter how the poor saps try.
By the way: At first glance of your headline, I thought it would make a fine name for a Japanese character imagined by Tolkien.
Beige begone! Lights up! Retreat hook. You are on-stage, Teri. Sing another chorus of “Don’t cry for me, Argentina…” as poignantly as you did on FB. Now there’s a song with secrets that only Evita knows…and I guess Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. (Why do they always stiff the guy who came up with the thoughts and words while rewarding the accompaniment or the acting or the scripted talking head or the politician or…yeah, sour grapes. Ah, well. Writers have to be kept in the shadows. Like secrets.)
Yeah, Brian. “Those who erupt…” I like that handle for a character category name. Unlimited possibilities. Noir exploits it deliciously, dramatically, like an insidious secret. But I think it lends itself to any anchor tone – poignancy of loss or despair, the frustration of injustice, retreating into protective insanity. Anything really that the truth reveals slowly through cues and omens as with a secret revealed. And humor, I suppose. I wouldn’t have added that but for your most amusing take vis-à-vis Tokyo Tolkien.
@Thomas Sullivan
Sully, your comment about my comment reminded me of something a little voice in my head told me long ago. After my husband died suddenly, in the prime of life, unexpectedly, I went through all the mechanics of living, but still felt paralyzed for a long time. My husband loved music; it was part of his soul. One day, I was standing at his grave and these words just came to me:
(and I know they came from him): “Sometimes you have to start dancing without the music.”
Very much appreciate your sharing that, Dorie. I have no doubt there was a metaphysical cause, a will, of consciousness – something sourced from the connection between you and your husband, obviously directed, meaningful and full of love. Kind of reminds me of something I have on my refrigerator that Cindy Frey (wife of Eagle Glenn Frey) sent me: “Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like you do when nobody’s watching…” Cindy was a professional dancer with major credits, including being a featured dancer on Dance Fever, and I summon that image of her dancing alone sometimes when I feel separated from human companionship and need to celebrate life.
You are very kind. I actually have some tea made tonight so perhaps my singing will have a little less GROWL to it.
I live like nobody’s looking, because, really, nobody is. Well except I don’t spit or pee in the street, that would be wrong on so many levels it isn’t funny!
However, there are a lot of holidays I don’t celebrate, because I try to be loving and all that every day to the folks around me. You know, Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, Secretary’s Day . . . Give your secretary flowers for NO REASON. Or your significant other. There’s no need to wait for a day to show folks they are appreciated.
Ooops I went off on a tack didn’t I? Ah well.
True enough about the pseudo holidays. More pain than gain…by implication or comparison.
In re my late reply, imagine awakening yesterday to the sound of rapidly running water. Imagine sequentially discovering a flood of water eroding plaster and destroying books, financial records, etc on top, middle and bottom house levels. Imagine trying to stop the flow of water from an offending toilet on the top floor. Imagine chasing after the water as it cascaded down through floors and ceilings. Imagine mopping up the water settled on three levels and moving sopping, important files and stacks and trying to wring them out. Finally, imagine a crew of workers sawing, chiseling, carrying materials in and out, hammering, shouting, playing music, etc. for several days. It will take some time for me to get used to the silence following their recent departure. Now, moving toward a much more pleasant topic….
In re your latest newsletter, I can’t imagine Minnesota without sufficient snow. Feel free to borrow ours.
I think I’m missing the same gene as yours. I savor natural surroundings having no human-sourced sounds. I didn’t enjoy cc skiing as much on trails in use by others, but it never matched having a trail to one’s self. What I really disliked was a trail whose snow had been molested by snowshoers.
In re your unplug, in the book titled Mr. Roberts, Ensign Pulver wrote in the margin of the book, God’s Little Acre, the words, DAMN WELL WRITTEN. After printing and reading your unplug, I wrote in the margin the words, DAMN GOOD ADVICE.
I regret that, when I read Huck Finn, I was too young to catch the message that the world has it backwards.
Your reference to certain characters as catalyst characters is a real hand-in-glove fit.
Thank you for the great thoughts to ponder.
Amalgam
Man overboard! I am sorely dismayed. Hope the damage can be remedied. Nothing more calamitous to a writer than to have one’s words in soluble ink meet the Great Flood of end times. … And thank you in the “wake” of that for taking the time for your always eagerly anticipated remarks, Amalgam. I’ll take you up on that snow offer. Have now put in something between 600-700 K skiing on the gerbil wheel of man-made stuff. … Reverse psychology people are a bit of a cliché, and they wear thin quickly in real life, but in fiction you can dress them up a bit. One of the few examples where made-up characters need to be deeper than their sponsoring role models. … And Huck Finn awaits your return!
Well, I’m extremely late to the party but somebody has to keep it going. I’m afraid I don’t have any reasons near as sad and horrible as Bob Jones’ reasons for being tardy (does one day count as being late?), and thank goodness for that. Poor Bob! No, my reasons stem purely from my own rather selfish and wanton need to pamper myself with your words of wisdom each and every month. It’s true! I absolutely refuse to be rushed through your newsletter when the 16th rolls around. To hurry and wolf it down when I haven’t the proper time to absorb it would be like stuffing an entire piece of tiramisu in my mouth at once just so I can get to cleaning my toilets. This month’s post is particularly worthy of luxuriating over since it’s a topic near and dear to my own heart. I agree with every word you say here and I’m inspired by those words.
I took a stab at reading this shortly after it went up and was having quite a lovely time of it when life interrupted. My window (rug?) of opportunity was being yanked out from under me and I could feel it happening, so I started reading faster and faster and then… I put my foot down. “I deserve to read this in peace,” I said to me.
Okay, so another week went by. But hurray! I settled into my desk chair today and sighed, “Today is the day.”
This article is teeming with good practical insight, as always. We’ve discussed this subject more than a few times, yet you always give me something new to think about. Please know that, whenever I’m slow at responding to your posts, its for reasons that are completely self-serving, piggish, and ornery, and not because I don’t care
You know I look forward to your comments whenever they arrive, Carole. I appreciate all responses, but there are a few of us who more or less sustain a conversation with monthly gaps, and that conversation dangles until the next reply. Our lives are too crazy, too busy, but the truth is that sometimes our sanity and certainly our personal satisfaction relies on those re-connections with those we know and share an understanding. As you also know, being an author who posts here, sometimes the thoughtless auto-generated spam comments that flood in every month in an attempt to get posted because it affects ad rates for people trying to prove connections, force us to close off comments before all the legitimate ones are in. That’s a shame. One of those sad realities caused by selfish people who ruin a good thing for everyone and may eventually destroy free forums. So, I’m glad your comment got in before I had to shut the door. P.S. happy to see the great reviews for your new collection THE WHISPER JAR!
It is sad about the spam. It makes me so angry every month but I guess there’s little to be done about it. Glad I slipped in before you closed up shop for January. Another terrific month at Storytellers in the can.
Thanks for following my reviews!