Watching The Sopranos

Frankie here. When I was thinking about my "brand" as a writer, I came up with the tagline that appears on my website -- "Every Crime Deserves Context."  I used that on the colorful "mystery writer" business cards that I ordered online a few years ago and intended to pass out at crime fiction conferences and other events where I was "wearing my fiction writer hat." 

I still have a large box of those business cards that I ended up not using. The problem was every time I started to exchange one with another writer or to give one to a reader with whom I was chatting, I found myself also reaching for the dull black and white business card provided by my university that identified me as a criminal justice professor and included my faculty contact information. The mystery writer business card seemed to provide only half of the information about who I am.

That brings me to The Sopranos. "How?" you ask. Well, let me explain. I may have mentioned -- I'm pretty sure I have -- that I'm working on a genre reference book that I was invited to write. I'm looking at nine gangster movies and The Sopranos, the "acclaimed" HBO drama. During June, I binge-watched the first five seasons of the show about New Jersey organized crime boss, Tony Soprano. I'm now watching the episodes from the sixth and last season. This has been a revelation for me because when the show was on in prime time, I didn't have HBO. Although one of my areas of research is crime and mass media/popular culture, I wasn't making enough money to be able to justify subscribing to a premium network. I caught episodes of The Sopranos only when I was staying in a hotel at a conference or visiting someone who had the cable network.

I bring The Sopranos up because watching the show reminds me that sometimes it feels like my tagline should be "A Lot of What I Know about Writing I Learned from TV." 

Yes, I read books. I have spent many of my happiest hours in libraries and in bookstores. The several times I have moved in my lifetime, the books filled many boxes. When I bought my small house I asked my contractor to build a room divider to separate living room from dining room and to provide floor-to-ceiling book shelves. I read every day of my life. But I've learned a heck of a lot about writing from television writers and the actors who can make binge-watching multiple episodes of a series a tutorial on character development and dramatic tension.

During my month of binge watching The Sopranos, I've been monitoring my reactions to the characters. The late James Gandolfini was a brilliant actor, and Tony Soprano's violent outbursts always leave me torn because I care about him. In Season 6, after almost dying, he is less volatile -- more thoughtful about ordering a hit on one of his own men who has violated the code that he is expected to live by. But that character may be killed in the next episode or two and his death will make melancholy. I know this because I was upset when another secondary character made his exit. He had a wife and children, and he wanted to move his family to Florida. He and his wife were in contact with a real estate agent, and like a couple on an episode of HGTV, they explained what they wanted and needed in their new home. This mob soldier had a strategy in mind. He would explain to Tony that he wanted to be allowed (breaking his vow of loyalty) to resign. Then he would wait and give Tony to think about it. So, he asked and he waited and he carried out the hit that Tony assigned him. But Tony -- after thinking about it -- still said it was "a no" on Florida. 

Now, this is the thing. I was ready for this to go badly. Ready for Tony to decide this soldier had to be taken out because he was no longer committed to his crime family. I was ready for Christopher or one of Tony's other trusted assassins to whack this character. Instead, the character sit in a hotel room looking at a photo of his children -- and then he took out his own gun and shot himself. Shortly after that, Tony went to visit his ailing Uncle Junior. He was out in the kitchen getting his uncle something eat, when Junior appeared in the doorway and shot Tony.

Now, it's true that Tony and his uncle had a complicated past. But I didn't see that one coming. Neither did Tony Soprano. And when he came out of his coma, he spent some time trying to dodge Dr. Melfi's questions about how he felt about being shot by his uncle. Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) is Tony Soprano's therapist. She has her own therapist, with whom she shares her complicated feelings about helping a mobster given to panic attacks understand his emotions and function better. Her advice that he "act as if" when he confessed he was feeling more vulnerable after coming out of his coma and feared losing his men's respect led him to beat up his own young strapping bodyguard in front of his crew to make it clear that he was still tough enough to lead them. 

There is another secondary character that I've come to care about -- Vito, a captain in Tony's mob family who has been outed as gay by two mob soldiers who saw him when they were collecting their protection money in a New York City club. Vito was dressed in black leather and dancing with a man. They didn't believe his excuse that it was "a joke." Tony's daughter's boyfriend also had some information that he finally shared. Now, Vito has fled and is in New Hampshire. Tony is still resisting the pressure from his crew to respond to Vito's betrayal of their code of masculinity. But the situation is embarrassing and may have a negative impact on business. He may yet send soldiers to track Vito down and whack him. And I care. I want Vito to get away.

The question is how I can feel so much ambivalence about these characters and still care about their fates. Even though I find Tony's violence off-putting, I felt bad for him when his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco) put him out. Even though he had cheated on her, I believed he loved her. I wanted him back home with Carmela and Meadow, his daughter, and AJ, his son. I wanted them to be a happy family.

I'm going to miss these characters when the series ends for me with the last 10 episodes. I'm going to think about them. And I'm going to spend some time thinking about how the characters evolved and how I can use that in my own writing. 

Next up, binge watching The Wire.

More on character development exercises -or- how I learned to actually enjoy waiting for my flight to depart

by Rick Blechta

Something in Thomas’s post yesterday caught my eye: “…while waiting for your flight, describe the people you see and create an interesting back story for them. What is their profession? What is their romantic status? Where are they flying to and why?”

First of all, this is a really fabulous idea. Waiting around an airport for a flight has to be one of the most boring exercises ever invented by humans. I usually wait it out by reading a book, but the lure of being able to pass the time constructively is an attractive one. I’d like to add a couple of additional ideas: describe the person as if they’re a minor character just passing through the story, then describe them as if they will have something more important to do in your plot.

A lot of us struggle with character description. I nearly always over-describe them, something that’s easily rectified in one of my rewriting stages: while I’m still working on the novel, or when I’m editing after it’s completed. However, I don’t fret over this anymore because when I do overwrite those descriptions it brings the characters into sharper focus for me — even if it winds up on the cutting room floor. One trick I’ve learned over time is to not throw out that stuff. I now stick it into my “dump file” and have a fuller picture to draw on if the character becomes more important later on.

So either way — speaking of a character’s importance in my plot — I’m ready to go with information about that character.

The other thing I might do is to practice writing those descriptions with a few deft strokes, rather than writing a treatise on my subject. I’m always in awe of a writer who can do this — and not many can. It’s an art as much as dialogue or general description. But it is something that can be practised and improved.

And waiting interminably in some airport is the perfect place to practice! “My flight is delayed for a second time? No problem!”

Another Voice

I should have known, but I didn't. A couple of days ago, I was editing some chapters. When I clicked "Review," I saw something I hadn't noticed before -- a big letter "A" and the words "Read Aloud Speech." I must have downloaded this at some point, but I had never seen it before. It isn't on my computer at work.

Curious, I clicked on the "A" and suddenly this male voice was reading my manuscript aloud.

Now, I haven't been completely oblivious to technology. I knew this was possible. But I didn't realize I had it, and that instead of spending hours reading my book aloud -- something I do with everything I write -- I can sit back and listen to my narrator read. This is going to save me precious time as I check my published Lizzie Stuart books against the last manuscript versions I can find of each. As I've mentioned the series is being reissued by a new publisher. I only have the ARC and edits for the last book in the series.

Discovering my narrator also means I can continue work on my nonfiction manuscript today even though I have a miserable cold. I need to save my voice because tomorrow I'm scheduled to offer a writing workshop at the public library.

Speaking of voices, I've been thinking about what Barbara and Donis said about characters in their posts this week. The workshop I'm teaching is about characters in mystery/detective fiction. It's a follow-up to the four-part course I offered this summer. Barbara, I will certainly quote your observation about characters: "I believe the greatest authenticity has to be in the realm of characters." And Donis, I love what you said about how the relationship between characters may change as they "reveal themselves." I'm going to send the workshop participants to Type M to read both posts.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go make myself another cup of tea with honey and lemon and try to get myself together.

If anyone else have thoughts about characters, please share. I can't write until I know some things about my characters -- at least some of their backstory. But I know pantsers who plunge in, discovering almost everything about their characters as they write. Thoughts?

She Needs a Dog

My work in progress is beginning to take shape. This is a relief, because the WIP is the first book in what may become a new series for me. Over the past 13 years, I have written ten books in the Alafair Tucker series, which is set in the 1910s and features a woman with ten children. The first book, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, took place in 1912 and the most recent, Forty Dead Men, took place in 1919 and dealt with the aftermath of World War I. I’ve reached 1920. Most of the children are grown by now, and for some time I’ve been wondering about how their adult lives turned out.

So...in order to satisfy my own curiosity and shake things up a bit, I decided to follow one of the children into the Roaring Twenties and see what became of her. As it turns out, she left Oklahoma altogether and had a really exciting life.

A new series set in a new location and era means lots of research, and it also means that I have to get to know a whole bunch of new characters. As my blogmates have been so ably discussing over the past week, a good plot is an excellent thing, but memorable characters are the most important thing if you want your readers to keep coming back for more.

When I started out on the new book, I had what I though was a complete cast of characters ready to go, but as I write, new characters keep suggesting themselves. It’s interesting to see how every new character’s very presence affects the tale, just as the insertion of a real person into a group changes its entire chemistry and dynamic. Adding a new character into a book that is well underway gives me a jolt of writing energy. It’s amazing how little it takes to make big changes in the way a story unfolds.

This is not the first time added a new character in the middle of the process. Whenever I have done such a thing, it has been as though the character was on the sidelines the whole time, like a relief quarterback, just waiting to jump into the game and throw the winning pass. Usually it’s a person, but sometimes it’s an animal. I was busily typing along on the MS when it struck me like lighting that my heroine needs a dog, and that dog is going do something that saves the day. In my fourth book, The Sky Took Him, I added Ike the cat after the entire story was written. I had to go back and sprinkle Ike’s presence through the novel and it was a lot of trouble. And yet, I don’t know he did it, but that cat tied the action together with a big red bow. He was a magic character. I can only hope that my new guy has the same juju.

When you create new characters, either for a series or a stand-alone, you may feel a bit like God, making people behave like this or that and causing all sorts of unpleasant things to happen to them.  But no matter how much you think you’re in control, eventually some miracle happens and the characters develop wills of their own and don't listen to you any more.  I think this is not an uncommon experience for writers.  After a while, you can't force characters to respond to the action in the way you want them to any more than you could force a real person to do what you want.  When this happens, you know you've succeeded.  If your character behaves like a living person, then your readers are going to care about her like they would a living person.