Motivated by Bitterness

My overly-simple definition of a novel is "a book with at least one four-dimensional character." In English, that means that at least one of a major character's three primary motivations changes over time. Bitterness is a powerful motivator, and it is one that needs to change unless you're writing a tragedy.

Bitterness is a black hole that sucks in all of life--but it makes for fabulous fiction. It's so easy to set up a story where the deepest and most desperate bitterness is justified. Our innate sense of justice makes us side with the wounded hero--we understand their pain and excuse their scars.

Bitterness sometimes looks like humility, from the outside. The bitter hero wins a great battle and then nobody can find him at the victory celebration--he is alone on the battlements, wrestling with unseen enemies that cannot be conquered.

A good example of how all this works in fiction is The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantes was a poor but honest sailor who was just about to marry the woman he loved and become captain of his own ship when three men conspired to betray and destroy him. He was falsely accused of treason and flung into the Chateau d'If, the notorious island prison in the harbor of Marseilles, doomed to rot his life away. But then, in the lonely darkness, an ancient priest tunneled his way into Emond's cell in his effort to escape. The priest, realizing he could never dig his way out, spent the rest of his days teaching the poor sailor all he knew--including the location of the fabulous fortune of Monte Cristo. When the priest dies and Edmond escapes, the stage is set for one of the greatest thrillers ever.

Alexender Dumas excelled at using bitterness as a motivator, yet he recognized the ultimate emptiness of revenge. Bitterness burns out the soul--it does not satisfy. The Count of Monte Cristo ends with Edmond's triumph, but his justice is tempered with mercy. He turns from wrath to a new and different life.

In my opinion, the end of the The Count is both right and wrong. Edmond's change at the end is too sudden. It is necessary, but inadequate. Bitterness is an addiction--it doesn't let go so suddenly. The only believable outcomes of addiction are tragedy or redemption. The Count got neither.

Dumas had the disadvantage of his times--his audience was not interested in tragedy or Christ. Those are the two appropriate ends of bitterness. We have the same disadvantage. Twenty-first century Americans aren't ready for reality when it comes to the bitter end of bitterness. That makes a book about a bitter hero easy to start and hard to finish.

Battles Between Gods

The ancient epics show humans acting in the foreground, but the gods loom large behind them. The earthly battles are driven by greater wars--Poseidon fights for the Trojans while grey-eyed Athena aids Odysseus. It's mythology, of course, but audiences love it.

Mythology has fallen on hard times, but earthly conflicts are still driven by the wars between the gods. Everybody worships something. Modern lips may not cry out to Zeus or Yahweh, but modern hearts are not that different from Achilles or King David.

C.S. Lewis said:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

God has placed eternity in our hearts. He created us to delight in His beauty forever. But our hearts are quick to worship other gods--and that's where human conflicts come from. The smallest spat between friends is a war between the gods.

That's good news for authors who want to write something real in an age of fantasy. We can sketch out these cosmic conflicts in our notes, then show (not tell) what happens when idols clash--or when the Almighty contends with the powers and principalities of this fallen world.

Fiction as Social Science

I love science--the "hard sciences," like physics and chemistry and biology. The so-called "soft sciences" don't impress me. Those are the disciplines that try to apply the methods of science to human beings, with questionable results. Anthropologists and sociologists and psychologists can gather all the data in the world about human behavior--but do they really know anything about any real human beings when they're done?

For my money, fiction authors are the true "social scientists." Do you really understand humanity? Then create a man from scratch. Lay the foundations of his motives and memories, frame his emotions and beliefs, finish him with all the details of his own life story. It takes artistic skill to sketch a human face on a sheet of paper (my best attempts are mere caricatures), but an author sculpts human souls out of a block of paper.

Readers know when the author has succeeded--or failed. We readers know a "cardboard characters" when we see one. They are "flat" because they are too trite, too predictable. The bad guys are all bad; the good guys are all good. It's bad writing--and it's false. Real humans aren't like that!

I have a simplistic rule for creating "three-dimensional characters." Every major character needs to have at least three primary and independent motivations. "Good characters" should have two good motivators and one bad one. "Bad characters" should have two bad motivators and one good one. (That can be a challenge if your plot requires a villain with no redeeming features--which is why I have reserved my own evil twin for any future plots that demand the ultimate evil. )

That's my rule for creating "three-dimensional characters," but novelists have to go a step further. I define a "novel" as a work of fiction where at least one major motivation of the protagonist changes over time. Since time is the fourth dimension, I call these "four-dimensional characters." They aren't just sculptures of static human beings--they have to move!

Successful authors make the reader want to keep on reading. They create characters that move--and move us. Beauty has that quality--it makes us want more. The beautiful novel presents characters that linger in the mind long after the book is over.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Let us study beauty!

Introducing Scott

I've been talking to the authors of this blog about art and God and art for over twenty years, so I am both flattered and humbled to be invited to join them here. I can't say I'm an aspiring author--I've written one book and spend a lot of time dodging fans who want the sequel.

I can't say I'm an artist, either (read the book and you'll understand). But I am an obsessive-compulsive philosopher who fell in love with the philosophy and theology of beauty after reading On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry.

Scarry identifies a defining trait of beauty--beauty makes us want to copy it, sustain it, repeat it. We sketch images, hum melodies, hang pictures on our wall. Beauty asks us to look twice--great beauty wants us to look over and over.

Scarry's observation enables us to ask new questions about beauty. With something specific to measure, we can identify beauty's extremes. Scientists do this all the time. For example, physicists define temperature as a measure of molecular motion. "Cold" means slow atoms; "real cold" means real slow; "absolute zero" means the atoms aren't moving at all. If beauty wants to be copied, then greater beauty wants to be copied more. Absolute Beauty would satisfy the viewer forever.

Lovers express this concept all the time. They say, "I could look at you forever!" The divorce rates prove that human beauty isn't really absolute. No earthly beauty is.

Beauty is real but it dazzles us. We look at a flame and think it is the sun. We look at the sun and are blinded. We can't imagine Light in such intensity that the sun is just a minor star lost in an average galaxy. Whenever my heart says, "I want to look at this forever," I make an idol out of something that can't really satisfy.

That is--unless the Beauty that moves my heart is really Absolute. For there is a Beauty that does satisfy forever.

And that's what Art&God&Art is all about...