The Art of Creative Writing

Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas?

People wonder where writers get their ideas. Must they first experience what they write? Do they really rush wildly around looking for story ideas?

Good writers look for “characters,” because ideas grow as freely from characters as apples from apple trees.

Every character grows not one but many fresh, unique, writeable stories.

Writers who want to write good stories or plays must know their characters better than they know themselves. Better—because most of the time we are unaware of the motivating forces within us.

Strange but true, it is easier to create a living, three-dimensional character than an unreal, one-dimensional character.

No miracle involved.

Let’s suppose we know a person who is 100 percent charming and loved by everyone. Such a person needs only one insignificant trait to become disagreeable and hateful.

Let’s say this person is a young lady. She’s as charming as I mentioned, but I’m giving her one disagreeable trait—she is trusting.

But what’s wrong with trusting? Nothing, if used in moderation.

Everyone is trusting once in a while, but this character is trusting twenty-four hours a day! She’s a sitting duck for swindlers. And worse, since she cannot be distrustful, she might drag you into serious trouble, like blackmail, lawsuits, divorce—even murder. This one uncontrollable trait in her obliterates all that is admirable.

She cannot change.

Iago in Othello never changed. The mother in The Silver Cord never changed. The junkman in Born Yesterday never changed. Tartuffe never changed. And leading characters in all great plays, great movies, great novels, great stories, never change. They cannot.

If you have an unbending character, he will create his own story. Not your story, not mine, but his own, because he cannot do anything but be himself. ls he strong? He does not want to impress or show strength to frighten the weak. He simply wants to be left alone and be himself. As he cannot change the color of his eyes, he cannot change his outlook, his character, even if his life depended on it.

To find original stories, the rulers of the airways and their long-suffering writers need only pick one individual with an outstanding trait from among their acquaintances. One alone can provide story material for a dozen series.

The following characters will generate their own stories. They could embody all virtues in existence, plus the one trait which makes them lovable or intolerable to live with. And why should such people generate a story? Because they totally possess one trait—one trait which is 100 percent. A compulsive trait.

Here are a few:

ANALYTICAL: He is normal, only compulsively analytical. He figures out reasons for your every movement, even if you haven’t any.

CONFORMIST: She is a nice, peaceful person but she’d rather die than do anything out of the ordinary. Pair her off with a non-conformist who is militant, and watch how the sparks fly.

HYPERSENSITIVE: Orchestrate him with a crude showgirl. And remember, he’ll be sensitive the rest of his life.

INFALLIBLE: What a horror to live with a person who is always right!

MATERIALIST: Pit him with an idealist. Do you hear him cry out when the idealist praises a sunset, “What do you get out of it?”

HYPOCHONDRIAC: Orchestrate him with a health fiend who looks at sickness as the greatest and most unforgivable sin on earth.

IMMACULATE: Opposed to a sloppy person.

Let me remind you once more, the people possessing these compulsive traits should be bound together with an unbreakable bond to their opposite. Now, if you can figure out how to break the unbreakable bond between them, the struggle for liberation will make your story or play.

OVER-GENEROUS
OPPORTUNISTIC
OPTIMISTIC
OBSCENE
PESSIMISTIC
PERFECTIONISTIC
PERVERTED
SELF-RIGHTEOUS
RUTHLESSLY AMBITIOUS
SENSUOUS
DISTRUSTFUL
EXTROVERTED
SPENDTHRIFT
SCRUPULOUS
STOICAL
SNOBBISH
FRUGAL
FLIGHTY
GREEDY
GULLIBLE
SHIFTLESS
TIMID
EXHIBITIONISTIC
EXTRAVAGANT
SKEPTICAL
TREACHEROUS
TRUSTING
UNSCRUPULOUS
VAIN
VULGAR
VISIONARY
VINDICTIVE
WASTEFUL
EXACTING
CONNIVING
EGOTISTICAL
FICKLE
SYSTEMATIC

It is a must that a writer present a character—any character—as an individual. Even the Devil deserves his due. No character is all black or all white. A tantalizing revelation occurs when an apparently decent and reliable human being exposes himself as an unreliable gambler without conscience or foresight, jeopardizing the life of the man who trusted him implicitly.

Now let’s reverse the procedure.

A character is despicable—unwholesome and treacherous. You wouldn’t want to live on the same continent with him. He is almost intolerably black but he has one singular weakness which makes him human. He is afraid to grow old. Not afraid to die, mind you, but afraid to grow old. This man is cruel to all with whom he deals, except old people. He goes out of his way to treat them with gentleness. Strangers seeing this man with old people will consider him an admirable person. On the other hand, those who know him would never believe him capable of a single decent act, if his life depended on it.

The touchstone of great writing is to know your character and expose him in as many angles as possible. This can be done only if the writer knows the character’s background, his inherited characteristics, his ambitions, his hatreds, his loves, his heroes, all the little and big episodes in his life which could throw a searchlight on the man as a whole.

WRITER:	Call me a blockhead or a man without imagination, I don’t care. But after all this explanation, I still don’t know how to create conflict. I know my protagonist backward and forward and yet my characters refuse to move. What’s wrong with me?
ADVISOR:	Do you have an unbreakable bond between the protagonist and antagonist?
WRITER:	I have, but it does no good.
ADVISOR:	Do you know the premise, the goal of your antagonist?
WRITER:	Of course I do. I am sure something is missing but, for the life of me, I can’t put my finger on what.
ADVISOR:	Read the following stories and I think you will know how to activate your characters.

These stories and scattered suggestions have no structural connection with each other. The origin of every character remains to be explored. The purpose of these stories is to show the inherent story possibilities in them.

THE WOOLWORTH TYPE

One word describes him—Tightwad! He’s a young Scrooge, strong and energetic, with money in the bank. Nevertheless, he is so frightened about his future financial security that spending money even for basic necessities makes him feel ill. But he is human and he wants to fall in love and marry.

He finds a woman who is mad about him. She apparently approves of his attitudes and aspirations. He assumes they are soul-mates, never dreaming she would pretend to agree with almost anyone who promised to slip a wedding band on her finger. Actually, she marries young Scrooge fully intending to change his penny-pinching ways.

She begins to suspect her plan will never succeed when her husband refuses to spend money for the contraceptive she requests. She becomes pregnant. Tightwad has morning sickness every time he allows himself to think of the mountain of doctor and hospital bills ahead, not to mention the expense of having another mouth to feed. He wonders if he should insist that his wife have an abortion before it is too late.

While he is still comparing costs, his wife is admitted to the Maternity Ward. Triplets! He is outraged. The inconsideration of the female race! Divorce. That is the answer. But after his lawyer advises him of alimony payments he reconsiders. It is far too expensive! He agrees to stay with his wife and family. “But we simply can’t afford the luxury of marital relations,” he warns his beautiful wife.

Eventually, however, the Hungry Beast in the human side of young Scrooge gets the best of him. His wife, knowing the strength of her position at last, refuses him on the grounds of economy. She urges him to visit another woman. Spending the money outside the family seems outrageous to him. She holds her ground, and finally, the thrifty young husband can hold his no longer. He agrees to pay her for their nightly extracurricular activities. She costs a little more than the freelancers but she is good-looking. Anyway, there is always the possibility she might in some way spend the money on him. (She doesn’t, though. The last time I saw her she was wearing a new mink stole.)

A cheap character offers endless possibilities for a farce. A crystalized character is the source of more ideas than you can use in years!

THE PERFECTIONIST

He knows precisely what he wants, and he’s sure he can get it. Why not? He’s rich and handsome and his name is respected by all. Besides, he has a palatial ancestral home to offer the current object of his affections.

That’s right. Galahad wants a wife. A perfect wife, naturally, as he has carefully explained to his skeptical and chiding friends.

Galahad isn’t the type of knight who rushes into things.

When he thinks he’s found The Girl he has a whole checklist of qualities to measure her by. Is she exciting to the well-bred eye? Perfectly beautiful? Beautifully perfect? Charming in manner, flawless in taste, graceful in movement, conversationally delightful, of fine stock? Yes. Yes. Yes! And this one has a refined sensuality that steals his heart away. With much pomp and circumstance, Galahad and Cinderella marry, the absolutely perfect couple.

Only Cinderella doesn’t think so. At night her knight is clumsy, and in the daytime dreary. She has her own checklist for the perfect man and Galahad just doesn’t measure up. But she’s a clever young lady and figures that one man can’t possibly offer everything. So she gets herself several. One to talk with—the articulate, encyclopedia type; one to sleep with—an artist in the field of love; and one to be married to—that’s Galahad, remember? Excellent family.

Galahad almost throws himself into the moat when he realizes what has happened to his perfect marriage. But suicide is so sensational! He’d divorce Cinderella, but that would be admitting failure before the world, and to himself. And besides, his friends would taunt and tease him forever and, of course, he couldn’t bear losing face after all of his bragging. No, he decides. The only thing to do is to keep up a perfect front.

The Perfectionist’s fear of ridicule creates an unbreakable bond between him and his wife. The secret humiliation he suffers through her activities is preferable to the public scorn of the divorce court. The Perfectionist knows that the world likes to see a man humbled, especially if he has pretended to be better than the philistines around him.

THE MAN WHO IS IN LOVE WITH LOVE

Naturally he is young and lovable, healthy, full of the zest of living. He is—for the time being—an incorrigible optimist. There are bad things in life, he sagely admits, but it is childish to worry about them. Everything is curable or changeable. Of course he feels that people are wonderful. Everything is hunky-dory!

A charming imbecile, wouldn’t you say? He hasn’t the slightest premonition that life isn’t all sunshine but can be as ugly as sin. Let me repeat: this character has stars in his eyes. He considers himself an unrecognized and smiling Hercules, cheerfully carrying the troubles of the world on his broad shoulders. He doesn’t mind it a bit. As I see it, he is a strong character and his physical make-up and his background must correspond with his exuberant spirit. His actions naturally will grow out of his unbounded optimism which, of course, is proof-positive of his naivete.

This man is a perfect foil for a farce comedy. He might fall in love with every attractive woman he meets and propose marriage to each, whether they be as young as he is or as old as his mother. Perhaps he will narrow the field to three, and ask each of them to be his wife. He decides the third one is the girl of his dreams, but how will he get rid of the other two?

Unfortunately, they both travel in the same social circle that he does. It is imperative that he get out of his difficulty as gracefully as possible without leaving a messy aftermath.

He tries to backtrack with the first. As he stammers, embarrassed and unintelligible, she interrupts with the news that she is in love with another man. She hopes he can appreciate her great problem. The young man is hurt and humiliated. But worst of all, he discovers that he never really loved anyone else—only her. His smarting ego assures him he will never be able to love anyone else! He threatens to die rather than give her up.

His eloquence and desperation convince the young girl that theirs is a great love, the like of which happens only in fairy tales. As they fall into each other’s arms and swear eternal love, she promises to break off with the other man. After the great jubilation is over, the young man realizes he is now in a worse position than before.

How can he solve his problem? How can he retain his eternal optimism? Is everything as curable as he thought? His trouble is that he is physically and mentally young, unsophisticated, unspoiled. The story or play catches him as he is growing up. This, then, is not just an idea but a character maturing before our eyes.

An idea will never make a story, but a character will.

FATHERS AND SONS

I have to tell you an odd incident that happened between me and a young friend. He quite often complained of his malfunctioning liver. One day, as a joke, I told him he should sue his parents, not only for the suffering they had thoughtlessly passed on to him but for the endless doctor bills he was obliged to pay. He laughed at the joke, and then dropped the subject.

But the next time I saw him he told me that his doctor had advised an operation. I told him again, quite seriously, that he should sue his parents. I expanded my idea. Shouldn’t someone set a precedent for punishment of parents who thoughtlessly bring innocent children into the world to suffer endless agonies all of their lives? It is against the law, I argued, to annoy, abuse, or hurt others. Why then should there not be a law against those who actually cripple their own offspring?

He looked at me, startled, and said, with a strange fire in his eyes, that he was going to write a novel on that theme. There is a law now that every couple who are going to marry have to take tests for venereal disease. Why not a law forbidding people to marry who might pass on other crippling sicknesses to their children?

I am sure this is a mad idea. But if you can visualize those who would accept such an idea and be willing to go through with it, you’re going to have a hell of a good time making a story or play out of it. If it turns out to be as good as it is sensational, some writer—you?—will make a lot of money.

There’s something peculiar about this man. He might have red hair, wear a navy-blue suit with a snow-white shirt and red necktie. Still you have the impression you are talking to a man who is all gray. You know without asking that whatever Bob Daniel does in the future will be tainted gray. You could swear he has never done a thing in his life which might be called colorful.

Bob Daniel is polite to everyone, not subservient, just a bit too correctly polite. If you should enter his home you could not fail to notice that even the walls match the furniture and the furniture matches his character. You get the impression you are in a comfortable but uninspiring apartment. Bob Daniel fits as perfectly here as a Yale key fits into a Yale lock.

There’s only one problem. His wife Theresa doesn’t fit into the pattern. She is a constantly moving element in this inert gray conformity—a nervous red spot in all this grayness. Her voice is sharp, full of vibrating, electrifying gall and hate. She loathes her husband, her home, her life. She married Bob because she feared becoming an old maid. The gray man was the only male in the whole world who could tolerate, let alone live with, her. By the same token, he knew she was the only woman who would tolerate his unexciting, phlegmatic nature.

At least once she cursed him to make him angry. But Bob Daniel was never angry. In the forty years of their marriage she failed to arouse him. Theresa often said, “One of these days you’ll cut my throat, you murderer! Still water runs deep.” She was actually frightened by his coolness, but Bob only smiled and let her holler. Anyone could see she was wrong. Bob Daniel would never hurt a fly. But then one day Theresa got hold of his prized Meerschaum pipes. (He was allowed to smoke only in the basement.) She broke them to pieces with an axe.

That evening Bob walked into the police station and told the attending officer, in his typically colorless way, that he had just murdered his wife. The officer at first considered it a joke—refused to believe it. But it was only too true!

But Bob Daniel remained gray even after he committed that horrible murder.

Is there really such a thing as a gray man? Of course not. The grayness was only a camouflage—just as exhibitionism is a camouflage—to hide the real, the frightened person behind it.

THE EXHIBITIONIST

She is a good-looking young woman about thirty—a platinum blonde who wears tight-fitting, low-cut dresses. Real whistle bait! You’d never dream she is married and has three children.

It’s no secret. We all try to exhibit our greatest attribute. For Virginia Lee Matson, it is her feminine allurement. She is proud of what she has to show. Apparently, it is much in demand, judging from the remarks heard about her on the street. Her face is a masterpiece of craftsmanship—the perfect artwork on a soulless mannikin. But there’s action elsewhere! Her bosom moves rhythmically, harmonizing with the undulation of her well-shaped buttocks.

Obviously, she’s an exhibitionist. But this does not mean we know her. She may look like a call girl, but she is not. As I mentioned before, she is married and has three beautiful children. Why then does she dress and walk as she does, exhibiting herself to men, inspiring their lust and, at the same time, the hatred of her own sex?

If we answer this, we have a good story. Let me try to give you a skeleton sketch of her background.

She was married at sixteen. She hated John, her husband, even more than the hoodlum who caused her pregnancy and then disappeared. Actually, John was a good man—a bookkeeper. His only sin was marrying her on the rebound. He was the boy next door, who had loved Virginia since childhood. But she never gave him a thought. Nevertheless, when she found she was pregnant and her mother stopped her suicide attempt, it was John who came to the rescue. He took her away from a hopeless situation—gladly married her even though he knew she was pregnant.

But John’s goodness did not influence Virginia. “You are the last man on earth I would have married,” she’d tell him when in one of her frequent angry moods. She called him “Elderly”—his middle name which they both hated—to irritate him. “You act elderly to me,” she whined. “I feel I’m in bed with an old man.”

John was twenty-six at the time of their marriage. He was well-built, intelligent—even good-looking, though no one could convince Virginia of this fact. Any decent girl would have been happy to have him. But Virginia was neither decent nor rational. Deep down in her subconscious she hated him because he took possession of her when she had no choice. It was either death, disgrace, or John Elderly Matson. She tried death but ended up with John. She could never forgive him or herself for having married him under compulsion.

This is the superficial background of a young woman who is an exhibitionist.

There are other exhibitionists busily calling attention to themselves with their personalized idiosyncrasies. Some of the most fascinating give sulking performances.

It works wonders. Try it yourself at a party. It’s especially effective if you are a girl—and good-looking. Simply look morose, blank, bored, even disgusted with the revelers. Never a smile should cross your austere face. As sure as death someone will ask you—“Anything wrong?”

You’ll answer, “Nothing.” “Would you like a sandwich or something?” “No, thanks,” you say. I am also sure that someone will surely volunteer to sit beside you. He’ll probably say, “Boring, isn’t it?” “Oh, I don’t know,” you say evasively. Your answer does not necessarily mean that you are antisocial. The man will try to hit upon a subject which might lead to an interesting discussion. If he fails, you might suggest a topic. If the man is bright, you’ll have a wonderful time and, after a while, with a tolerant smile, you may suggest, “It’s too noisy in here.” If he lives nearby he will suggest, “Let’s have a drink at my place. It is cozy and quiet there and we can talk.” You might walk out triumphantly. You might even end up at his place if that is what you want, or somewhere else.

One thing is sure. Your sulking exhibition did a wonderful job. You’ve gotten a man. If he is not your type, you can try it again and again until the right man comes along. Sulking is a good trick! Sometimes it is even profitable.

There is no man, woman or child who would not try to be an exhibitionist if they could.

There is, however, an art to disguising oneself in order to project an attitude that presents something more noble than self-advertisement.

Under the disguise of—let’s say—exhibitionism, might lurk a shy person. Exhibitionism is the product of frustration which later hardens into desperation. There might be thousands of different reasons why a person would become an exhibitionist, but, whatever the motivation, it is covering up the real individual behind the front. Strange to say, under the mask of a killer might hide a misunderstood coward who is ready to take revenge against mankind for his frustration.

Could a person be an exhibitionist without being aware of it? The next character, “The Crusader,” will answer that question.

He is the most gratifying man you have ever met. Good looking, very pleasant, very obliging, even self-sacrificing to anyone who has the good fortune to know him. No, he’s not a big game hunter, nor a man who craves dangerous adventures.

He is a crusader. It is easy to recognize what he is. You need not talk to him for five minutes before he starts fingering the lapel of your jacket or, if you happen to be in shirt sleeves he will ask you casually, “How much did you pay for this thing?”

You will know instantly from his contemptuous tone that he thinks very little of your shirt or your suit. You name a price and whatever the figure, the great crusader will declare with much authority that you have been robbed.

That’s it! He’s the famous bargain-hunter. All of us like to get a bargain but he is passionate about this subject. He ferrets out a bargain wherever he hears of it. If there should be an article for a penny less than in the store nearest him, he’ll pay more for traveling than what he saves. But he’s almost religious about the matter. If you happen to be skeptical about his crusade, he’ll threaten you with his philosophy on life in general, and on bargain-hunting in particular.

The immortality of the soul, the tremendous upheaval of the world transforming colonialism to self-governments, or the impending atomic world war are all bagatelles to the Great Crusader. Pinching pennies here or there is what counts for him. If you think he is a selfish man you are mistaken. In fact, he is willing to spend hours on a Saturday afternoon, dragging you to where you can buy whatever you want at a bargain price.

No doubt about it. He is not a character you can dismiss without a struggle. He offers his services gratis. What has made this man a passionate bargain-hunter? Poverty is not the only answer.

I happen to know a man who is a multi-millionaire and he is still pinching pennies. For a poverty-stricken person to save a penny is normal. But it’s not normal for a rich man, despite his righteous indignation against cutthroats who are out to rob you. This bargain-hunter is a crusader. A penny saved actually means nothing to him. But the result is an exalted triumph, a superior achievement, a victory over the enemy. This bargain-hunter must feel superior to others who let themselves be hoodwinked.

(I have seen young children freely offer their dolls or toys to playmates, while others the same age grab what isn’t theirs—hoarding, but never giving. Such symptoms of character traits are apparent in infancy. It must have something to do with inherited characteristics, which are discussed in the chapter on “Shaping a Character.”)

Suppose this bargain-hunter falls in love with a woman who is his opposite—a spendthrift. There is a definite challenge here and he feels he can change the pattern of her life. What a fallacy!

Nevertheless, he truly believes he can make a convert and prove that miracles are possible.

Then the fun begins! Before marriage, she hastens to agree with the bargain-hunter’s logic. She is in her late thirties and eager to wed. He is, as I mentioned before, a pleasant individual with a lucrative position. She hastily takes his outstretched hand and becomes filled with the best intentions of becoming a good wife and a brand new personality. The resolutions last a year or more, perhaps, but slowly the imperceptible change comes into their lives. The battle-royal begins, which might culminate in divorce with a heartbreaking defeat for both.

It is easy to recognize a happy man. He’s cheerful and full of delightful stories. He offers good advice to everyone. Above all, he is a lifelong advocate of optimism. He is not afraid of anything on earth—except sorrow. And he is as afraid of that as the day is of the night. No doubt he has a woman devoted to him. He has no financial worries and it is heartwarming to hear him say to everyone, “Money isn’t everything.” (You can bet your last farthing that a man who makes such a remark has no financial worries!)

Naturally, the happy man is as healthy as an ox. His stride is springy. He breathes deeply and he can boast of a ready smile on a pink, rounded face.

He declares loudly his unquestioning belief in Norman Vincent Peale’s Positive Thinking. He wouldn’t recognize evil even if it should punch him in the nose. He’s fashioned after that famous Queen who is said to have told the howling, hungry mob, “If they have no bread, let them eat cake.” Furthermore, this happy man’s digestion is superb. (Without that, neither money nor positive thinking could make him happy.)

I’m aware that for a starving writer, a happy man is neither the best nor the most lucrative theme. Most readers do not know that happy people are the worst subjects to write about. They are dull because nothing exciting happens around them. Writers thrive on unhappiness and crime. The well-known slogan that crime doesn’t pay is true for general consumption, but not for writers.

Still, there is no man who can be happy twenty-four hours a day. Everybody is made of the same ninety-six elements. Consequently, we all share some kind of anxieties. Fears, little ids, superegos all play havoc at times with our subconscious. I have no doubt that our man must wonder how long this happy state of mind will last. What if he should develop cancer? Then all the money in the world won’t help him feel complacent again. What if the man’s beloved wife isn’t as happy with him as he is with her? His confidence and stability would be destroyed if she disappeared with another man.

There are developments at every turn which could ruin his happiness. His ideal wife, a source of comfort in the past, might stay with him for the rest of his life. But what happens if she slowly becomes ossified by the humdrum sameness, a coma dulling her mind?

It is useless to say that the state of being static is nonexistent. One thing changes into another. The future becomes the present. Our present will be the past. It is inevitable that after day comes night. Let the happy man walk with an aura of optimism about him. There is still a story in him for a lucky writer who can discover the lurking unhappiness in the happy man.

THE INDISPENSABLE MAN

He is a good man. The fact is—he is so good that he would love to help the whole world. But since he’s smart enough to know he can’t help everybody, he’s settled down to help only those around him. He is sensitive to the breaking point. He cries easily. Please don’t tell him any hard-luck stories because he won’t be able to eat or sleep afterward.

Strangely enough, his wife left him after fifteen years of marriage, claiming mental cruelty. This man, who could sympathize with his own worst enemy, could never feel sympathetic toward his own wife. When she divorced him he was naturally outraged by her unreasonable demands for alimony.

Let’s have a closer look at this humanitarian, Renard Bara, before we pass judgment on him. His heart could break just caring for others.

He was a real estate operator, a multi-millionaire. He had the Midas touch. Whatever he did turned into hard cash, bonds, stocks, gold. He had tremendous holdings, although he gave lavishly to charity. If there was an emergency in Asia, Africa, or anywhere in the world, Renard Bara was there to help.

This fine human being had no children of his own. After the tragedy of his divorce, he refused the idea of marriage. A nephew, his sister’s son Eric, was his favorite. He adopted him when he was only five years old. He schooled him and sent him to college. In fact, he looked after him as if he were his own legitimate son.

And what about his sister? What kind of woman would give her son for adoption even to a rich brother? I really hate to drag the sister into this story, but logic is organized reason. I must, against my better judgment, say a few words about this affair.

Renard Bara did not talk to his own sister for God knows how many years. She was ten years older than he—a notorious gossip who made trouble for everyone. Her one-time friends grew to hate and despise her. In return she became a relentless avenger, digging up dirt about everyone and trumpeting it all over town. She hated Renard more than all of her enemies combined. The reason? While Renard was young, she had advised him about a profession—what to do with his life if he wished to be rich. Renard listened dutifully, but went along with his own ideas. He succeeded fabulously. Every step brought him more riches and more hatred from his sister.

Renard’s great success was a thorn in her side, for she knew her suggestions would have led him to failure and penury. When her husband died, she was left with four children, sustained by public home relief. That’s when Renard asked to adopt five-year-old Eric. She consented only if he, in return, would give her $75 a week for the rest of her life. Renard consented with the understanding that as long as she lived, she would never call him nor come near his home. To break the promise meant a discontinuance of his payments.

I must make at least one statement about this maddeningly stupid arrangement. The sister could have asked for $200, $300, or even $500 a week. She would have received it without a word. But this miserable woman was so small, not only in stature but also in heart and imagination that she thought $75 a large sum of money, although Renard was a very rich man.

Eric had everything money could buy. His adoptive father had given him all a young man could wish for. And yet when he finished college, Renard of the sympathetic heart received the greatest shock of his life. Eric not only refused to work with his father but asked to move out of his house to start a new life of his own.

Arguments, pro and con, lasted for weeks. There was a feeling of bitterness between them, but Eric was adamant to the end.

Then a strange transformation started in the sympathetic heart of Renard. He set out to prove, with the determination of a crusader, that Eric would never amount to anything without his help. The change in Renard from kindness to cruelty was slow and subtle at first. But facing the young man’s obdurate struggle for independence aroused in him an unreasoning vindictiveness to destroy him rather than forsake his unshakeable belief that without him he could never be a success.

Under the façade of kindness, cruelty hardened into frightening ferocity. Renard’s ego was slighted, and now he was ready to destroy the one he loved more than his own life.

THE EGOCENTRIC MAN

The first words that Steve Berna uttered as he flung open my office door were, “The dirty little bitch!” He hurried in, his handsome face an angry red, and stopped before my desk. He looked at me with glazed eyes as if he were going to throw some wild, irresponsible words into my face. But after a moment’s hesitation he slumped lifelessly into a chair. Spoken words had lost all meaning in his hopelessness. His head dropped into his hands, and then this big man started to sob unashamedly.

He was sixty years old, but he looked much younger. He had the body of a well-trained wrestler. But instead of a dehumanized face, he looked and acted as if he were the president of some sort of respectable institution.

From the few mumbled words I heard, I began to realize what must have happened to him. The young woman he had picked up in the slums five years before had walked out on him. When they met she was a slender eighteen with the face of a blue-eyed angel. He bought expensive dresses for her, furnished a cozy little apartment in the West 70’s, and sent her to school. He took her to the theatre and lectures and, in short, made a respectable little lady out of her.

He was a real estate operator. His wife, a rich widow, was not pretty, and her obnoxious nagging did not help to keep his marital fire burning. Steve was a pleasant fellow. His love for Gloria (her original name was Marlie) deepened with the years. He gave her mink coats, diamonds, and beautiful clothes. Any day he did not see her was a lost day.

Steve threw a crumpled piece of paper on my desk, mumbling like a man who had lost his mental faculties. There were just a couple of lines on the paper:

“This is goodby for good, lover boy. Sorry. I’m going to get married. Gloria.”

“The dirty little bitch! I’ve given her everything.”

His helplessness was infuriating. Who the devil did he think he was? A schoolboy of sixteen? He insisted time and again that he had given her everything. But I knew the jewelry, furs, and fineries were not acts of kindness. Not even of love. They were all bare-faced bribes to chain her to him for his pleasure. Should I tell him? Will he understand that we never never do anything for anyone?

Was this the time to explain to a distraught man that all the kindnesses, all the good deeds we perform, first of all must give us pleasure and importance? Would he understand that even love in its purest form, or the noble filial death-defying attachment, is nothing more than an act for our satisfaction, for our safety, and for our happiness?

I decided not to discuss these points just then. He understood by my pat on his shoulder that I was sympathizing with his great sorrow. As he squeezed my hand in return he asked with a barely recognizable voice: “What shall I do?”

“Apparently she thought her clandestine affair with you was not making her happy,” I answered. “She did not leave you for another man, Steve. She left you for marriage—a home and perhaps children.”

I knew he would not buy this explanation, but I was sure that he would feel better knowing that Gloria had left him for the only thing he could not give her—marriage. A divorce, in Steve’s case, would have started a disaster for him.

With the above story, I wished to demonstrate that the success or failure of any type of writing depends on the real misguided motivations of characters and the correct understanding by writers of the characters they intend to expose.

Beckett’s Waiting for Godot was a simple statement, as far as I am concerned. The play affirms that no one, including God, will help any of us. We must get along alone. Or, “God helps those who help themselves.”

Let a play be presented in the most outlandish and distorted manner, still the author must have something vital in his mind in order to write his opus. Not all plays come through, of course, as the author intended.

, also by Beckett, where Man—the last ossified specimen—remains on a desolate burned-out Globe, mystified people no end. To me, it was full of desperate meaning “Get up, Man,” the author cried, “and try to live! Settle the pitiful differences between you. Live while living is good and possible.”

Motivation is the key to understanding. Even a murderer has his own good reasons to fortify himself for the ordeal ahead. Motivation, justification, rationalization, vilification, and even distortion are the basis of human conflict.

Steve Berna, the man who lost his mistress, was staggered when I told him his generosity was actually not directed to Gloria but to himself. Of course he wouldn’t accept my interpretation of his conduct. He was absolutely sure that everything he did was right. She willingly came to him, and he was generous. It was the same old thing. He tried to hammer into my head that the girl was an ingrate, a gold-digger, an unreliable no-good hussy who would come to no good end.

No one likes to seem himself in an unfavorable light. In his bitterness he turned against his wife. If she had been young and beautiful all this would not have happened, he reasoned. But she was not young and she certainly was not beautiful. However, she was rich. Now he conveniently forgot that without her he would never have had the opportunity to be the top man in any organization. He was looking for trouble. He was bickering and fighting with his wife. And at the end of one maddening quarrel he threatened to get a divorce! His wife quite calmly accepted the challenge. She knew too well he would be left penniless in the case of a divorce, so once more he was forced to his knees to sample the bitter taste of humiliation. Reluctantly, he was ready to explain, to apologize, to rationalize, and vilify innocent people who had supposedly caused him to turn against his own beloved wife!

She accepted the face-saving solution. But not Steve. His ego was too badly bruised. He made up his mind to find Gloria. He did find her and boldly, angrily, self-righteously stepped into her life and demanded that she become his mistress again. She was married and happy. Frightened, she begged him to leave her alone and not to break up her marriage. He did not leave her alone. In his blindness he insisted. Her husband gave him the beating of his life. Then came scandal—his picture in all the tabloids. His wife, who had known all along of his indiscretions, at last divorced him!

There are many possible ways to end this story. Gloria might have been thrown out by her husband, found Steve and demanded protection. But the difference between a wife and a mistress is so wide that it is insurmountable. What then?

I don’t care what type of character one writes about if he has his own crystalized ideas, philosophy about tradition, about books, politics, marriage, science and about almost anything. Whether I agree with him or not, he expresses himself and I shall recognize what he really is.

THE GIRL OF TOMORROW

Here is an idea with a built-in character.

A young lady stands in the middle of the room, talking to an admiring male audience.

“I might as well tell you that our moral outlook is outmoded, antiquated, almost barbaric. Women are afraid to talk about our double standard. What cowardice! Women should have the moral courage to revolt and say openly that the male approach to sex is the most healthy impulse to follow. They eliminated their feelings of guilt. They acted guiltlessly, as men who are not afraid to say they are hungry and would love to eat something exotic. It should be the same when the hunger is for sex.”

I can go on. There is the man who is absolutely sure the earth is flat. The person who believes that all conflict between men, and men and nations, could be eliminated if people would decide to go stark naked. In short—the salvation of mankind is nudity!

They say the hog dreams of corn. Lots of corn. A man with a ventilated head dreams of a woman who bows down whenever her incomparable husband comes home from work. He wants her to fall flat on her face so her Ruler can step on her like a doormat!

Of course, an author must know why this character needs such a subservient woman. Why does he think that marriage is what he needs instead of a well-functioning liver, or a couch in the office of a psychoanalyst?

If you write about a self-centered man, let him not be just a little self-centered. He might be a physicist, or a moron, or a professor of classical literature—still he can exhibit a virulent, full-fledged stupidity about women.

Q. Where do writers get their ideas?

A. From characters, of course.

Q. But did you find the answer to your problem—activating your characters to create conflict?

A. I did. It seems all these people act under a terrific compulsion. I am sure the stingy character went through hell to remain faithful to his conviction—fear of tomorrow. He committed one mistake: he dared to fall in love and marry. The rest of the story is the natural outgrowth of his miscalculation.

It is the same tragedy with the perfectionist. He wants a perfect mate but his mistake is that he is far from being perfect. Sorrow and life-long humiliation follow.

After I finished reading The Man Who Is in Love with Love I understood at last what was wrong with me. All these characters have an inborn or acquired compulsive drive to escape some kind of injury. With the first step they find themselves in trouble, sinking in quicksand. While they struggle to save their very lives, they find new and worse handicaps before them. It is not up to them any more whether they want to fight or not. They must—if they wish to survive.

Q. Very good. Tell me. Was there a compulsive drive in the man who was in love with love?

A. Yes. His exuberant optimism, his lack of foresight and experience. He not only made love, but an irresistible and foolish impulse drove him to propose marriage to everyone he made love to. It seems he has no control over his impulses. But he is in good company. Macbeth, the ruthlessly ambitious general, had a compulsive desire to become king. Hamlet had a compulsive drive for revenge. Tartuffe had a compulsive lust for Orgon’s wife. The junk dealer in Born Yesterday was compelled to corner the market whatever the cost. Jesus’s compulsive drive against hypocrisy and his fight for the underprivileged drove him to Golgotha. Michelangelo’s childhood compulsion to sculpt made him at last immortal.

I realize now that if I want my protagonist to move I must create a character who acts compulsively, moving blindly and inevitably toward his destiny, whether it leads to heaven or hell.

Q. I am glad you have finally found the answer. Now go ahead and write. Will you?

A. You just try to stop me!

Any idiosyncrasy, habit, phobia, or hypersensitivity in a character leads a writer to an important source of material.

Here is a brief sketch of a character with an unusual idiosyncrasy.

For as long as she could remember, Charlotte had been “madly in love with cats.” About a year before she met Bill, her future husband, she bought the most beautiful, the sweetest, Siamese cat in existence. It was pedigreed, too, she boasted. Aware of her passion for cats, Charlotte knew this tremendous emotional relationship with a dumb animal might lead her to a bad end.

Needless to say, Bill, who married her for love, was appalled by her unnatural devotion to Esteg, as she chose to call her precious Siamese cat.

She could never bear to leave him alone in the house. Wherever she went, the cat was her constant companion. Even on her honeymoon, Esteg watched the intimate proceedings between the lovers until Bill, infuriated, got hold of the animal by the scruff of his neck, threw him into the bathroom and banged the door shut.

Charlotte screamed and ran to free her pet, but Bill sternly warned that if she opened the door their marriage would come to an end—right then and there. She stopped, of course, but their relationship from that moment on became strained.

Charlotte knew that her behavior was unnatural. She tried her very best to make Bill look on Esteg as a friend rather than an enemy. He tried to understand, but the cat was inconsolable. It was silent warfare between Esteg and Bill.

One single human trait could be the foundation for a gripping story. The first question the author must answer is: Why is Charlotte so mad about Siamese cats? Why do cats in general play such an important part in her life. If the writer wishes to write an absorbing tale he must let us know how far Charlotte is willing to go to protect her cat from her husband.

Voltaire’s Candide is a bitter satire on the concept that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” Candide finds a woman who loves him dearly. Right after that, his father-in-law kicks him out of his estate. War breaks out. Candide is forced into the army. His wife is raped, becomes the mistress of the Inquisitor, and is mutilated by pirates. He survives illness, shipwreck, shooting, and all manner of disasters one after the other, until he becomes very old and ill. But this good, simple-minded man never loses his optimism.

There is no such phenomenon in nature as a 100-percent optimist, so Candide stands before us as an impossible specimen. But Voltaire knew what he was doing. By exaggeration, he directs the reader’s attention toward his own shortcomings. When Candide’s optimism is idiotic, it makes the reader ashamed of himself.

In Hamlet, the prince’s goal is to avenge the murder of his beloved father. We know that his father’s ghost has told him of the crime, but Hamlet’s insistence on finding out for himself what actually happened holds us spellbound.

The Silver Cord by Sidney Howard is also a case in point. The mother’s iron determination to keep her sons for herself is the core of the play.

Suppose you have one crystalized character with a maniacal urge to commit a crime or sacrifice himself for a noble cause. Such a character would make you write a fine story or play about him. You work on it (who knows how long), and after a heroic struggle, it is finished. You feel you are justified in expecting praise for your hard labor—but for some mysterious reason the characters never come to life.

What could have happened? I will tell you what actually happened. You did not know your character as an author should.

Here is an interesting story to contemplate.

You, the writer, find yourself in a singularly dangerous situation. Let me emphasize: you, and not the character you are writing about, find yourself in a small boat with your beautiful, beloved wife, your sweet little daughter, and your mother, the greatest mother who ever lived. The small boat is sinking. Rowing becomes impossible and none of you can swim.

You hope that a plane may have sighted you and gone for a helicopter to save you, but now your business is to manage to stay afloat.

The boat, under the combined weight, continues to sink. One of you must sacrifice his life to save the others. Who will be the first? Your wife? Your daughter? Or your mother? Not you, because without you they would perish in minutes.

If you think this is a tragic situation, then you don’t know what a really tragic situation is. One of you, by her own choice, sacrifices herself for the rest of the family. Of course it is your mother. She willingly gives her life for the family.

Only the three of you remain, your wife, your daughter and you. The boat is sinking deeper. Another must go. Who do you think it will be? Your wife hysterically argues that her daughter should stay alive. Suddenly she slips into the water—to save not you, but her child.

You are alone with the last of your family. You and your daughter. This is the most critical time of the desperate situation. Will you sacrifice your life that your child may live? Don’t be hasty. Think it over. If you go, the child probably will not survive without your help.

You, the author, must give the answer to this dilemma. It is your story. It is your life and no one else’s. You see, every character must be you and yet, when you let your mother and your wife drift under the water, no matter how heartbreaking it was, it still was not you. But now the life-and-death struggle is between you and your daughter. Which will be the one? Will you let your daughter die to prolong your life for a short while or will you try to go down with her? If you can imagine that, your answer will concern your life and not that of a fictional character; your description of the death struggle will be so real, so devastating that you etch an indelible picture on the reader’s mind that will endure for years to come.

Q. All this is very well, but a story or a play might have another type of story to tell than that of an opinionated man trying to force his will on his opponents.

A. Tell me one.

Q. I can’t think of one at this moment, but there must be other approaches.

A. Let’s imagine there is a nice quiet town somewhere in the world. People there have known each other since childhood.

Their ancestors lived there side by side for centuries. They have their customs, religion, and nothing out of the ordinary ever happens to them. Conformity blooms there unchallenged. These people act and think alike; even their tastes in food, in color, in morals, run in the same direction. Like bees, they are almost indistinguishable from one another.

The question is, what can happen with such peaceful, loving people?

I will tell you what can happen. Bring in one single individual who has different ideas, morals, religion, and you will see ferocious conflict.

Q. How about love?

A. What kind of love?

Q. I mean love. Period.

A. There are many kinds of love. Frustrated love, for one. Possessive love for another. This is the same approach I was discussing before. Any kind of love, if it is strongly felt, will be as good as the force of hate or vengeance could be.

Q. How about love of fishing?

A. If it is as strong as 100 percent, it can break up a marriage, dissolve a partnership, or even lead to murder. The point I am trying to make is that whatever a writer wants to say must be direct and compulsive in the character. Shyness can be as compulsive as anything under the sun. A wishy-washy emotion or a vacillating directive will lead your manuscript to where it belongs—the wastebasket!

Let’s consider the role hypersensitivity plays in character. Humiliate, hurt, or just contradict a supersensitive man only once and he’ll build a case against you which will not only endure but will grow in proportion and in coloration the rest of his natural life.

People are strange and complicated. I am sorry to say that many years ago one outburst on my part destroyed the most beautiful friendship I ever had.

I had a beautiful dog of mixed breed, half collie and half shepherd, called Chang. He not only acknowledged me as his master but elevated me to the exalted position of being his personal god. Every evening after dinner Chang and I used to sit in a Morris chair reading our paper. This was a nightly ritual.

Then one evening something happened that completely upset our idyllic routine. I had had the kind of day when everything I did went wrong. Naturally, my evening was even worse, for I had time to reflect upon all the stupidities I had committed during the day.

I was in an explosive temper and started to read my paper—tried to read it would be more accurate—without having eaten my dinner first. As usual Chang was prompt, but the moment he put his intelligent head on my knee, announcing “I am here,” I said sternly, “Listen here, Chang, let me alone tonight. I’m in a bad mood. Understand?”

There was nothing strange in talking to him as if he were human; we always had, and he always seemed to understand. But not tonight. Tonight he elected to play dumb. He stood looking up at me with the innocence of an infant. Gently but determinedly I lifted his head from my knee and said once more, “Not tonight. Go away.”

He retreated a few more steps, sat on his haunches and waited. I thought I had gotten rid of him. I made another futile attempt to read, trying hard to forget the whole miserable day. Suddenly I realized that Chang was halfway up on my lap. I was irritated beyond control, and with a curse I pushed him to the floor. He fell with a dull thud.

I felt instant remorse. “Please Chang, I’m sorry, awfully sorry, but can’t you see I’m sick and tired tonight? Why can’t you let me alone?”

He just sat there and looked at me and it seemed as if he had understood, because his bushy tail wagged once. It meant “All right. Let’s forget it.”

I started to read again, but Chang concluded that since I had apologized and he had nobly forgiven me, he could take his customary place on my lap.

But the moment he came near I felt as if an electric current had touched me, and, almost jumping out of my chair, I shouted: “Damn you, get the hell out of here... ! Get out!” Even as I said it I was sorry. His tail between his legs, Chang retreated, frightened and shaking.

“See what you’ve done?” I told him, pleadingly. “Why can’t you let me alone for one single evening?”

He understood the tone of my voice. It sounded conciliatory and he was happy once more. He just couldn’t believe that I, his god, could suddenly be so unfair as to punish him for doing something he had always done with my full approval. He started to approach me with his tail wagging. I saw with dismay that he had misunderstood me again.

Wanting to be on the safe side, I said to him harshly, “No, no, no! Do you understand? No! Go away!”

He stood stock still, his tail at half mast, looking at me pitifully. Now he saw that I meant what I said. I took up my paper with great determination and started to read. A moment or two later I looked up stealthily to see if he were going to annoy me again. With great relief I saw that he was going away at last.

If I had known what was coming, I would gladly have apologized to him then and there, but I didn’t and was glad that at last I had made him understand that I wanted to be left alone. He should learn a little discipline, I said to myself with a righteous feeling, and with that I lost myself in my paper.

The next day things righted themselves, as they usually do, and I was in a much better mood. After dinner I sat in my chair reading, when a feeling of uneasiness stole over me. Something wasn’t right. Why, of course, Chang was missing. He wasn’t sitting on my lap as he did every evening.

I called to him cheerfully, “Chang! Where are you, old boy?”

He came charging in from the kitchen to see why I had called him.

“Come here, boy, come on up. Let’s read our paper.”

He wagged his tail once but didn’t move.

“Don’t you want to come to me, old fellow?”

He stood there all attention, ready to obey any order—except that one. It was the first time he had ever been reluctant to do something I wished him to do. I felt a slight foreboding. I knew I had been brusque with him the night before, but for heaven’s sake, I thought, life is not exactly milk and honey.

I started to pat my knee to show him in dumb language what I wanted, which was an insult as he was the most intelligent animal I had ever known. But now he refused to budge. His large brown eyes were focused on me, almost begging me to order him to do something else, anything, only not that humiliating experience of last night, please!

Wanting to re-establish our old comradeship, and seeing that no coaxing could make him change his mind, I decided to play a trick on his great, almost inordinate love for sweets. I took a big piece of sugar-coated cake from the icebox. Chang was at my heels as I walked back to the living room.

I sat down and he came slowly, very slowly, toward me. I smiled and thought, how easy it is! Just then, one step from me, he stopped and looked at me with great expectation.

“Come, come now, old boy. It’s for you—this nice piece of cake.” I showed it to him temptingly. He refused to be corrupted. I tried to coax him but I couldn’t induce him to come into my lap. I was annoyed at last and said, “Whether you like it or not, old pal, you’re going to sit in my lap as usual,” and I got hold of his collar, pulled him toward me and lifted him up.

He stayed put, but I felt every muscle in his body tense. I told him to relax, that he didn’t have to be afraid of me, and if he were afraid it was unfair because I had never hurt him before. My voice was reassuring, and I stroked his head. It seemed as if he understood me and I thought he would calm down, but he didn’t. The moment he felt my grip loosen he jumped down.

This performance was repeated over and over again. From that day on, it was useless for me to try to make friends with him, although I tried very hard. I tried for weeks, without success. He never, until the day he died years later, forgave me for that one fateful evening.

And he was only a dog.

Oh merciful God! How sensitive a thinking human being can be, if even a dog acts like a human.

Is there a human being who has no desire to be important? Such a man never lived. Even a corpse in his majestic silence is full of frozen dignity. In the presence of such unbending respectability all flippancy is a sacrilege.