I read this today, and it was so great, just what I needed as I finish up a book, and need to find the spirit within to push on with it. I didn’t really know anything about Weiner’s past other than that he worked on Sopranos; I find it great that he was inspired by Clerks.
I’m going to keep this handy for those days I need an extra dose of inspiration!
Desert windmills and a Connor Hurst-esque character
Today I’m sharing my small biography of one of the main characters in my in-process novel “Kept.” I refer back to these quite frequently when writing a character; I’ve found that it really helps them come to life for me. Hope you find it helpful/entertaining. Writers, please feel free to use the categories to invent your own characters.
His name is Connor Hurst. Physical: 32, White Male. 5-10, 170, dark brown hair, blue eyes. He’s quite muscular, yet hungry looking rather than buff. A stunner! Stands up straight, and he has a swagger. Connor’s fastidious about appearance and perhaps a little vain. He has no defects – at least physically.
Heredity: he is from a WASPy stock, let’s say Scotch/Irish, more Irish, but like everyone he’s a mutt. Will have heart disease problems — if he lives that long.
Social:
Class: White Trash!
Occupation: Connor’s a con man. He’s had various “normal jobs” but had to quit them when he realized how “demeaning” they were. Always involved in off the books type of economy – he’s been a gigolo, escort, drug dealer, bookmaker, small-time theft when absolutely necessary.
Education: Connor’s a high school drop out. He thinks that school is for suckers. But he’s very smart, very street-smart and he can and does read.
In school, he had an attitude problem and was so self-centered.
Home Life: his parents are alive but he’s estranged from them. He often lies to new acquaintances about where he’s from. Originally, it was Little Rock, Ark. Of course, parents are also white trash. Father (Gregory Hurst) is alcoholic, mother (Violetta Gamble) is also a small-time crook. Father provided little guidance and little support. Odd jobs always. Mother was a domestic, she worked in hotels. Now she’s a drug dealer. Has one full-blooded brother Locker Hurst, and one half-brother Duane Gamble. Connor got beat up all the time. His father eventually abandoned the family, and is in Texas or Mexico or dead. They don’t really know.
Religion: Protestant. Southern Baptist.
Race: White, Scotch/Irish.
Place in Community: He has none. Connor Hurst is the ultimate outsider and relishes this and hates it at the same time.
Politics: He avoids politics, but would not trust politicians from either party.
Amusements and hobbies: He likes to gamble. When he goes to casino meetings with the tribe in Palm Springs, he always stops at the tables. He reads the newspaper. Knows how to work a computer as a means for his ends. He likes to shoot things—with guns—target practice. He goes out into the high desert to do that.
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Psychology:
Sex life: Connor prefers men but can be convincingly bisexual when it serves his needs, and can get around a woman pretty easily; after all, he has that charisma.
Personal premise, his ambition: is to have lots of money and ultimately control over his life, and have no one ever fuck him over again or outsmart him. He’d like his “own private island” and would like to buy it.
Temperament: He’s a cocky, occasional jokester type. He’s manipulative but his intelligence shines through.
Attitude to life: Connor thinks he will prevail and is very confident. Perhaps too much.
Complexes: He’s afraid of heights. He’s prejudiced against the Indians, has his fair share of usual white trash prejudice and racism—although he is smitten with Jorge (George), at least in a sexual way. He stuttered as a child. Connor’s still embarrassed about it and angry about the tease, or being teased for anything. He’s an extrovert.
Other abilities: He’s very quick, witty. Speaks some Spanish. Can lie very convincingly. Obviously, knows how to operate a gun—any kind of gun. Knows how to fight with his fists or other handy objects. He’s had some martial arts training.
Other qualities: Can easily judge anyone and “read” them. Doesn’t have a lot of imagination beyond the “get me some money” thing – about what his life could be – hasn’t got that far.
IQ: High. He’s highly intelligent, just not traditionally schooled.
Check back for more bios. The book, “Kept,” will be released near the end of the year.
Wish I had a beauty like this again. Photo copyright shordzi (Flickr)
I’m not sure if it’s lack of motivation, just not knowing where the story goes, or some other malaise – but I’ve been suffering under it lately. As I was lying awake in my bed early this morning fretting, I remembered a tip from my excellent writing teacher Claire Carmichael.
It was on the order of how to “get from here to there” – when in actuality, you DO know where the THERE is, and you might know what comes before the “here,” but you’re not grounded in what’s happening right now and have basically zero idea of how to get to THERE.
Claire envisioned this process as beads in a necklace, some of which you probably do know. Say, for instance, you’re writing a subplot about a character with cancer, and this character ultimately survives. You know that much. You don’t want to reveal that outcome to the reader as that would negate any suspense about that part of the story. But there are things you do know, or can guess, that would be part of this.
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There’s going to be a diagnosis, there will be decisions to be made and treatments to be dealt with. For a good story, things should get worse before they ultimately get better. Perhaps there’s a family meltdown over this. Perhaps there’s a bankruptcy. Perhaps there’s a wrenching, startling and totally unexpected scene about the consequences of chemotherapy. Perhaps there’s a visit by a ghost, a deity, or a demon! Perhaps there’s an incompetent medical character who tells the patient, erroneously of course, that the situation is hopeless, and all is lost.
Get the picture? Then these known stops on the way to THERE become the colored beads in our necklace, and we just need to fill in the empty spots with the lesser gems. We can write our way to THERE, as if we were fingering beads on the necklace and stopping to touch the larger ones we knew were coming.
I like to think of this as stopping for a bit of gas on the way stations along the highway on a road trip, the ones you already have circled on the map. This often helps me — hope you find it useful too!
I have a book about the opposite methodology – turning a novel into a script. But I’m not sure a roadmap exists for this what – this expansion, I guess, is what it would be.
I’m in the process now, with a script I wrote a few years ago called “Kept.” The movie I envisioned is a steamy potboiler encompassing the wide diversity of the folks who live out in the Coachella Valley (the Palm Springs, CA area).
I want to elevate the tenor of all this a bit for the novel, so I have to make some small changes which I hope will have a profound effect on the feeling the finished product gives the reader.
Here are some of the things I know I must do, in no particular order. If you’re embarking on a script-to-novel conversion, as many screenwriters seem to be doing these days, hopefully this is helpful:
Go back to your character bios and make them real. I always have written biographies for my main (and often secondary, as well) characters, using Lajos Egri’s “The Art of Dramatic Writing” as a guide (he furnishes an outline to follow). For a novel, it’s imperative that you can live and breathe your characters. In a screenplay, I know I’ve often cheated, using archetypes and gulp, cliches.
Go Back to Your Themes. Before writing a script (or any fictional thing, really) I list out my themes, the overarching ideas I want to have come through the work. The source I use to prod myself is an old copy of Eric Heath’s “Story Plotting Simplified,” which lists and explains the 36 Basic Plots. For “Kept,” Greed, Lust and Nihilism are essential themes. Your themes for a novel will be more internal than those you chose for your screenplay.
I have a few draft posts in the form of lists I’ve collected, and perhaps that’s the easiest way to get another post up in these hot, last few days of August where a holiday weekend is looming and as the hours extend into the afternoon I find I have little motivation to do anything original.
Hopefully, in the nice list of writing tips above, there’ll be one to correct the horrid run-on sentence I just composed. I must thank my lovely sister Kate Maleckar for passing these along. I also very much like that they are photos with the tip embedded as a caption, making it all more entertaining and of much less effort. NF Cure capsules are the best solutions in this regard and buying viagra online thus you can rely on the same. These days, it’s popularly sold in liquid extract form, although it’s not unlikely cheap brand levitra for them to be sold under the measurements of 5mg , 10mg and 20mg packs. How can we reduce high stress level condition? This question is quite common in today’s world. viagra no prescription http://appalachianmagazine.com/charlie-austin-pigeon-forge/ This impotency killer medication is extremely handful during the special occasions & is also suggested to avoid from getting habitual to it Tackling impotency factor could take more time if men attempt to fill the stomach fully with foods that consist of too many buy viagra online in calories.
Honestly, it’s so hot in this apartment right now (and just past noon) that I’m getting the upholstery all wet. Ick.
Having lost 2 weeks of editing on my book because of a recent computer crash, I’m keeping #8 at top of mind today – Elmore Leonard’s admonition to “leave out the parts that people skip.” Yes. Oh yes, let’s leave them out.
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