The pre-writing stage and why every writer needs it

When searching for a prompt on teaching composition, I thought of the few friends I have tutored over the years. One of the main things my friends seemed to struggle with the most was getting their inspiration, getting their start. They would always turn to me and ask, "What should I write about"? After I considered their question, I would suggest using the internet, annotating articles, considering the subjects that they felt passionate about, or just debating with one another on the subject of the paper until a prompt came into being. While I thought myself to be an adequate impromptu tutor, I had yet to pick up the book A Writer’s Reference, or read any articles on composition theory. Still, I was not off to a bad start, as many of the pre-writing tools I mentioned are in Diane Hacker and Nancy Sommers A Writer’s Reference, but there were plenty more that I had not explored. In order to write an efficient and articulate academic paper, it is necessary to try one or many of the pre-writing tools found in Hacker’s, and to remember that writing tools are not rules, they are loose steps intended as stones for you to create your own pathway.

Every writer has their own method, and usually that method works for them. There is no problem in using your own writing method, so long as your method is evolved from established methods. Some writing methods involve writing a first draft the night before the paper is due and riding off the C or even B that is awarded. Notice how pre-writing did not occur in that example, and pre-writing could have made the difference between an average quality paper and a great paper. Even before writing this very paper, I was going to begin without using any pre-writing methods. I was going to commit the ultimate form of hypocrisy by lecturing on the necessity of writing steps without first taking any of them myself. However, I paused before writing this paper, reminding myself to utilize a few of the pre-writing methods outlined in pages 1-64 of A Writer’s Reference.

To start, I re-read parts of Hacker’s and other articles on composition. Next, I thought about what interested me most about the texts I had read. What was in those texts that inspired me to write? After narrowing down my focus, I drafted a thesis. Thus far, the steps I took to in writing this paper are all steps one can find in Hackers, beginning on page 3, titled “Planning”. The planning, or pre-writing stage of writing, is where ideas are hatched, nurtured, and finally given freedom. Though I had my thesis, I was not ready to move on to the writing stage, not at full-blast. What I needed next was a place to put those ideas in neat rows where I could get at them, critique them, and add to them. I decided to write out an informal outline.

What is an informal outline you say, and how does it differ from a formal outline? First, an informal outline is a great way to list your ideas quickly, aligning them so that they make sense to your chosen thesis, whereas Hackers says that “a formal outline may be useful later in the writing process, after you have written your rough draft […to] help you see whether the parts of your essay work together” (12).

The writing tools I used as part of my planning stage are not the only ones available. In fact, Hackers lists a number of pre-writing ideas, such as free-writing, clustering, and asking questions. Many writers scoff at the idea of using pre-writing tools, and most of the time they have never tried them. Pre-writing tools do work, if only to calm the jumble of the many thoughts racing through a person’s mind while writing. A case study in Sondra Perl’s article “Understanding Composing”, talks about the distractible quality that is always present while writing: “My mind leaps from the task at hand to what I need at the vegetable stand for tonight’s soup to the threatening rain outside to ideas voiced in my writing group this morning, but in between ‘distractions’ I hear myself trying out words I might use” (363). Thus, think of pre-writing as a way to muddle through the myriad of thoughts that bombard your brain. From the grocery list to the weather, pre-writing is the glue that brings the important thoughts of writing together in a meaningful way.

It is easy to think of writing as a fluid process, one that begins with pre-writing and ends with revisions, but that is not always the case. Writing is a messy process, even when one follows the loose guidelines set forth by teachers and composition books. Writing is what Sondra Perl believes to be a recursive process. A recursive writing process is one that is far from a continuous process, and as the writer puts words down on paper (either during pre-writing or beyond), he or she is constantly going back to look over their words, re-reading for context and understanding, mentally deciding what needs to written next. Writing as a muddied process is a sentiment echoed by composition theorist Donald M. Murray, in his article “Making Meaning Clear: The Logic of Revision”: “The writer’s meaning rarely arrives by room-service, all neatly laid out on the tray. Meaning is usually discovered and clarified as the writer makes hundreds of small decisions, each on igniting a sequence of consideration and reconsideration” (88). Recursive writing is not wrong, and one does not need to bury the recursive writing habit to write an academic paper. However, to write a great academic paper, it helps to train your brain to use pre-writing tools during that recursive process.

Another way to increase your quality of writing is to harness what Perl calls the ‘felt sense’. The description of felt sense is powerful, because for some, it describes what writing is: "The move [or felt sense] draws on sense experience, and it can be observed if one pays close attention to what happens when writers pause and seem to listen or otherwise react to what is inside of them" (365). Part of what Perl is saying is that all writers experience physical feelings as they are writing, and as they are trying to describe a particular scene, place, or emotion, they should draw on their own inner emotions to fully convey their meaning through prose. In other words, when writers say they have a muse, that muse can be a place or a person, but the way that the writer translates their feelings for that particular muse onto paper is the writing process known as felt sense. Felt sense can be a pre-writing tool because if a writer can learn how to recognize their felt sense, they can take advantage of that to create clear and concise text.

Pre-writing tools are not the necessary evils that they have at times been painted to be, rather they are simply necessary. It is also important to remember that writing is a process full of varied steps that can be utilized in different ways, so long as they are utilized. Writing is a large contradiction to itself, being at once a process that requires certain steps and at the same time, a process that seeks to avoid those steps and create new ones. Academic writing, while different in many ways from fictional writing, is not the large boot that stomps on creative writing as so many fear it is. Rather, one may keep their own tone throughout the body of an academic paper, as long as the paper retains structure, attention to detail, and clarity, all the perks that pre-writing has to offer.

Works Cited

Hacker, Dianne & Sommers, Nancy. A Writer’s Reference. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2011. Print.

Murray, M., Donald. Learning by Teaching. Montclair: Boyton, 1982. Print.

Perl, Sondra. “Understanding Composing”. College Composition and Communication 31.4 (Dec., 1980): 363-69. JSTOR Online Database. Web. 14 Nov. 2012. 

The Importance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Herland"

Photographic portrait of Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
American author, c. 1900. This is a cropped version
of the digital image from the Library of Congress online
collection, as identified below. Copyright has expired on this image.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was many things: a writer, a feminist, and at times, fan of eugenics based on her staunch racism. Aside from her failings, Gliman managed to write a groundbreaking novel called Herland that went unnoticed until it gained popularity in the 1970's. First appearing as a serial in 1915, Herland is one of the first works of feminist Utopian fiction.

Three young students set out to explore a legend shared by the locals of the foreign country that they are residing in. The legend is of a hidden community comprised solely of women. Since the three students are also young men, their interest is more than piqued.

All three men have different views on women, ranging from the extreme to the sympathetic. Jeff  is the biologist, and an idolizer of women. The narrator, Van, stays neutral on most every subject as a sociology major. Terry is a geologist, and straddles the line between gentleman and chauvinist pig.

Before they find out that the legend of Herland is indeed true, the three men surmise on what sort of civilization could arise if maintained by only women. Their prejudices and sexist views come to the fore during these discussions; “We mustn’t look to find any sort of order and organization […] Also we mustn’t look for inventions and progress; it’ll be awfully primitive.” (p. 8-9).

The civilization the three men discover is far beyond anything they could have imagined. Herland is a beautiful country, with gardens and forests that are carefully tended to yield the most food (there is no room for crops or cattle in Herland's tiny strip of territory). Men are nowhere to be found. In fact, the arrival of Terry, Jeff, and Van mark the civilization’s first sighting of men in two-thousand years.

Though Herland is not a distant planet, it might as well be for the all the differences Van takes note of in his journal. At first, Van believes his ‘world’ to be more advanced, but as he learns more and more about the women of Herland, he becomes ashamed at the state of his world in comparison to their paradise.

Many notions of femininity come into question in this short novella from Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The women of Herland keep their hair cropped short, wear clothes free of adornment, are intelligent, and work hard doing things that the three men considered only for men. Not every woman is young, giggling, and beautiful: [Van’s perspective]- ‘Woman’ in the abstract is young, and, we assume, charming. […] Most men do think that way, I fancy.” (p. 21). By the end of the story, Van and Jeff come to see that Terry’s view about women is entirely wrong, that indeed all their thoughts about women are entirely based on their society’s perception of gender roles.

Gilman, Perkins, Charlotte. Herland. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979. Print.

Amateur tips on reading, writing, and teaching composition

A hand holding a pen on the statue of Isaiah
at Piazza Spagna in Rome.
27 October 2008
Flickr: Roma Italy - Creative Commons by gnuckx

Writing is a part of life, used every day, but not always in the correct capacity. Good writing (or proper writing, or both) needs to be taught. What is most important is that people have to care about their writing, and not only care, but re-evaluate their ability to read, write, and teach.

Inspiration is crucial to any type of writing, be it creative or academic. There are times when the line between academic and creative writing can become blurry, but all writing is technically a creative outlet. There are no strict rules on writing, only guidelines set forth by texts like A Writer’s Reference. A writer must find their own voice and style, while adhering to the writing structure necessary for the audience.

Audience is a big thing to consider when writing. If the audience is a fiction fan, then as a writer, it is possible to leave them out of the writing, to keep some secrets and surprises in store for later. An academic audience must be included in the writing process at all times, because they need to fully understand the research and purpose of the paper. A writer can always break some rules to include tone, as long as the writing makes sense. Academic papers deal with structure, surrounding a thesis that requires sources, sort of like a big argument cushioned by a series of smaller supporting arguments. In contrast, creative writing is a showcase for the writer’s story and style. Eric Mast of the Writing Center echoes Flowers & Hayes on the purpose of writing by saying, “writing is a thought process and the reader should identify with that process”.

Mast also has some other tips for writers, specifically writing teachers. He believes that it is not possible to fully learn about teaching until the first day of class. A new teacher may prepare thoroughly, but what Mast suggests is to pretend confidence as a new teacher, even when the outcome is unsure (as it will most often be in the first year of teaching).

A composition teacher’s best friend may always be Hacker & Sommers A Writer’s Reference. It is a textbook filled with easy to follow steps on all types of writing, and included are several examples on how to utilize each writing step. Planning a draft, writing a thesis and introduction, creating body paragraphs, and writing a conclusion are writing steps outlined in A Writer’s Reference, and they are steps all composition teachers should be comfortable with.

Background and real world knowledge are other tools a teacher can apply to their teaching methods. Though, Mast warns that even as professional work environments and teaching environments share similarities, they are definitely not the same thing. Teachers should find their own balance of control to maintain in a classroom, remembering that the students are not employees and there are different rules in a classroom than in a workplace.

Reflecting on learning, writing, and teaching can appear to be a boring exercise. However, once completed, the process is an eye opening one because it expands the writer’s overall knowledge on their competencies and their deficiencies in each area. A writer/learner/teacher can discover things about their own writing and learning curves, and discovery leads to improvement. Self-improvement puts any writer/learner on the right road to becoming an effective teacher. Teachers should be familiar with the learning process from both sides (student and teacher) so that they can recognize their students’ needs at a relatable level. 

"53% of the Brotherhood of Man is the Sisterhood of Woman", and other thoughts by Ursula K. LeGuin

The opening line of Ursula K. LeGuin's “America Sf & the Other” sums up the tone of the article perfectly: “One of the great early socialists said that the status of women in a society is a pretty reliable index of the degree of civilization of that society. If this is true, then the very low status of women in SF should make us ponder about whether SF is civilized at all”.

Meet-the-author Q&A session;
Bookworks bookstore, Albuquerque, NM
Photo taken by Hajor, 15.Jul.2004.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Much of LeGuin’s article makes an argument on behalf of all Others, as she acknowledges that there are many types of Others, such as sexual, racial, class, and cultural. She goes on to insist that the patriarchal SF establishment is the tip of the iceberg, not only in literature, but in society, leading to a greater ill: women are portrayed (and not just in SF) as LeGuin describes them, “squeaking dolls subject to instant rape by monsters”.

Real people, as in neighbors, teachers, the poor, and the like are rarely ever present in SF (or at least they weren't present in LeGuin’s generation of SF). People of LeGuin’s SF are simply masses, described as ‘they’, never as the individuals that they are. Thus, the reader is indoctrinated, becoming desensitized to the needs of the un-described and faceless ‘they’ that are constantly harmed in SF stories.

Another point LeGuin makes about the masses in SF is this: “The people, in SF, are not people. They are masses, existing for one purpose: to be led by their superiors.” Imperialism is a turn the article takes for the better, going on to compare Galactic Empires with Roman Empires. Early pulp SF always made sure to conquer the alien invaders and to never portray them in a sympathetic light. The problem with that, in LeGuin’s view, is that SF has not really strayed from that old pulp notion that ‘the only good alien is a dead alien’, creating the sense that anything unknown =something not good (kill it, kill it!).

What’s worse is the creation of the godlike aliens of SF, that come to Earth with wisdom to better our sorry species. It may seem better to revere a being rather than kill it, but either way, LeGuin suggests that these two ideals only serve to distance human consciousness from one another. Or, to put it more eloquently, LeGuin states that with the distance from the other entity, either through hate or reverence, “You have made it into a thing, to which the only possible relationship is a power relationship. And thus you have fatally impoverished your own reality. You have, in fact, alienated yourself.”

The article ends with LeGuin surmising on the state of a male-led SF community, and her call to readers and writers of SF alike to end their longing for a return to Victorian standards, and instead to remember that “53% of the Brotherhood of Man is the Sisterhood of Woman”.  

Mizora: The Secret Society Founded by Women

Mary Bradley's novel, Mizora: A Prophesy, reads like a less publicized and earlier version of Gilman's Herland. It is a country of women located in a hidden pocket of the Earth (the Arctic instead of Africa), discovered by a regular citizen. After that, comparisons between Mizora and Herland are not so easy to come by.

The explorer who stumbles upon Mizora is alone, Russian, and a woman. Through the narrator's perspective, the reader views gender hypocrisy in a new way. The female narrator time and time again cannot understand how a society of women can get along without men, beliefs that were enforced by her own binary culture.

Mizoran women raise their children themselves, like in “When It Changed”, but unlike the communal parenting seen both in Herland and A Princess of Mars. While Mizoran women value their children greatly, the thing they hold to the greatest esteem is education. They believe that when they made education (including college) free for all, many of their social problems solved themselves. For example, the poverty rate is extremely low. Due to an influx of students, more mathematicians and scientists graduated, producing people capable of engineering affordable food, fuel, and most any commodity. A Mizoran educated populace also saw a decline in crime, and by the time the narrator finds Mizora, the most heinous crime committed by a citizen was the striking of their child almost a century before.

While reading Mizora, the parallels between a strictly female society and a peaceful society are argued in detail. Once men are out of the equation, more important societal questions are pursued that aid in harmonizing a populace. One stark trait of the Mizorans is their exaggerated femininity. In Herland, the women are spoken of as being beautiful, but in a more neutral, androgynous way. In Mizora, their delicacy is emphasized. All Mizorans have blond hair, a product of the eugenics practice that was perfected centuries before. Silk, flowing dresses and artfully made up faces are staples among the Mizorans, though in other all-female (or androgynous) populations found in the Left Hand of Darkness and Herland, beauty is a natural part of the citizens, not something artificially constructed through the use of exaggerated clothing and make-up.

          While Bradley sought to undermine gender roles in Mizora, some parts of her novel only reinforce them. The most illuminating part of the novel is when the female narrator is in disbelief over the roles of women in Mizora, and her ideas of a woman’s place (below that of a man’s) as opposed to theirs (women as human beings, not as a separate entity from men). The narrator’s point of view about women is one that is still present today. Plenty of women believe that the station they are currently in, (whether it be mother, daughter, wife, sister) is a station they cannot ascend beyond, and that they in fact should not strive to ascend beyond that station. Men are not the only oppressors of women. As Bradley illustrates, women can be their own worst enemies in the fight for gender equality, especially when women believe that the fight is not a valid one.

Bradley, Mary. Mizora: A Prophesy. New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1890. Print.

"Fundamentals of Character Theory"

"The Vampire"
By Phillip Burne-Jones (1897)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Every novel is a chance to explore a new world. Anne Rice brought us to the “realistic” life of the vampire with her novel Interview with the Vampire. Dan Brown made history cool again with The DaVinci Code. Part of what makes those books so memorable are the characters. An entire book told from an interview perspective would have gotten old quickly had Louis not been so sensitive and articulate, had Lestat not been so diabolically charming. And only Robert Langdon could solve academic mysteries a la Indiana Jones style while keeping the reader interested. Plot, setting, and pacing are certainly important assets for any good novel. However, a remarkable character can be the difference between a memorable novel and a book that is easy to put down.

In the literary world, character theory is always mentioned in passing. Character theory has been left largely unexplored. There are many reasons as to why, starting with how characters resemble human beings, and it is hard to condense a human being into word form. Closely examining a character can be just as difficult; difficult but not impossible. Throughout this paper, two questions will be explored: what are the prevalent aspects concerning character theory, and what makes characterization important in a novel? Stephen King novels and his methodology concerning characterization will be used as a basis of comparison.

Character theory involves a myriad of factors, beginning with the different types of characters.

Types of Characters

At its base definition, a character is the portrayal of a human in a fictitious work of art. The role played by the character indicates who they are to the reader, and the characters is further defined by their role.

According to author Christina Myers-Shaffer, there are seven common roles found in literature: hero, superhero,anti-hero, villain, protagonist, and antagonist. Sometimes a character can encompass more than one role, and Bill Denborough from King's IT is one such character. Bill is the main hero in IT, but in combination with his psychic abilities and childhood stutter, he is also a superhero and an anti-hero. It is this very complexity that leads to the categorization of character roles. For example, Bill is not just a hero, he is a round character as well. A round character cannot be easily defined and cannot be contained by one role, whereas a flat character can be "summed up in one sentence," (Forster 224). Stock characters are expected to be found in a particular story, such as fairy tales featuring swooning princesses and evil witches. Type characters represent an entire class or group of people. Stereo types are the last subset of characters and they are predictable in their actions that are usually derived from cultural assumptions. Of all the characters sub-sets, flat and round are the most fascinating, thanks to E.M Forster's critique.

"Clown"
By Graeme Maclean (2005)
Source: Originally uploaded from
Flickr to Wikimedia Commons

E.M. Forster was an author and literary critic. In his book Aspects of the Novel, he actually coins the literary terms 'flat' and 'round' characters. While many writers hope to evade flat characters, Forster makes the case that flat characters can lend an advantage to storytelling in two ways: they are easily recognized and easily remembered, (227). Forster is aware that in life human beings can rarely be summarized in one sentence, but he contends that in novels, they can and should be. Books can be overcome by a cast of strictly round characters because then there would be no room for anything else. Flat characters help to move the story along, like Mr. Nell in IT. He is an Irish policeman concerned with the dam built by the children that is flooding the town, and that is all he is. Even so, he is the necessary catalyst that shifts the children's focus from dam-buidling to taking down the monster, Pennywise. Everyday, there are people like Mr. Nell who come in and out of the picture suddenly, but their impact on a life can be profound. Forster says something similar of literature, "A novel that is at all complex often requires flat people as well as round, and the outcome of their collisions parallel life [...] accurately," (227).

Classifying a character type can become formulated, but the art of character creation is a bit more subtle.

How to Create a Character

Deciding factors in a character's development can stem from environmental or cultural influences. Myers-Shaffer reports that there are four elements used to shape a character: attitude, emotional state, response mechanisms, and intrinsic values, (175). By attitude, Myers-Shaffer means the way a character carries themselves. Emotional state is the intense responses felt by a character. A response mechanism is the way in which a character deals with situations. And finally, intrinsic values are the layers (or lack of) morals inherent to the character's personality. Cohesively, those four elements can be used to create a character, but there are other unconventional methods to characterization.

"Passengers Waiting in Line..."
By Jim Pickerell (1936)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

To make a new character, it isn't necessary to adhere to a list of literary elements. Character creation can be as easy as considering the klutz of the office, or a friend's over-the-top mother. Either one of those people can form the base of a realistic character. A conversation overheard at the store or waiting in line at the bank could prove useful in character development as well. If a book can mimic real life, why not use everyday people and conversations to make new characters? Ideas like these are taken from Orson Scott-Card's book Characters and Viewpoint. Scott-Card notes that "what seems ordinary to you will seem strange to someone else" (162). Perspective is the key; Scott-Card is saying that no one leads an ordinary life, therefore a writer needs only to look around for potential characterization material. Of course, the method in which a character's details are presented is essential to preserving their validity to the reader. Character details can overlap with motivation, another character creation tool.

Motivation is an underrated part of character theory. Authors worry about the character's appearance, dialogue, actions, and that is when motivation can get lost, (Janeczko 9). Yet, motivation is useful in explaining character actions, background, and foreshadowing their possible future.

Why is a character mean/nice, smart/stupid, or a hero/villain? What drives them to the point that they are at now in the story? Past human interactions and situations can be used later in character development. For example, in King's fantasy novel The Gunslinger, anti-hero Roland Deschain's short-term goal is to pursue the man in black, and there are reasons why he wants to catch the man in black: Roland believes that the man in black holds the answers to finding the Dark Tower, which is Roland’s main goal in The Dark Tower series. Roland later believes the man in black may have been the person responsible for bringing about the end of his kingdom. These reasons help to shape Roland's personality, and they give insight to the reader on what actions he might next decide upon. Scott-Card warns that character motivation should not be overlooked because then the reader settles on their own idea of motive, usually an archetype or cliche, (106).

An additional character creation method is to dissect characters from other novels. If a character like Roland can be taken apart for examination, his traits could help clarify for the reader what type of protagonist he resembles and why.

"Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came"
By Thomas Moran (1859)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

It helps to begin by listing the characters distinguishing traits. A few words that could be used to describe Roland would be: powerful, relentless, cold, kind, focused. By Myers-Shaffer's standards, Roland possesses a mixture of positive and negative traits, thus he can be defined as an anti-hero. Like Bill Denborough, Roland fits the category of superhero, because he is trained in the sacred art of the Gunslinger, a talent that imbues the person with unnatural dexterity, speed, and precision while shooting a firearm. Character dissection can serve as concrete evidence of a character's persona.

Apart from types of characters and character creation, there is another vital feature to character theory, and that is the function of major and minor characters.

Major and Minor Characters

“Not all characters are created equal,” (Scott-Card 59).

A novel is a narrative that can feature one central character, or a cast of several central and surrounding characters. Central characters are also known as major characters, with the less marginal characters being dubbed minor characters. Despite the connotations of the names major and minor, the labels themselves do not dictate a character’s importance to the story, or their place in it.

In his book, The One Vs. the Many: Minor Character's and the Space of the Protagonist in a Novel, author Alex Woloch describes the relationship between major and minor characters through comparison from Homer’s the Iliad: “The Iliad is about one life and many […] this arrangement of characters is structured around the relationship between one central individual who dominates the story and a host of subordinate figures who jostle for, and within, the limited space that remains,” (2).

Woloch also speaks about the dilemma an author comes across when a major character must withdraw from the story for a period of time. How can a story progress? Woloch’s answer is that secondary characters then become essential in reflecting the conflict of the story from their point of view, (3).

Minor characters differ in degrees of importance, from secondary to background. Secondary characters complement the major characters and are distinct because they can speak, emotes, and act out in ways that make the reader care for them. A background character is just the opposite, with his development being stunted. Background characters merit a quick mention, such as “The men arrived”, “My sisters laughed”, or “The people watched”. Background characters are a necessary element to a story because they instill a sense of reality; their presence shapes not just a story, but an entire world. Scott-Card advises that when creating background characters, a writer should remember that there are people in the story who must be there, who might be there, and who have been there, (34-35).

The idea of the major and minor character can seem redundant after discussing round and flat characters. It is an assumption that they are one and the same. However, that is not true, since a major character is capable of being flat, and a minor character is capable of being round.

"Oliver Twist"
By James Mahoney (1898)
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Dickens is an author who is accused of using flat characters as his constant in every book. Major characters from any Dickens novel manage to capture a reader’s interest and hold it. Yet, that is not due to the character’s depth; “Probably the immense vitality of Dickens causes his characters to vibrate a little, so that they borrow his life and appear to lead one of their own,” (Forster 227). Consider Oliver Twist’s character: his is innocent, naive, and trusting. Twist shares the traits of many fairy tale protagonist, and like a fairy tale, Oliver Twist gets his happily ever after. There is little to learn from Twist as a character that they reader has not already seen in other hero-types. Nevertheless, Twist is the major character in Oliver Twist.

An exemplary minor character that exhibits round attributes would be Allie from The Gunslinger. At first, she is merely a bartender, made noticeable by the scars on her face. Roland Deschain notes that, “if she had been pretty once, it had moved on long ago” (King 34). Allie starts to emerge as a minor character of greater significance after she tells Roland that she cannot rid her mind of the thought of asking a dead bar patron (brought back to life by the man in black’s magic) about the afterlife. She knows the answers wrought from the dead man would drive her insane, but she wants to know them anyway. She exercises restraint, until she gives in to the madness, at which point she begs Roland to kill her. From King’s initial description of Allie, the reader assumes she is a mean, ugly woman only meant to serve Roland a beer and then move on. Allie becomes more than the reader could have presumed upon, and through her interactions with the major character, Roland, the reader sees that Roland is not made of stone. Allie humanizes Roland, and she lends her own depth to glorify his at the moment of her death by his hand.

Stephen King is known for creating memorable characters, whether they be major or minor in magnitude. He has created an intricate network of literary characters that can interact with one another through different novels. By doing this, King has made what some of his fans refer to as “The King Universe”.

The King Universe

"Stephen King at 2007's Comicon"
By Pinguino
Source: Originally from Flickr,
uploaded to Wikimedia Commons

On Writing is King's semi-autobiographical account of his life as a writer and his tips on how to become a good writer. Briefly, King outlines his approach to characterization: "The situation comes first. The characters- always flat and unfeatured to begin with- come next. [While narrating] I have an idea of what the outcome may be, but I have never demanded of a set of characters that they do things my way. On the contrary, I want them to do things their way," (165). King gives his characters free reign in a story, allowing them to make the story their own through their actions and words. Characters even break free from one book to show up in another.

In most every novel written by King, there is a mention or interaction with characters from previous novels. There could be a reason as to why King does this: it is fun for him and/or he wants to solidify the world his characters reside in to his audience. Scott-Card is a like-minded author that feels “the characters in your fiction are people. Human beings,” (6). It would then make sense to a reader why characters form different novels could be aware of one another, since human beings are also aware of one another, regardless of a separation of distance or words. King runs with this idea, and here are some examples of character links:

Salem's Lot-The Dark Tower: The Wolves of Calla

Father Donald Callahan disappears in Salem's Lot (and presumed dead), only to appear in Wolves of Calla.

Eyes of the Dragon-The Stand

Randall Flagg appears in both books in some form as an antagonist.

The Regulators-Desperation-The Dark Tower Series

Tak is the main antagonist in both Desperation and The Regulators, and he is also mentioned in The Dark 

Tower series as a mischievous spirit.

The Regulators-Desperation

Both books feature the exact same array of characters, juxtaposed in an alternate dimension.

The Dark Tower series has numerous character links to other books, as characters are 'pulled' out from books (like Father from Salem's Lot) and put into the story of The Dark Tower. Another prominent character connection is the one between Dolores of Dolores Claiborne, and Jessie Burlingame of Gerald's Game. At the same moment in time, though they are separated by miles, both women experience a psychic connection with each other that occurs during the solar eclipse that is paramount to each novel. It is implied that either the power of their mutual suffering or the power of the solar eclipse enabled them to share minds for a fleeting moment.

King doesn't only connect characters to emphasize the size of his universe. He also sets stories in the same towns, making sure to include landmarks, places, and other things. Derry and Castle Rock are two cities in Maine that receive plenty of attention in King's World. There are websites dedicated to the Derry Connection. Castle Rock is the setting or somehow mentioned in these novels: The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Body, Needful Things, Under the Dome, and Lisey's Story.

Small details perpetuate the realism of the King Universe, such as Desperation's Ellie Carver reading the Misery Chastain novels, the various mentions of Shawshank Prison, The Inside View (a tabloid referenced in Desperation and The Dead Zone). The list of King connections could fill an entire book, and in fact, they do. Stephen Spegnasi crafted The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia, a book that can be described as thicker than a telephone book in length. Spegnasi realized the potentially long list of links that complete the King Universe. There are plenty of other undocumented links to be found and taken note of, tenuous as they may be.

King's Universe of novels is alluring both for the story and the world they immerse the reader in. From book to book, King's world is a palpable, breathing entity, made even more real by the characters he chooses to create that drive his stories.

Conclusion

Character theory is a vast territory to explore. The fundamentals underlining character theory are types of characters, character creation tools, and minor and major character analysis. Real people and motivation can develop characters in new ways, and help a story reach its potential. Characters are the bread and butter of any novel. It is a character's humanity that keeps the reader coming back. Unfortunately, a full understanding of character theory is difficult to grasp because of a character's realism. As Scott-Card said, a character is a human being.

Works Cited

Card, Orson. Elements of Fiction Writing: Characters & Viewpoint. New York: Writers Digest

Books. 1999. Print.

Janeczko, Paul. “In Their Own Words: An Interview with Stephen King”. The English Journal

69.2 (1980): 9-10. JSTOR. 6 October 2011.

King, Stephen. Dolores Claiborne. . New York. Signet Publishing. 1993. Print.

---. Gerald’s Game. New York. Signet Publishing. 1993. Print.

---. The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower 1. New York: Viking Press. 2003. Print.

---. IT. New York: Signet Publishing. 1980. Print.

---. On Writing. New York: Signet Publishing, 2000. Print.

Meyer-Schaffer, Christina. Principles of Literature, The: A Guide for Readers and Writers.

Barron’s Educational Series. 2000. Print.

Stevick, Phillip. The Theory of the Novel. New York: The Free Press, 1967. Print.

Woloch, Alex. The One vs. the Many: Minor Characters and the Space of the Protagonist in

the Novel. Princeton University Press. 2003. Print.

"Nightfall"- An Illuminating Short Story by Issac Asimov

Source: UmMuseum.com

Writing legend Issac Asimov added to the genre of science fiction in a big way, most notably with his short story collection on robotic intelligence in I, Robot. One of his lesser known stories, "Nightfall" explores something entirely different: the limits of human knowledge.

On the distant planet, Kalgash, an eclipse is about to take place. The thought of an eclipse has the people of Kalgash in a panic.

Kalgash is a special planet, home to six suns. Six suns means that Kalgash is in a constant state of light. Darkness is a foreign concept to Kalgash citizens. They do not even fully realize what stars are, or that an eclipse is a natural occurrence, not a supernatural event to fear.

Every 2,049 years, Kalgash has an eclipse. With each eclipse, civilization collapses due to insanity born of the fear of darkness. The only people that survive the eclipses without going insane are children, the elderly, and drunkards.

The premise of the story seems ridiculous: one night of darkness is capable of collapsing 2,049 years of civilization? Yet, humans always fear what they cannot understand. Author Isaac Asimov takes note of this, and one of the characters in “Nightfall” says “[of the stars and darkness] You can’t conceive that! Your brain wasn’t built for the conception of infinity or of eternity. You can only talk about it. A fraction of the reality upsets you, and when the real thing comes, your brain is going to be presented with the phenomenon outside its limits of comprehension. You will go mad” (Asimov p. 8).

Stars, like infinity, are beyond the characters comprehension. One character has a ‘cute notion’ of the possible number of stars in the sky, stating there could only be a dozen or so, and no more. Another misconception shared by Kalgash citizens is the idea that a planet with only one sun would be uninhabitable because “Life--which is fundamentally dependent upon light---[cannot] develop under those conditions [of partial darkness]” (Asimov p. 17).

Religion is another part of the story that Asimov ridicules. The Cultists are a religious group founded around the worship of darkness and stars. They are the only people of Kalgash that long for the eclipse, as they believe that starlight will cleanse their immortal souls. There are Earthbound religions that share similar sentiments of a promised salvation that must always come hand-in-hand with apocalyptic prophesies.

Asimov’s story takes perceptions of what is possible and turns it on its head. From the perspective of an Earthling, Kalgash citizens are laughable in their ignorance. The scary thing is that we Earthlings have our own dangerous misconceptions.

“Nightfall” is a short story full of commentary on the true limits of human knowledge. In thinking that we know everything (Asimov is telling the reader), we know nothing. All of our petty reasonings designed to understand the scope of the universe and its inner workings are inadequate, especially when they’re founded on fear and superstition instead of fact.

Asimov, Isaac. “Nightfall”. Astounding Science Fiction (1941). Print .

Orlando: The Man, The Woman

Original cover
User: El-luismi
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Orlando is a novel by Virginia Woolf that takes the idea of being a man and woman in one lifetime (or several lifetimes) and puts it to good use. The title character, Orlando, is a nobleman living in England during the Elizabethan period. He is content with his life except for the loneliness, having been engaged, married, or assumed to be engaged to four women in his lifetime. When he meets a Russian princess, he thinks that life has finally rewarded him with his one true love. Unfortunately, the princess does not reciprocate and leaves Orlando. Distraught, Orlando turns to his other passion: writing. He takes writing seriously, writing plays, poems, and stories, all odiously long. Away in his country manor he writes and writes, until he is visited by a famous writer Nicolas Green. Green reads Orlando's work and writes up a poem to satire it, thus making Orlando hate humans and turn even more inward while at his country estate.

Later on, Orlando visits other European countries, encountering gypsies as he does so. One night, he has a strange dream, and as a by-product, becomes a woman. There is no shocking reveal or loathing from Orlando at having turned into a woman, only acceptance. With his/her new worldview, Orlando comes to see how different her life will be as a woman. Her return to London is a lesson in women's rights, because she realizes that she can no longer own her land, manage her finances, or vote. Small things come to Orlando's attention now that she is a woman, like the fact that men cannot cry in front of an audience. A man falls in love with her, and when she refuses him, the man begins to cry, and though Orlando knows from experience that men cry just as women do, that they are not supposed to openly weep, and so she is shocked at the emotion display of her thwarted lover.

"Orlando as a boy"
paiting by Cornelious Nuie
(1650)User: El-luismi
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Orlando life spans many generations. He/she goes into deeps slumbers every few years, almost like a bear hibernating, and this (or some other type of magic) prolongs Orlando's life from the 1500's, taking the story all the way to the 1920's.

As a man, Orlando never questioned his privilege or sexuality (believing himself to be inherently heterosexual and powerful). Yet, as a woman, Orlando's eyes open up to see that the world is often one-sided in its treatment of women. Orlando the man fought in wars and dueled men to the death, but he/she is aghast when a gentleman treats her like a dainty flower, as she feels much more capable than she is given credit for, not just as a woman, but as an equal division of humanity.

Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1956. Print. 

"The end of masculinity would also mean the end of femininity", and other thoughts from Marlene Barr

Source: Google Images

All female societies, pregnant nursing males, and the end of masculinity are only a few of the topics discussed by Marlene Barr in her book Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond. Through a series of essays, Barr comments on the equality (or disproportions) between men and women, using feminine sf stories as a basis of comparison. Authors like LeGuin, Russ, and Gilman are quoted by Barr, though she is fair in her feminist sf study by including male authors (an unwanted but undeniable presence in feminist sf).

In the introduction to her SF analysis, Barr shares the story of her academic rise. By choosing to study sf through a feminist lens, Barr says that many of her male colleagues were threatened and tried to negate the academic quality of sf for study. Sf writer Gary Westfahl is quoted by Barr, warning sf writers to “never conceal, compromise, or apologize for [your] interest in this field” (p. 2). If sf was a laughable avenue of study to her colleagues, Barr realizes that a feminist-led criticism sf might be met with greater laughter. Still, she forges ahead with the dismantling of patriarchal sf by comparing them to feminist sf stories of the same caliber.

Chapter 6 talks about the end of masculinity. At face value, the term ‘end of masculinity’ could be interpreted as a threat to men everywhere. What Barr means by the end of masculinity is to also end the other side of that particular coin, femininity. Like ying and yang, one cannot exist without the other. Without masculinity or femininity, men and women would unite under a singular definition of gender, one in which both men and women would be caregivers, providers, and valuable members of society. Barr's text is a valuable tool in the study of sf, especially given her gender critiques.

Barr, S., Marlene. Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. Print.

The Themes Found in "A Handmaid's Tale"

"Handmaid Under the Eye"
Created March 11, 2008
by Segeton
Source: Wikimedia Commons

According the timeline in A Handmaid's Tale, in the early 1970’s, radicals took over the United States, killing the President and all of Congress simultaneously. To erect their totalitarian regime, the country’s new founders suspended the Constitution to create their own laws. These laws are mostly anti-laws steeped in Christian sentiments, like pro-life, anti-sex (citizens are denied sex unless they are married, and even masturbating is a punishable offense), free speech censorship, and even laws prohibiting literacy (for women).

 Offred is a Handmaid of the Republic of Gilead. The remnants of the United States is formed into Gilead, and woman are no longer allowed to have a job or own property in the land of Gilead. A rise in sterile men and women has prompted the leaders of Gilead to promote the use of Handmaids. Handmaids like Offred are put into households of commanding army officers to do what their sterile wives cannot: produce a child. Often, a Commander is sterile (though it is treasonous to blame men for anything in Gilead), and a Handmaid must secretly turn elsewhere to become pregnant.

When Offred’s Commander begins a courtship with her, their forbidden affair is one she takes as  just another duty of her Handmaid status. Yet, the affair opens her up to another affair with the Commander’s chauffer, Nick, and she finds herself falling in love for the first time since the empire of the United States ended and the reign of Gilead began.

A Handmaid’s Tale reads like a series of diary entries, and the writing is just as intimate. Atwood is not afraid to make her characters real, even if sometimes that means their descriptions are crude beyond belief: “Below me, the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate […]; Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I didn’t sign up for” (p. 121).

Female freedoms and male expectations are two large themes Atwood constantly revisits in her novel. Simple things women may take for granted like having a bank account, going where they please, reading a book, and having a job are all defining characteristics of female suffrage. Offred, and all women in Gilead, are denied these basic rights. Why? The founders of Gilead believe that by returning women to a more ‘traditional’ role (traditional role in the Christian or even Islamic sense), they can guarantee the happiness of most. Like other totalitarian governments, Gilead has achieved a few things that modern civilization has not: rape, murder, and theft have been eliminated (for the most part).

Author Margaret Atwood attends
 a reading at Eden Mills Writers'
Festival, Ontario, Canada in
September 2006.
By Vanwaffle
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Men of Gilead expect their women fill the role of the caretaker (cooking, cleaning, ect). In a way, women are natural caretakers as they give birth and instinctively feel the need to take care of their progeny. Does that mean that women should be responsible for taking care of all household duties, and nothing else? Well, in Gilead, that is exactly what being a woman means. Men of Gilead also expect their women to be natural sluts (but publicly, they denounce wanton sexual behavior). Gilead Commanders maintain a brothel outside of town, named the Jezebel. At Jezebel, women wear ‘retro’ costumes, like lingerie and cheerleading outfits. When Offred asks how a place like Jezebel is allowed, the Commander responds with “Everyone’s human […] you can’t cheat Nature. Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, it’s part of the procreational strategy. It’s Nature’s plan. Women know that instinctively. Why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women” (p. 308).