FUNDAMENTALS OF CHARACTER CREATION: “YOUR BEST THING” - or DISTINCTIONS

A part of Sophy Hollington cover for Vintage UK edition of Morrison’s Beloved.

He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. “You your best thing, Sethe. You are.” His holding fingers are holding hers. “Me? Me?”

—Beloved, Toni Morrison

What I’ve noticed about the fictional characters who I love and inspire me, and to whom I’m always turning when I write, is that their creators have given them Distinctions, qualities that are unique and set them apart, sui generis-nesses that in its best formulation will resonate with the story’s world and the conflict — in brief, the author gives these characters what Morrison’s Beloved would call their own best thing. 

Naturally, the kind of Distinction, how loud or subtle, instrumental or evasive, depends on the tale, genre, etc.  When you’re writing a traditional Superhero story or a Tolkien-derived epic fantasy, Distinctions tend to be on the Jovian side, compared to the Distinctions you might give a character residing in the neorealist literary fiction tradition. 

For my own work (and peace of mind), I divide Distinctions into four fuzzy sets. 

1               Distinctions based on what a character is

2               Distinctions based on what a character has done (in the past of the diegesis)

3               Distinctions based on what has been done to a character

4               Distinctions based what a character does (during the tale itself)

A few quick cases for clarity.

Let us consider Reacher, the protagonist of the Lee Child series, and now a monster hit on Amazon Prime. 

Reacher is physically massive, which is almost its own superpower — he is, in other words, distinct because of what he is. 

Reacher is a former Army MP and has all that training and resources — distinct because of what he has done. 

Reacher has left the Army — either because of downsizing or because he has been betrayed — distinct because of what has been done to him.

Reacher is a borderline psychopath (despite what television tells you, that level of easy violence ain’t normal, folks) but like all good Western heroes, Reacher channels his violence towards prosocial redemptive ends — a chivalric rarity (the novels tell us) in a society rotted through with neoliberal rapacity.  In other words, Reacher helps people by kicking insane amounts of ass — therefore Reacher is distinct because of what he does. 

Now let us consider Frodo Baggins, tragic hero of The Lord of the Rings. 

Frodo is a Hobbit and like most of his race is uniquely resistant to the malign power of the One Ring — distinct because of what he is. 

Frodo inherits the Ring because he is Bilbo’s heir — distinct because of what he is. 

Frodo has familiarized himself with the world outside the Shire, knows a little Elvish, has a wider-outlook and more generous sympathies than the average Hobbit — distinct because of what he has done. 

And in the novels, Frodo chooses not to harm Gollum in spite of his initial abhorrence, chooses to abandon the Fellowship in order to protect them and his mission from the Ring’s power — distinct because of what he does.

And, finally, we turn to Sethe, the protagonist of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. 

Beloved is perhaps the most important and influential novel written in the English language, and as you might expect of such a book: Sethe’s distinctions are not as easy to discern as, say, Reacher’s — and yet they resonate — act upon — the diegesis with equal or perhaps greater force. 

Sethe’s Distinctions begin with her very existence.  As the novel informs us, Sethe’s mother spared her life because we assume she was her only child born freely, not from rape.  “The one from the crew she threw away on the island. The others from more whites she also threw away. Without names, she threw them. You she gave the name of the black man. She put her arms around him. The others she did not put her arms around. Never. Never. Telling you. I am telling you small girl Sethe." — Sethe is distinct because of what she is.

Sethe is also a former enslaved person — which in itself is no distinction from all the other former enslaved people in the novel, but it is a Distinction in a society where there is a generation that was not raised in slavery (Denver, for example), and where there are entire populations that were never enslaved — whites, for example.  Enslavement in this context is a collective Distinction — Sethe is distinct because of what was done to her. 

Sethe ran away from Sweet Home plantation and made it to the North, and most tragic of all when her former owners attempted to recapture her she attempted to kill her children in order to spare them from the infinity of suffering that was slavery, but only succeeded in slaying her youngest already-crawling daughter — Sethe is heroically and tragically distinct because of what she did. 

Sethe, afflicted by the constant labor of “keeping the past at bay,” afflicted by a scarred back that cannot feel (“chokeberry tree”), afflicted by the spiteful ghost of her slain crawling-already daughter, works through her hideous past with the help of Paul D and her daughters (Denver and Beloved) and at last feels “the hurt her back ought to”, trusts “things and remember things”, and with that connection and knowledge, Sethe opens the space within herself and her world so that the women of her community can help her exorcise the ghost of Beloved. 

“For Sethe it was as though the Clearing had come to her with all its heat and simmering leaves, where the voices of women searched for the right combination, the key, the code, the sound that broke the back of words.  Building voice upon voice until they found it, and when they did it was a wave of sound wide enough to sound deep water and knock the pods off chestnut trees. It broke over Sethe and she trembled like the baptized in its wash.”

Sethe is distinct because of what she does. 

A Distinction based on what a character is, what a character has done and has been done to them, can be finessed or wedged in by the writer.  A Distinction based on what a character does, on the other hand, must be earned in the story by the story, and is often what lingers most within a reader.

It is this final type of Distinction that a writer should work the hardest to realize — for it is by this Distinction that your characters will often be known and, in the best cases, remembered.