Today I have Cyndi Faria on the blog talking about the relationship between characterization and theme. And wow, what a post. You’ll learn a lot so make sure you read it thoroughly!
Here’s Cyndi!
I’d like to thank Cindy Carroll for having me guest post today on the relationship between characterization and theme. Starting with characters, do you base them off someone you know well? A grumpy yet sensitive, grandfather? An overbearing yet teary mother? A supportive yet critical girlfriend? A heroic yet possessive fireman?
Characters that feel real are complex, often embodying both good and bad traits. The question is, what is a person’s true and dominant personality? Sometimes it’s difficult to know at first, but this is what makes getting to know a character in a story so much fun.
What I’ve discovered, and I’m sure you will agree, is that people hide their fears and desires behind a mask. This mask is generally a defense mechanism born out of fear. It is what a character presents to the word because he is protecting himself from pain. At the beginning of a story, we are often not seeing the person on the inside that is hurting and starving for love and release, but a shield.
How to break through?
As a romance writer and blogger on the craft of writing (www.cyndifaria.com), I love writing tips and helpful cheat sheets. So when I discovered the Enneagram’s Nine Personality Types, I stumbled on a method for creating three dimensional characters the easy way. I no longer had to pretend to understand how a person would feel on the inside. The Enneagram details the truth behind the mask and suggests a central theme that will tear away this mask. A person’s personality is constant once established. However, it can swing between unhealthy (flaws) and healthy (strengths).
For example, a Personality Type Three is called an Achiever:
- Backstory: Character’s emotions discredited as obstacles leading to success.
- Fear: Of being worthless
- Desire: To feel valuable, self-worth
- Strengths: Optimistic, competent, empowering, energetic, benevolent
- Flaws: Self-centered, vain, vindictive, defensive, opportunistic
- Lie: Relationships get in the way of self-worth
- Theme (what we as writers must prove true to the character and, thereby, the reader): Self-worth is measured in loving relationships and not by monetary possessions and status. A worthy legacy is earned through self-acceptance and benevolence.
- Therefore, the Black Moment Realization: Redemption is found in benevolence and knowing they have the power to change the future, regardless of the past. Self-worth is measured in relationships, not monetary possessions and status.
- Occupations (think “Me” positions): CEO, Speaker, Performer, Athlete, President
By rephrasing the backstory and desire, the writer can create a central theme that drives each scene: Success is measured by self-acceptance and benevolence.
Below, I’ve deconstructed A Christmas Carol for further study.
Truly, the Enneagram can benefit writers by spelling out personality attributes and themes, thereby removing the mystery of character development. To learn more about the other eight personality types, visit www.cyndifaria.com/more-than-skin-and-bones-characterization.
Happy Writing,
Cyndi Faria
Read on for a storybook example of an Achiever:
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Backstory: Ebenezer Scrooge grew up at a boarding school believing his cruel father didn’t want him. At school he had friends who loved him and he was tender and innocent. However, during Christmas, when the other children left for break, he remained at school. Year after year, loneliness and rejection broke his heart. As a young man, he fell in love, but soon greed of status stole his passion for love. His fiancé broke off their engagement. After, he rejected anyone who attempted to have more than a business relationship with him. He told himself relationships were risky, painful, and cost too much. Because of his backstory, he based his self-worth on achievements. He became obsessive and attempted to ruin other’s happiness. Christmas became Bah Humbug and a wasted day’s pay.
Fear: To be worthless, forgotten, especially at Christmas
Desire: To have value.
Lie he’s told himself: Emotions are obstacles that lead to success.
Theme: Redemption is found in benevolence and we have the power to change the future, regardless of the past. Self-worth is measured by loving relationships and not possessions and status. A worthy legacy is earned through self-acceptance and benevolence.
Dickens attempts to prove the theme true. In each stanza below, he shows Scrooge how his lie has deformed his strength of benevolence into greed and selfishness. Scrooge is shown how a monetary legacy (Marley’s Legacy) is soon forgotten, but one of charity (Tiny Tim’s Legacy) lives on.
Tipping Point: Marley gives Scrooge a glimmer of his eternal future, strapped to chains and ledgers and deeds: a destroyed man who can’t see past his addiction, money. Scrooge is shocked, horrified, but falls asleep.
Christmas Past Ghost 1: Scrooge’s first ghost shows Scrooge in happier times, when he was a boy, tender and innocent. However, quickly these joyous feelings recede when feelings of abandonment and loneliness overwhelm him. This is especially true regarding his feelings of rejection from his father. But just as his father cast him out, he too casts away others. He recognizes the similarities between himself and a man he hated. Lastly, he’s shown what his future with his ex fiancé, now remarried, might have been if greed hadn’t corrupted his loving heart. Scrooge actually sobs as his emotions leak through. But reestablishing the walls around his heart, his defense mechanism, he rejects the first ghost’s message.
Christmas Present Ghost 2: Scrooge’s second ghost shows him how his greed and lack of benevolence affects others in the here and now. His clerk’s son, Tiny Tim, is very ill because of the meager wage Scrooge pays Bob Chratchit. However, there is tremendous love and support within the impoverished family, something Scrooge longs for desperately. When visiting his nephew, Scrooge hears talks that he is a lonely miser, but his nephew professes his love for his uncle regardless. This softens Scrooges heart. His walls begin to break. He ponders the suggestion of free will and his choice to love again. But these emotions scare him. Detachment and machinations are painless. Emotions vulnerable.
Christmas Future Ghost 3: Scrooge is guided by the ghost to the future. He sees the empty seat in Bob Chratchit’s home as Tim has died. However, the memory of Tim is alive. He’s not forgotten, but remembered every day because of his charitable ways. Scrooge is then taken to his funeral lunch, where businessmen contemplate attending if lunch is served. Back at his home, his charwoman steals his belongings. Finally, when Scrooge is appalled and ashamed of his greed, when he realizes nobody cares about him, the ghost brings Scrooge to Scrooge’s neglected gravesite. There, at his most vulnerable condition, beat down, the walls of his heart shattered, he realizes greed has made him calloused and ugly and unlovable. Greed has robbed his heart of compassion. And if he doesn’t change his ways to be more “Tim-Like,” he’ll become a man chained to eternal doom, like his coworker Marley.
Waking on Christmas morning to love and joy in his heart, he realizes he doesn’t need things to make him happy. He needs people. He chooses to let his benevolence shine and earns the reputation of a man who embodies Christmas.
Therefore the theme detailed above—Redemption is found in benevolence and we have the power to change the future, regardless of the past—is proven true.
Sources:
“A CHRISTMAS CAROL.” A CHRISTMAS CAROL. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2012. <http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm>.
“Enneagram Research, Development & Applications.” Enneagram Institute: Enneagram Testing & Training. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2012. <http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/>.
Cindy here again!
Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Cyndi. Cyndi is pre published and actively blogs on the craft of writing. She has served as an RWA chapter president in both 2011 and 2012. Folks, don’t forget to visit Cyndi at her website: http://www.cyndifaria.com/ and follow her on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cyndifaria
Happy writing!
Cindy
October 24, 2012 at 9:20 am
What a great post!! So useful. Thank you, Cyndi!
October 24, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Virna, Thank you so much for stopping by! I’m glad you found the post useful 😀 Cyndi
October 24, 2012 at 10:44 am
I FB’ed this one. Great info, and with NaNo starting in Nov, I need to get some characterizations done.
October 24, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Pepper, thank you for the FB plug! Hope my website page on characterization is useful for propping for NaNoWrMo! And good luck writing 50k! Cyndi
October 24, 2012 at 11:15 am
Cyndi and Cindy – what an awesome post!
I’ve bookmarked this to come back to and read in more depth.
Thanks.
Barbara
October 24, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Barbara, I so happy you found the post helpful enough to bookmark! Thank you for stopping by! Cyndi
October 24, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Loved this post. Thanks so much for being a guest here today!
October 24, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Cindy, I am so honored to have had the opportunity to post on Guelph Write Now! Thank you, Cyndi 😀
October 24, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Excellent post, Cyndi!
And the illustration made it very clear. Thank you for this valuable info on tying character and theme.
AC
October 24, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Thank you, Cindy, for reading the post! A Christmas Carol is one of my favorite stories to study. Cyndi 😀
October 24, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Great information, Cyndi! I like the Enneagrams, too.
October 24, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Edie, the Enneagram is such a useful tool. thank you for reading and leaving a comment! Cyndi 😀
October 24, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Thx, Cyndi!! 🙂
October 24, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Thank you, Susan, for your support! Cyndi:D
October 24, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Great notes to use when developing characters, and easy to follow. Thanks, Cyndi.
October 24, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Sharon, I’m so glad you found the post helpful! Cyndi
October 24, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Wow, girl! Some deep thinking! Very interesting blog.
October 24, 2012 at 10:56 pm
Mary “deep thinking” cracked me up. I so glad you found the topic and Enneagram helpful. Thank you for stopping by! Cyndi
October 25, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Cyndi, as always I’m impressed and grateful for your generous sharing of info on the craft. Enneagrams was new to me and I’m going to check it out!
October 25, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Madeleine, thank you! I know you’ll find the Enneagram insightful.:) Cyndi
October 29, 2012 at 12:01 am
[…] I hope you enjoy BEHIND THE MASK. […]
October 29, 2012 at 3:44 am
Wonderful information, as always! Thank you, Cyndi, for another great post! 🙂
October 29, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Thank you, Tara!
October 29, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Cyndi, great info. I’m reading a book right now and trying to decide what was wrong with it. What an ‘aha’ moment you gave me. Her character’s mask stayed in place the whole book without a crack or a peek inside.
October 29, 2012 at 3:12 pm
Interesting, Jill. I’m thinking this was not a character driven book? Maybe a mystery? As always, thank you for posting a comment! Cyndi
October 30, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Great post Cyndi!