I was shopping at the Costco warehouse—on a Saturday. I must have lost my mind because there were gobs of people in there.
I quickly grabbed the things I’d come for, then navigated my way toward the cash registers.
Because it was a weekend, the food samples were really out in full force. Almost every aisle end-cap had someone with a wok or a small grill, cooking samples.
Finally I got a little closer to the registers and was in the cleaning section of the warehouse. But there was still a lady on an end-cap with some samples. She had a bottle of cleaner next to her, a cup with the cleaner in it so you could smell how fresh it was, and some free sample packets that you could take home and try.
I’d forgotten garbage bags, so I dodged down that aisle real quick and heard a man come up to the lady behind me. “Have you got something for me to taste?”
The lady was elderly and she gave a little, tinkling laugh and said, “Well, you wouldn’t want to taste it because it’s soap. But I do have some samples for you to take home with you and clean with.”
“But everyone else’s table has samples you can eat or drink. Sure I can’t eat or drink it? How about if I try to?”
Of course, I’m turning around at this point. He was a sort of nondescript man about my age with a toddler with him.
This is where I’d have expected him to wink at her or act like he’d been joking and ask some questions about the cleaning power of the detergent or whatever it was. But he didn’t.
“Oh, I don’t think you’d want to, sir,” the lady said.
“So…it’s not to eat. A sample that’s not for eating. We can’t eat this, Jack,” he said to the little boy.
The elderly lady gave a funny laugh, but was clearly trying to figure out if the guy was trying to joke with her, or if he was just odd. He looked over at me for a moment—I was clearly staring at him. He smiled, but not a I’m-making-a-joke smile. I smiled back, but I didn’t understand him or his smile.
“And it’s not for drinking!” He lifted up the cup she’d put out, acting like he was going to take a sip.
“No sir,” she said, with some emphasis on the ‘no.’ She looked uncomfortable.
He kept going back and forth with it. Was it a joke that was taken to a tedious length? Was the man just a little off? I wasn’t going to stick around and try to figure out more clues, though—especially since he was already clued in to the fact that I was watching him.
I’ve read a few books in the last couple of years that had characters that were hard to read.
Were they good guys or bad guys? Friends or enemies of the main character?
Sometimes an author has an unlikeable character do something good, or vice versa. And as a reader, I was left wondering, “Was this good thing done by this bad character done 0nly because it was self-serving in some way?”
And occasionally, I’ve had a hard time finding clues to a character’s intent in the dialogue. Sarcasm can be especially hard to figure out (unless a writer is using tags that leave no doubt that he’s wanting a sentence to be taken that way –‘he said sarcastically.’ Which isn’t considered great writing.)
I like ambiguous characters, I think, when I’m getting the feeling that I’m reading a complex character. I don’t like ambiguity when I feel like the writer just doesn’t have a handle on the character and the character isn’t acting consistently.
But if the ambiguity goes on for a long time, I think it needs to be really well written. Rowling’s Severus Snape comes to mind—she did a great job showing different sides to him. He wasn’t all good or all bad—and really, are most of us?
But if there were a character like my guy in the Costco? I think I’d want a little more explanation at some point as to where he’s coming from—some background on why he might be behaving erratically. Some insight on whether he’s got a weird sense of humor…or is weird, himself.
Are your characters easy to read? If you give them some layers of complexity, is their motivation clear? Or do you leave readers wondering for a while…and how long?
The joy of an ambiguous character is in the discovery. In a series, that discovery may take place over multiple books.
But I think it works like all elements of mystery or suspense. You don’t tease the reader a bunch up front and then wait to pay off at the very end. You have to tease and pay off all the way through. Get the reader to trust you – to KNOW that there is something good to come of this.
He had a toddler with him, you said. Maybe it was an act for the benefit of the child? I know my kids and I have these games going that make no sense at all to someone not clued into them, and I don’t care if others think me crazy either.
And Severus Snape!!! I do think he was the main reason (or at least one of the main reasons) for a lot of people getting addicted to the series. I, for one, was more keen to know if he was truely on DD’s side, than I was to know if Harry lived or died (I knew he could not die).
Incidentally, since we are talking Snape, do ask Hart to send you her fan-fiction about his mother- it is a classic.
Elizabeth – I love the way you illustrated an ambiguous character! What I like about ambiguous characters as a reader is that they do keep you guessing and wanting to know more. What I like about them as a writer is that they leave you open to changes in plot. In fact, in my WIP, one of the major characters is ambiguous. It’s harder to write that character than it is the others, but I think it makes the story more interesting.
Sounds like something my father would have done. We all knew he was big on humor, but it would take a while for others to catch on sometimes. My daughter was about 14 before she realized that Grampa didn’t always “speak true” as she’d believed prior to her awakening.
In a book, you really can’t play around too much, because all the nuances are gone–body language, voice inflection, facial expressions, etc. I definitely wouldn’t play around like this with a secondary character.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
I guess my characters are fairly easy to read.
That guys sounds odd, although I understand Rayna’s interpretation of the situation.
It sounds like a great lead in to the life behind this guy. This would be a great START to a character–but not great if this is all the reader sees.
As for the actual guy in Costco…seriously?
Michele
SouthernCityMysteries
I’m not sure what I would of thought about the gentleman at Cosco – was it a joke being carried too far or was he not understanding what he was hearing?
Ambiguous characters can be fun, but they take special skill to write. A writer has to strike just the right balance between creating a likable or unlikable character. After all, if there isn’t anything about the character the reader likes, why would they care about knowing more?
I always try to avoid Costco on the weekends, too. That guy sounds like one of those people who simply doesn’t know when to quit.
I like to think I have easy to read and complex characters – depending on their role in the story.
Whoa, that is odd! I sure hope he was joking, and just wasn’t very good at it, haha.
Great post, Elizabeth! I’ll have to give this some thought.
I agree with Rayna, I think the guy was doing it for the benefit of his toddler.
Ambiguity in a character is not something I like to deal with. I need my characters to know their own minds and assert themselves in my brain in order for me to write them.
He and his little child were hungry!
And I am glad you mentioned your problems with sarcasm. Your character will probably have to be well-established as an unpleasant character before you can show that they are being sarcastic.
I would have handled the situation the same way! Not being sure as to what to do!
Funny:)
I do have one character that seems to rub everyone the wrong way, and he enjoys doing it. Underneath all the sarcasm is a well of loneliness, I can’t wait to get to that!
I love ambiguous characters IF there is eventually a reveal as to WHY (Snape behaved to protect HARRY because he loved Lily, but in all other ways was too damaged a human being to be a good guy). I think you’re right, that if it is too subtle it seems like the author just won’t commit, where if there is what seems to be an intentional deviation in behavior, you can enjoy wondering WHY that rotten person just did that nice thing, or vice versa.
(And in response to Rayna’s comment on Eileen’s story–happy to send it… though it’s a little ambiguous *teehee* Actually SHE isn’t, and it gives some insight into why Snape might be)
Gee, sounds like a day in the life in my little Southern town! LOL You just have to wonder about people sometimes.
Rayna–I’d wondered that..but he never really looked at the child. He addressed him, but didn’t look at him. So odd. And, at that age, I’d have either been holding my toddler in that busy warehouse, or had him in a cart. Nutty dad.
Yes! I think my interest in Snape’s motives kept me reading the series, too. He was such a fascinating character.
I’d love to read Hart’s fanfic! I miss the Harry Potter series.
The Daring Novelist–Good point–why keep reading the book unless we trust that there IS going to be a payoff?
Alex–I think mine are, too. :)
Margot–You’re right about that! It can make readers turn the pages because they want to figure the character out.
Jane–Maybe so–one line would have been funny. Or if he’d finished up with, “I’m just kidding.” He just took it a little far!
Terry–I had an uncle like that and I used to be totally confused when I was a little girl!
Yes, it’s just like email, isn’t it? No nuance, no body language. It would be tricky to do.
Laura–Maybe just a bad joker! I’ve run into a few of those and they usually make me really confused.
Piedmont Writer–I’m usually that way, too. It’s frustrating to me when I can’t pin a character down–and I usually spend more time trying to figure them out.
Michele–You’re so right–the reader would have to get more glimpses into his background somehow.
I think if it had been anybody *else*, then I’d have just rolled my eyes about it–but this was a much older lady he was talking to: stooped, little, sweet-looking. I felt sorry for her because I thought the guy was sort of a jerk.
Elspeth–That’s kind of what I was wondering. I felt sort of sorry for the lady with the samples because she was really completely baffled and he was giving her absolutely no signals at all for her to interpret.
Right! So the writer has to get the reader intrigued. If the reader isn’t intrigued, I think it just gets frustrating.
Hart–Rowling did a great job…sometimes I’ve seen writers who I *think* are taking a stab at writing an ambiguous character, but it comes off really messily.
Now you’ve gotten me curious on your Snape story! Maybe I can read it after we can post deadlines?
Dorte–Sarcasm is hard for me to read, even in person! Unless I know someone really well, or they overemphasize a sarcastic voice, then I probably won’t know how to read it. I have a hard time with social cues, too.
Diane–I think we probably spend lots of time wondering about people, don’t we? And then writing about them!
Judy–People like that are just really hard to read, aren’t they?
Maybe the guy had eaten his way round the samples for a free lunch and he was just after dessert?
I would think that as a mystery writer, the ambiguous character would definitely be one that you’d want to develop. He could be the most likely suspect only to find out that he isn’t the actual perp This character you describe gives me a lot of ideas in how to develop ambiguous characters. I would think that having this type of character would have to eventually become less ambiguous as the story unfolds but he could definitely add to the page-turning qualities of good fiction.
Your guy at Costco was probably on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. He was trying to get at the logic of a situation that seemed “off” – there was a sample in a cup but it was not for tasting. He needed to ask questions to understand what was going on, in the same way that some people need to climb mountains because they’re there.
The clues for me were the odd smile and the failure to make eye contact with his child.
I know someone like this – he is a brilliant man and a great public speaker. In private life his voice sounds harsh and robotic, he can stand right next to you in a room and not even say “hi” as he talks to another person, and has ways of avoiding making eye contact.
The other day he thanked me for something and made the effort to look me in the eye as he did so. But instead of smiling with his eyes he did an imitation of someone smiling with his eyes. It was creepy. If I had just met him and didn’t know all the good things about him that I do know, I’d be thinking axe murderer. As it is, I’ve suspected some kind of very very high-functioning autism for a long time, which has helped me deal with him. He will turn up as a character in one of my books FOR SURE one day.
Thanks for the insight and sorry it took me so long to find your comment! You know, now that you mention it, I can see that your diagnosis makes complete sense. Yes, that’s exactly what it was like–he was trying to make sense of a situation that seemed more unusual to him than it did to anyone else there. It sounds like you know your own interesting character–and he’ll make a great one for your book!