Part of my busy weekend last weekend involved travel. :)
I visited San Diego with my college roommate—just to go somewhere that was scenic and relaxing, that we hadn’t visited before.
But I needed to finish my manuscript and send it to my agent yesterday—so I used every minute of that five hour flight to and from San Diego to Charlotte, to work. I inserted place description, character description, chapter breaks, and a full subplot. I’ve a feeling, actually, that I might have driven the folks beside me nutty with my typing.
But after ten total hours of flying, I had a manuscript that was ready to turn in.
Both flights were totally packed with people—not a seat was free. And the flight to California from North Carolina was stressful at times.
When we were waiting at the gate in Charlotte to board the plane, there was a toddler of about 13-14 months who was absolutely pitching a fit.
I think every one of the passengers was praying that we wouldn’t be seated next to that baby, or near him, for the five hour flight.
Fortunately, I wasn’t. But that child had quite a set of lungs on him. His wailing—no, really, it was screaming—lasted for the entire fifteen minutes before boarding the plane and a full hour after we got on. He certainly had stamina.
What was interesting to me was the reaction of the other passengers on the plane. And what that reaction seemed to say about them.
There were some people who just looked stoically miserable.
There were some passengers who turned to look angrily back—at the parents.
There was a woman who looked concerned about the baby.
There were a couple who somehow managed to go to sleep, making me wonder why they were exhausted enough to doze during that racket.
I saw one young woman in her early twenties who put down her Cosmo magazine, looked back toward the baby with great irritation and rolled her eyes at me when she saw me looking at her.
I saw several people plug their ears with earbuds and listen to their iPods and not think twice about it.
I heard one elderly lady behind me tell the person next to her, “The poor thing. He doesn’t understand what’s going on.”
I heard one person say, angrily, that the parents shouldn’t fly a child that age for that length of time.
For me? I just worked right through it for the hour. Anyone could correctly draw the conclusion that I had kids of my own, a lot of work to do, and was immune to the noise.
The nice thing about showing character through reaction is that we can actually let the reader draw their own conclusions—even incorrect ones. That gives us room to write surprises into our stories. We can lead the reader to believe one thing about a character and make a surprising revelation about them later.
There were a few people on the plane who I figured weren’t parents—just solely based on their angry reaction. But my impression could easily have been wrong.
They might just be really impatient people who would be just as upset if their own babies were screaming like that.
They might have just been unusually tired or flying to a stressful situation—like a family member in the hospital. Maybe a situation like that one wouldn’t ordinarily have fazed them, but did this one time.
Do you use character reactions to a situation to show something about them? Do you ever purposefully give a misleading impression of a character? How else do you give readers clues to a character’s personality?
Wow!! Sounds like you had a productive flight :-)
And yes I use character reactions to show readers something about them, and yes, sometimes it is misleading.
Elizabeth – I use flying time, too, to get work done!
You bring up an interesting point about character reactions. They do show (not tell ;-) ) a lot about a character. I use reactions to show when a character’s hiding something (color draining from a face, eyes looking elsewhere, etc.). I also use them to show personality traits. Very often, reactions tell the reader a lot.
I’m doing the misleading thing in my current manuscript. I sure hope it’s working. Great post.
Congrats on making your deadline, Elizabeth. I’m just beginning to think about these kinds of things, as I am foraying into fiction for the first time.
karen
Yes, I use body language and reactions a lot in my mystery novels. I think it’s important to also understand that everyone won’t have the same reaction.
Great post.
CD
Having traveled with 3 little ones I’ve seen it from both sides. I can tolerate crying (not enjoy, but tolerate) but the kicking your seat from the one behind … ugh. Hubster will tell the kid once, then tell the parents.
(We lived in Orlando–flights in both directions were always full of kids. We always tried to get exit rows, because “Children under the age of 15 may NOT sit an an exit row…” but they can sit in the row behind (hence my above comment.)
And I love it when a character’s reaction isn’t what’s expected. Showing is always good, especially with emotions.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Thanks, Elizabeth. This is the kind of post that gets me thinking and sends me back to my writing to see if I’ve done everything I cound have with character reactions.
Writing contradicting characters is great fun–and hard. It’s interesting to see that all the “characters” on the flight were judging the parents soley based on the baby crying. Maybe they had a reason for that happening–just as the passengers had a reason for their reaction.
So outside of books we get false impressions too.
Glad you had a great (and productive) time in SD!
Hi Elizabeth … I love watching people in all sorts of place (the plane, the subway, a restaurant) and I often takes notes about what they look like, how they interact and so on. You can tell a lot about people from little details (or at least, you can imagine a lot!). I was also struck by the fact that you had a manuscript to submit. I’ve been revising my manuscript based on feedback from my agent and it is taking me so much longer than I imagined. Adding scenes, augmenting tension, eliminating spots where my author voice is too strong, tightening my characters – a huge amount of work. I hope that in a week or so I will be able to say it’s done! Perhaps I need a long flight and a screaming baby for inspiration??
oh Elizabeth, right on time you’ve given me some help. I’m deep into this revision thing and this is something I want to tweak and fix and root out – the telling instead of showing (though I think some telling is perfectly good).
I was trying to imagine how I would’ve reacted. Perhaps the poor kid had plugged sinuses – too old to nurse I guess – which is very helpful – even a bottle of juice as it is the sucking that relieves it – maybe I would’ve been the
Agatha Christie like character who is a nosey Nellie and goes to the parents and suggests things. Or says I’ll take him for a walk up and down. Or tries to find something to amuse him. And then the other passengers get embarrassed because I’m sort of silly if well-meaning. Anywhoozie -it sounds like you did a good job sticking to your knitting and getting all that work done. Hurrah! I’m so glad that I’m not on a plane with a yelling kid that I’ll make sure I get lots done today to show the gods I’m grateful.
My first reaction was to feel sorry for that poor mother (I’m figuring it was mom) flying with that toddler. I’d imagine she was feeling a wonderful mixture of embarrassment (see how I can’t control my child), defiance, (he’s only little, what else can you expect?) and guilt (if I was a better mother, I’d know what to do).
My reaction as a passenger would have been the same as yours. Head down, keep on working. I’m a mom.
I do think parents develop amazing powers of concentratin! :)
I have a great scene (at least I think so!) in one story where eerything hinges on the fact that it’s an atypical reaction for the character. It’s caused by a build up of stress and it was fun to write!
Yeah, my reaction would’ve nailed me as a childless person. Of course, I would’ve cranked my iTunes and drowned out the noise.
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Paul–It’s fun to be tricky. :)
Clarissa–They won’t have the same reaction, or even have witnessed the exactly the same thing. It’s what makes mysteries so interesting, isn’t it?
Margot–In a mystery, it’s so important, isn’t it? I like for readers to think a character is lying, when they’re not, or vice versa.
Linda–Good luck with the writing!
Jackee–I think, and it’s funny to think about, that that baby sort of sucked all the energy out of the plane. We were stuck way up in the air with all that NOISE and maybe we reduced the baby to the Loud Thing in our heads. Interesting phenomenon–sort of like a sudden, miniature crisis. :)
Carol–I love being mislead as a reader! Good luck with it. :)
Mary–Desperation! Yes, desperation can work wonders when you have a lot of work to do and a short period of time! Maybe drive to a spot with no WiFi for distraction? Although that can be hard to find these days!
Jan–I do think telling can be a great thing–especially when writing action scenes or getting some background squared away sort of quickly. I think you’d have been great on the plane with the baby! Probably would have smiled and gotten him to settle down. Yes, I’m sitting quietly here at home thinking how *silent* the house is and feeling very happy. :)
Karen–It’s fun to think about! Good luck. :)
Terry–I think the only time crying bothers me is at a movie/play/etc. when the parent should take the child out.
I never thought about the exit row seating! Good idea. Yeah, there was somebody kicking my seat, but I think it was a young adult. That was a bit annoying…
Alex–For some reason, I forgot my iPod. Bleh. Still, I managed to ignore the screaming completely once I’d stopped being interested by the reactions. :)
Elspeth–That is the EXACT mixture that I experienced as a mom with a hysterical toddler! You nailed it! Maybe a tad bit of resignation, too (“this is what toddlers do…”)
I love having my characters react through body language and other clues, and if it’s misleading it can lead to even more plot twists and surprising events later on.
I admire how you can work in any environment. I do think the different reactions to the same situation on the plane are good examples of what we can do with our characters.
Golden Eagle–I think body language would be a great way to mislead readers.
Jane–I think I’ve been trained that way by my children! :)
Jemi–Sounds like something that’s fun to read, too! If the character is acting out of character, then the reader wants to read on and figure out why.
What a great way to highlight showing character through reaction! I’m going to pay a lot more attention to the people around me from now on, especially on a flight! Thank you.