Character is not king

I've been a character-driven writer as long as, well, as long as I've been a writer. To me, characters are the most important part of any story. More important than plot. Even more important than setting. More important than voice.

In fact, when I start a new play, I can't even write the first line of dialogue until I've defined all of my characters and given each of them a distinctive personality and a compelling goal. And if I've created them distinctively enough and compellingly enough, the story will practically write itself.

Of course, there's nothing unique about this. As long as I can remember, the entire writing community has seemed to agree: Character is king.

Writing instructors teach it. Writing manuals show you how to do it.

Lately though, I've started to realize that character is NOT king.

Don't get me wrong. Having rich, complex characters is essential for any story. But it doesn't go far enough.

Character is not king. Relationships are.

I still start each play by creating my cast of characters. That helps me understand who the story is about and giuves me some idea where the story is headed.

But now, instead of leaping right into the dialgoue, I step back and take one extra step.

I think about the relationship each character has with every other character in the piece (or at least every other character they will interact with) and consider how that relationship is different from every other relationship in the story.

It is this difference, I believe, that really makes your characters come alive.

Let me give you an example: My Fair Lady. Maybe not the best example, but one which demonstrates my point and which I expect nearly everyone is familiar with.

If I had written the script (and I wish I had!), I would have broken out the characters like this (note that each character is given a descriptor, one or two dominant personality traits and a goal):

Henry Higgins--professor of phonetics, haughty, mysogynistic, wants to teach Eliza how to speak proper English

Eliza Doolittle--poor Cockney flower girl, feisty, wants a comfortable life

Colonel Pickering--friend of Henry, jovial, wants to win bet with Henry

Alfred Doolittle--Eliza's father and a dustman, lazy, conniving, wants to make money off Eliza

Freddy Eynsford-Hill--rich young man, starry-eyed, wants to win Eliza's heart

If you look over this list, you may think that this is all that needs to be said about each of the characters. But if you place them in interaction with the other characters, their personalities take on new and fascinating complications.

Take Henry Higgins. He's haughty and mysiogynistic, it's true. But this barely scratches the surface.

With Eliza his haughtiness takes on a patronizing tone and that's because Henry considers her his social and intellectual inferior. He treats her more like a scientific specimen to be experimented with than a real, flesh-and-blood person. Of course, their relationship changes as he finds himself falling in love with her, but his natural superciliousness continues to dominate his interactions with her, preventing him from showing any real affection until the very end when, in a fit of irony, he jokingly commands her to "fetch my slippers".

Henry views Pickering as a social and (near") intellectual equal. So while he remains haughty in this relationship as well, here this haughtiness takes a more competitive tone, playing off the old warrior's natural joviality to take the form of a friendly rivalry, as between two old drinking buddies.

By rights, Henry should treat Alfred with as much disrespect as he does Eliza. After all, they come from the same socioeconomic class. But when Alfred visits Higgins' house, Higgins is drawn to the man's gift for language and his utter lack of morals. Just as with Eliza, Henry is drawn to Alfred as a scientific specimen, but one to be studied and admired rather than controlled. Is this seeming inconsistency due to Henry's basic misogyny: behavior that is unacceptable in a woman is not only acceptable but admirable in a man? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it does add an unexpected depth to a character that we thought we knew.

Finally, there is Freddy. Henry and Freddy do not interact much, but Henry's attitude toward his romantic rival is spelled out in the song, "I've Grown Accustomed to her Face". Yes, Henry and Freddy are members of the same class, but Henry views the younger man as an intellectual lightweight, completely unworthy of Eliza's love. It does not even cross Henry's mind that that Eliza may be attracted to Freddy for his youth and good looks. All he can see is that any future marriage between the two is sure to end up in poverty and despair.

So there you have it. One character. Four very different relationships.

Of course, you could do the same for the rest of the relationships in the story: Eliza and Alfred, Eliza and Freddy, Freddy and Alfred (no those two didn't meet, but wouldn't it have been fun if they had?).

It's a lot of work. But I've found that it really pays off.

Now my story really is writing itself.