{"id":8403,"date":"2020-02-25T07:18:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T12:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8403"},"modified":"2020-02-25T07:18:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T12:18:38","slug":"yearning-desire-and-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8403","title":{"rendered":"Yearning, Desire, and Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In an interview with author Kevin Canty I recently ran across (Part 1 here<\/a>), he made the point that story characters must want something worth writing about. While that might at first sound like a point that hardly needs to be made, Canty is talking about the need for fiction to include what Robert Olen Butler calls \u201cyearning,\u201d or \u201cthe phenomenon of desire.\u201d This, Butler says, is the essential ingredient most often missing from beginning writers\u2019 work. (And any number of New Yorker<\/em> short stories I abandon half-read.) Unsatisfying, in the way a crime without a motive is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Canty says, characters in fiction may not choose the most effective or direct or logical ways of getting <\/em>what they want, but they have to want something. They may even take actions that are counterproductive to their goal. Othello wants Desdemona, yet he murders her. These characters are like the people whom we would describe as \u201ctheir own worst enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, what characters end up getting can be vastly different than what they thought they wanted. The outcome can be just as emotionally satisfying but far from the original plan. Think Jane Austen. In such cases, the author leaves enough clues to the character\u2019s true desire that the reader sees it, even if the character has a blind spot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doesn\u2019t it make a story feel too pat when characters want a particular outcome, and that\u2019s exactly what they get? It\u2019s too easy. Real life\u2019s more complicated, which is why writers struggle with plot. Characters\u2014much less the reader\u2014don\u2019t learn much from easy wins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putting himself in the role of a fictional protagonist, Canty says, \u201cThere\u2019s a constant incompleteness and irony and all the rest of it that keeps getting between what I want, what I think I want, and what I get.\u201d It\u2019s what makes characters interesting. It\u2019s what keeps us reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canty\u2019s most recent book is The Underworld: A Novel<\/a><\/em>, about the aftermath of a disastrous fire in a small Western mining town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: eluj for Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interview with author Kevin Canty I recently ran across (Part 1 here), he made the point that story characters must want something worth writing about. While that might at first sound like a point that hardly needs to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Yearning, Desire, and Fiction - In the gospel according to Keith and Mick, \u201cYou can\u2019t always get what you want, but . . . you get what you need.\u201d Writing story characters readers can believe in.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,40,174,29],"tags":[1708,1709],"class_list":["post-8403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-kevin-canty","tag-robert-olen-butler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/maze.jpg?fit=435%2C440&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2bx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8405,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8403\/revisions\/8405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}