Friday, January 16: Bandersnatches
TOUGH PARENTING
by Steve Steinbock
This past Wednesday morning it was 17 degrees Fahrenheit as fifteen year old Nate was finishing his breakfast. He was dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans. “Dad, are you giving me a ride to school today?” he asked.
I said, “Are you wearing a coat today?” (It’s a longstanding Jewish tradition to answer questions with a question).
Nate rolled his eyes. “No. It’s not cold out at all. And I’ll only be outside for two seconds.” (It’s a longstanding teenager tradition to speak in hyperbole).
“Sorry,” I said. “Your choice.”
Nate called his friend, David, and explained that his dad was being mean and that they’d have to walk. He put on his lightweight “hoodie” sweatshirt, pulled on a pair of running shoes, and met David (who was wearing shorts). The temperature dropped to 14 degrees by lunchtime.
I know I’m being stubborn. I also know that the current wisdom among pediatricians is that cold weather doesn’t make kids get sick, and that kid’s know their bodies better than we do. If they get cold, they’ll dress appropriately. (NPR did a story on the subject last winter).
Nate says that his locker is too far from his classes, and it makes no sense to bring a coat. (Apparently, from a quick glimpse at relevant websites, this is a common excuse given by kids). But I know that in Nate’s mind, wearing a coat simply isn’t cool. So I let him go to school in his hoodie. (He didn’t wear the hood, of course, because that wouldn’t be cool). And I let him walk.
I guess I was like that, too.
Thursday morning (as I write this column), the mercury is hovering right on the zero mark. Nate wore his winter coat today.
Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban
I was saddened to learn that actors Patrick McGoohan (“Secret Agent” and “The Prisoner”) and Ricardo Montalban (“Fantasy Island” and “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan”) had both passed away this week. Ironically, I had just rented Disc One of “Secret Agent” (original title: “Danger Man”) from Netflix, and we were probably watching an episode at the very moment of McGoohan’s passing. 
I wrote a little tribute to McGoohan at my blog, but I’ll repeat some of it here. Even before I became enchanted with the bizarre science-fictiony spy ITV program “The Prisoner”, I knew McGoohan from two Disney films in which he starred: “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” and “The Three Lives of Thomasina.”
I’ve never read any of the Russell Thorndike novels about the swashbuckling
physician who donned the costume of a scarecrow and became a pirate and smuggler. But I did read several of Paul Gallico’s novels, including The Poseidon Adventure and Thomasina. (He also wrote a ghostly crime novel, Too Many Ghosts and four comic novels about “Mrs. ’Arris”). I found Thomasina to be especially amazing, and not really a children’s book at all. Much of it is a mystery, told from the perspective of a cat attempting to solve her own murder. A touching, funny, and very clever novel.
Appearances
Should fiction writers describe their characters in physical detail? Or is it better to leave appearances up to the imagination of the reader?
I’ve read conflicting opinions on this. Most authors and writing instructors agree that the author should know what his/her characters look like, but it seems like an unspoken rule – at least among some – that details about appearance should be part of the backstory that is kept in the author’s mind and notes, but kept off the printed page.
What do you think? Any examples of really good physical character descriptions? Any experiences of overly detailed descriptions ruining a character for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’ll always remember a Dicken’s character’s face — character and book escape me — described by the author. The man had a long nose which hooked downward and a long chin which hooked upward, such that they almost met.
And about Steve’s son: One must remember it has always been the goal of the younger generation to gross out the older generation — body perforations, tattoos, baggy pants, mohawk hairdos, green hair, and shorts in the Maine winter.
Parents could imitate their children to keep in touch, but how many adults want a dumbbell in their tongue? Those little tykes know we wouldn’t do it. Upside: maybe kids will be more likely to wear clean underwear if everyone can see it.
Chorus sings: “Dream on.”
You’re a good parent, Steve, one of the old school. The country needs more like you.
Regarding descriptions, I believe that in limited doses they are an important part of any story. Can anyone forget Hammett’s rotund Continental Op? Or Maigret? I don’t like too much detail in one gigantic lump, but keeping appearance secret seems ridiculous.
I think excessive description of physical traits (or anything, for that matter) is the sign of a less-seasoned writer.
But I believe they are important and add to a story. Usually one well written sentence is enough. Stephen King is a master at this. Remember his example from ON WRITING? The guy with the hairy wrists? Terrific. I could see the entire man and felt like I knew his personality from that. Check out The DEAD ZONE for great, succinct descriptions.
James Lee Burke goes into a bit more detail, but for me, his descriptions are some of the finest in literature.
Roger Zelazny advised saying three things and three things only about a character’s appearance.
I think it’s usually enough to give a few salient details and then let the reader fill in the rest.
If memory serves there is a central character in Stephen King’s “It” who is, in fact, black. But King doesn’t let you know this until well into the narrative. When the reader finds out this fact it is jarring and requires a re-thinking of some of what has come before. It’s been decades since I read the book but I remember, at the time, thinking it was a particularly clever device.
I sympathize with you Steve. It doesn’t get any easier, especially if you help raise grandsons. I dealt with the problem of raising a teenage boy when my son was growing up and now I deal with it in helping my daughter raise her 15 year old son. Luckily, the school has helped some: the boys are no longer allowed to wear baggy pants.
I can’t remember any of the long character descriptions but I don’t like them. I like short, one or two sentence descriptions that give me a sense of the character. I see no reason to keep the description hidden from the reader, but it must be relevant. One of my pet peeves is the long description of a minor character who disappears from the story two paragraphs later.
This morning the thermometer actually read MINUS TWENTY DEGREES. Suffice it to say, Nate wore a coat.
Louis, does that mean that girls at your grandson’s school are still allowed to wear baggy pants? How about boys showing their midriffs?
I ponder these things as my narrow fingers rub the quarter-inch gray and brown whiskers on my rounded chin.
I grew up hearing “put on a sweater, I’m cold” from my mom. We all pick some point of rebellion. Almost every morning I hear the same excuses from my 13 yr old daughter. It must be univeral! Steve, once you had the bug, you didn’t need a ride anyway!
I like enough description to start my mind picturing the character – but, (just like two of us having three opinions) two people can read the same description and still can have a very different picture in their minds. It is so often disconcerting to see a character in a movie who looks nothing like you pictured on the page…
No midriffs and no baggies or one size two small, tight fitting jeans, blouses, or t-shirts for boys or girls. All high school students wear uniforms. What surprised me and school officials is they like the uniforms.
When it’s cold out, answering a question with a question is also a Protestant tradition (ask my Mom about me in grade school!) I’ve actually learned a lot about character descriptions from this blog, hinting at what he/she looks like speaks volumes. It’s better than saying something like “Jacob Foley looked just like Jeff Baker” (similar to what I said once in a first draft of a story, a draft since changed.) Thanks for remembering McGoohan and Montalban. I enjoyed every moment I saw them on any screen—and if you need to describe a character as having elegant dignity Montalban would be the model (even as the grubby, evil Khan…)
Suzanne, if you know about my bug, then you must be my old high school pal, Suzanne M. Welcome to Criminal Brief!
Anyone out there (other than JLW) read Paul Gallico?
Steve, I loved Gallico’s The Poseidon Adventure–I have it right here on my shelf. I’ve not yet read Thomasina, but now it’s on my list.
I’m hardly celebrity knowledgeable and it probably says something annoying that I know more about British actors than American, two of my favorites being Leo McKern and Patrick McGoohan. Tied in with John Mortimer’s death this week, there’s all sorts of degrees of separation going on.
The Prisoner might qualify as my favorite television series of all time. It should be mandatory view for all high school students, but making it a requirement would ruin it for them. I once heard a Canadian broadcaster blathering on about the ‘meaning’ of The Prisoner. I wanted to choke him and shout, “It’s about freedom, you fool!”
I think I had “Manxmouse” and “The Man Who Was Magic” read to me when I was a lot younger. I think they were Gallico…
I know we’ve moved on, but I thought of this after my comment and only now have made it back to my keyboard…
One of my favorite physical descriptions in recent memory is from James Lee Burke, and it is but five words long. Yet, despite it’s lack of length, I know every single thing I need to know about what the character looked like:
“…where a man as big as the sky waited for him.”
Paul, I like that. But how about this one from Chandler (describing Moose Malloy on the first page of Farewell My Lovely):
Great piece, Steve. Two points:
1) When I was teaching community college students and there was a discussion of school uniforms for high school students and younger, almost all of them were for them, and none of the minority in opposition could ever come up with a compelling argument against them.
2) As for fully describing characters, I rarely do beyond a few superficial details, and the late Ed Hoch once wrote that he had never described any of his series characters in detail apart from the first one, Simon Ark. On the other hand, when I read Herman Wouk’s THE CAINE MUTINY for the first time, after multiple viewings of the movie version, he described his characters so vividly that I saw Steve Maryk and Tom Keefer as he described them, not as Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray.