Zen and the art of characters

Any element of memoir – including characters – must serve the story’s purpose. Some would baulk at the idea of “characters” in memoir – after all, they’re real people, aren’t they? – but the people in the memoir are not the people in reality. The best a writer can hope for is a facsimile of the person; recognizable, but serving the story’s purpose.

And what is this purpose? It differs for each story. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values where I discussed the application of Pirsig’s philosophy to the writing craft here, and supremacy of trust here, he tells us he’s chosen not to fully develop his characters. Why? Because the characters are unimportant to his story. He lectures readers on a new way of approaching rationality as he crosses the US on a motorbike – rhetoric rules!

Early drafts of mine have suffered from an army of partially developed seen-once characters; their stories only included because I remember them, and often, because of the nature of my book, think they have shock value.

Once I sit down to edit, characters will be culled unless they serve my story’s purpose. A story has four purposes, called throughlines, which I’ll write about later. Througlines are a concept of Dramatica Pro, a tool I’ve written about here.

Consider anything excess which doesn’t support the story. Cut it.