Pure Writerly Moments 2 (Short Stories, Essays, Book Reviews, and More)

Character Sketch - The Politician (Statues in the Cloud)

The Synopsis for the Novel "Statues in the Cloud"

One day, a writer in Japan receives a letter from a young fan who is dying from a mysterious disease. The young fan, Aya, gives the writer a challenge -- come to Nagasaki and help find seven pieces of a statue. If you can help me do this simple thing, she tells him, you will have cured me. What the writer soon finds out is that finding the seven pieces means telling the stories of seven unique individuals: a politician, a soldier, a folk hero, a dancer, an AI, a writer, and the story of Aya herself.

I want to write to you about the process of writing a character. This character is one of seven main characters for the novel "Statues in the Cloud."

My reasons for writing this are two-fold: To help me think about the character and to provide a guide for writers on how to develop characters.

The character of the "politician" was developed out of my puzzlement for the "cool" "artistic" Japanese nationalist. I always imagined that the arts were safe from right-wing fanatics, so the idea that one could be a novelist, as well as a politician, left me perplexed. The idea that he could have, in his younger days, even been a kind of James Dean or Don Juan figure leaves me a little dumbfounded.

It's pretty stupid...and absurd. And that's the perfect starting place for writing a character.

When I started working on Kenichi Nakashima I started from Ishihara Shintaro and Toru Hashimoto and kept working outward. I imagined Richard the Third and the main character from Bel Ami -- the person who revels in being the scoundrel. The character of Kurtz from "Heart of Darkness" was also in my thoughts as I wrote this character.

In a way, I also drew on my own personality. There is a part of me that revels in being a little shady. I truly believe that every renaissance man needs to find a dark arts version of himself. (Or, herself...Shakespeare's plays are also filled with tricky, treacherous women).

And as an anti-hero, I thought that some choices were very obvious. He should love to: fight, fuck, and drink. Ideology should be secondary to passion.

As I was writing this character, I thought. Is there a limit? Is there a depth that even he won't go? What happens when he realizes there is no bottom?

For now, let me avoid this question. Let me discuss his physical appearance.

Kenichi is short with a boyish face; because he's short, he has a Napolean complex; he spent a lot of time at the gym as a young man, but now he just gets the plastic surgery and uses dietary supplements. In this way, he is a man of his times -- the 2040s.

I think the stature aspect is important. In my experience, short men often try to overcompensate for everything!

Now, let me discuss Kenichi Nakashima's political ideology. An important aspect of his political philosophy is its inconsistency. He is not an academic but a practitioner so his only ideological commitment is to the needs of the moment. When he talks, he loves to use themes of darkness and light. It is a simple story that can trick the angry and ignorant into supporting him. He loves invoking the idea that there will be "divine punishment" for the decadence of the Japanese people.

Again, however, the more I read and the more I wrote, the more I became convinced that political ideology didn't really matter. What mattered most was his vital energy and his need to be great. The political ideology would follow from that. Voters, after all, are people. And people, after all, are animals. And animals understand the raw emotion associated with the instincts to fight, fuck, kill, and dominate.

Now, let's talk about Kenichi Nakashima's political support. The politician's support base will be partially new wave tech groups and partially anti-tech groups and pro-new media groups; his base is incomprehensible. When a reporter points this out to him, he replies that the world has become incomprehensible and only the "will" will save it.

If I have failed at all with this character, I think it is because, in their own way, these kinds of characters are not really as interesting as they first appear. Though their actions are often clownish, barbaric, shocking, underneath their dramatic actions there is usually nothing but a kind of childish, undeveloped ego. The most interesting idea I had was that there was a "good" Kenichi underneath that was still intact from his younger years. Something -- some boy -- that could still be saved. Perhaps this last aspect of his character is nothing but wish-fulfillment on my part.

It's hard to say...perhaps even that image of a young boy who can be redeemed is just another magic trick in his black arts bag of tricks.