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

Character Sketch - The Folk Hero (Statues in the Cloud)

Synopsis for the Novel - "Statues in the Cloud" 

The Synopsis - 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 me 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. 

The vision of my dad still haunts me. I think our fathers always haunt us. But what really haunts me is my inability to put him on the page. There was something about him, something that was hard to describe that made him a character like no other. 

I can tell you what that character is. I can describe it to you as if he were a Frankenstein's monster, carved up from the bits of other people and characters. 

Mix one part Gene Wilder, the goofiness, the rye sense of humor; then take a little bit of the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz; mix in a little Peter Pan -- because dad never wanted to grow up...take all of those things and make the character tragic. Give the character real-life problems -- drinking, debt, the inability to handle the various demands of the world. Mix those together and you have your character. 

And yet...

Now having created that character, does he move? Does he move the way a real-life person would move? 

I had to look for dirty jokes. I remember my dad telling me a million different jokes, but I don't actually remember what they were. Internet research comes into play. 

You find this website: http://www.jokes4us.com/dirtyjokes/dirtyonelinerjokes.htm

That website helps because when you can't get the character right, it's better to let a dirty joke fly. Somehow the old man would have found that funny...when all else fails, make 'em laugh. If nothing else, the process of writing this novel will teach me a few dirty jokes. 

But you know...you know...I'm never going to get this right. In the end, I'll break the old man's heart. 

Watch this interview with Gene Wilder. First, turn the sound off.  Watch the head move. That's my dad's head moving. Then, turn the sound on. The voice is gentle, but imagine a bit more confusion, a bit more undulation in the voice and you get close to my dad's voice. 

Around 3:10 in the interview, Gene tells a story the way my dad would tell the story. That is the exact same kind of story my dad would tell. A story about making someone laugh so hard they peed their pants. But...my dad would pause for a bit more dramatic effect. 

It seems strange that I would need to watch videos of Gene Wilder on Youtube to get close to a character about my dad. But the sad fact is that memory is fallible. Pictures, too, will only get you so far. The videos I have of my dad have no sound. So, I can only write about him as a fictional character. 

I create his ghost through bits of memory, by thinking about others like him, and I try to be frank with the reader about where and when my memory lets me down. And I give myself permission to be frivolous. When all else fails, it's okay to write fiction. 

I think one of the things my dad would not approve about my current novel-in-progress is that I take it too damn seriously sometimes. I take life too damn seriously sometimes...my curse since I was a child. Peter Pan can have his hang-ups, pixie-dust can be an addiction, but what good are imaginary pursuits if they don't help us enjoy the world the way kids can?

Remembering your dad, creating a character based on him, should be like going to Neverland. As long as you have fun and go on adventures, there is no way you can go wrong.