From Cover to Cover (16 page)
Read From Cover to Cover Online
Authors: Kathleen T. Horning
Primary characters
are those who are closer to the central conflict
in the story, and since they play a larger role, we expect a higher degree of character development. We refer to well-developed characters as
rounded
and those who grow and change over the course of a novel as
dynamic
. Since most children’s novels feature child characters who experience some degree of maturation as a result of the conflict they face, we expect good fiction to have a dynamic, rounded main character.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
We come to know characters in several different ways by observing how they look, what they do, what they think, what they say, and how they are viewed by other characters in the book. Throughout the course of a novel, an author reveals complexities of character through
appearance, action, thought
, and
dialogue
. A well-rounded character is developed using a combination of all these devices. I will cite some examples of how this is done, using the character D Foster in Jacqueline Woodson’s
After Tupac & D Foster
.
Readers build mental images of characters based on what the author tells us about a character’s
appearance
. As a surface quality, it is often the defining characteristic in a secondary character, but it is rarely definitive in a rounded, primary character. An author can use a description of appearance to arouse a reader’s curiosity about a character initially, as Woodson does when the narrator gives us her first impression of D:
She was tall and skinny and looked like she thought she was cute with her green eyes and pretty sort of half way of smiling at us. Her hair was in a bunch of braids with black rubber bands at the end of every single one. The braids were long, coming down over her shoulders and across her back, and her hair was this strange dark coppery color I’d never seen on a black girl—not
naturally.
She was wearing a T-shirt that said “
HELLO MY NAME IS
” in green letters, only there
wasn’t a name after that, so it didn’t make any sense whatsoever. I looked down at her feet. She had on white-girl clogs like you saw on the girls on TV—the ones with blond hair who lived in places like California or Miami or somewhere.
This description of D’s appearance makes it clear that she is quite different from the narrator and her friend who’ve known each other all their lives. Like them, readers will want to know where D came from and who she is.
Actions
are also visible only on the surface but they provide more insight into character because they spring from internal thoughts and motives. While many actions in a novel serve to move the plot along, some exist only to reveal character. Note, for example, what the following description of action tells us about D’s character: “
D finished her other braid and looked at her watch—she’d bought it for ten dollars in Times Square, and most of the time it worked. She always wore it and was always checking it
.” In just two sentences, we learn that D has some degree of independence—she has her own money and has bought something for herself in Times Square. But her actions also imply that someone, somewhere, expects her to be home at a certain time. Her independence has its limits.
The author can directly enter the main character’s mind to reveal aspects of character through
thought
. In the passage quoted above about D’s appearance, we get a good sense of the narrator’s first impression of her through her thoughts, and this tells us as much about her as it does about D. Since Woodson uses the first person point of view of an unnamed narrator, she can’t enter D’s head, but she still is able to reveal some of D’s thoughts through unconscious dialogue:
“I know it sounds whack,” she said, so softly it sounded like she was talking to herself almost. “But when I see him on TV, I be thinking
about the way his life was all crazy. And we both all sad about it and stuff. But we ain’t trying to let the sad feelings get us down. We ain’t trying to give up.”
The two friends are so stunned by D’s sharing her innermost thoughts that they both stop talking, hoping D will say more. But she doesn’t. That leads the narrator and Neeka to consider their own lives in contrast to D’s, and to reveal more about all the characters through
dialogue
:
“Neeka,” I said as we headed into my house. “You think we the lucky ones?”
Neeka stopped at the bottom stair leading up to my apartment. It was warm in our hallway. Someone had baked something sweet and the smell made me hungry.
“Like how?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. When I heard D talking about her life like that…when she was saying about being hungry and—”
“If we so lucky, how come she’s the one get to take the bus all over the city
by herself
and don’t have to worry about being home until nine o’clock?”
With just a few lines of dialogue, Woodson shows us that the narrator is growing up a bit faster than her friend, as she is beginning to develop a more mature understanding of the world. Through the
comments of others
, an author can add further dimension to a character by showing us how she fits (or doesn’t fit) into the social life surrounding her. Direct
comments of the author
can also be used for this purpose. Both must be used with care, or we end up with a less satisfying characterization that is based on telling, rather than showing, what a character is like.
All these factors must be taken into consideration when we evaluate characterization in fiction. What types of characters do you identify in the book? Are they realistic and believable? Is the main character dynamic? What devices does the author use to develop the main character? What kinds of changes do the characters undergo? How are secondary characters developed? What purposes do the secondary characters serve? How do events that occur in the novel shape the characters?
When authors create fictional worlds, they choose a particular stance within that world that defines what its perimeters will be. This is determined by
point of view
, the vantage point from which the action in the story is viewed and related. The author may choose to tell the story from inside a character’s head or by looking over a character’s shoulder or by viewing the entire scene from a distance. Each of these choices offers different advantages, challenges, and limitations.
First person
point of view tells a story from inside the character’s head. It is readily identifiable due to the use of the pronoun “I” by the narrator. First person has the advantage of evoking a powerful sense of reality through the immediacy of the character’s voice. This strength is also its greatest limitation: The narrative is limited to what the main character thinks, observes, or hears from another character. Some authors try to get around this limitation by using dialogue in which one character briefs the protagonist to get information across to the reader. Overuse of this device may be an indication that the author has not mastered first person.
An
omniscient
point of view allows for much greater freedom and flexibility, in that the author can move around inside the story and enter the thoughts and feelings of any of the characters. The disadvantage is that it can make the story more difficult for young readers, as they often
have difficulty following transitions from one character to the next. A
limited omniscient
point of view, in which the author uses third person but sticks to the viewpoint of one character, is easier for young readers to comprehend.
An
objective
point of view uses third person but does not enter the mind of a character at all. Rather, action is described completely by means of outside observations. This point of view is used effectively in realistic animal stories that dramatize action in the natural world. It becomes more challenging when used with human characters, because it requires readers to make their own connections between explicit actions and implicit emotions.
Children’s authors sometimes bring together multiple points of view to construct a distinctive narrative. In
Bull Run
, Paul Fleischman used sixteen points of view to build a patchwork of history in a fictional account of the Civil War battle. In
Nothing But the Truth
, Avi employs dialogues, diary entries, memos, letters, and transcripts to build an unusual objective point of view from which readers must draw their own conclusions. In both these novels, the idea of point of view becomes the theme.
Whichever point of view an author chooses, he or she should remain consistent throughout. If he or she chooses to tell a story in the first person from the point of view of an eleven-year-old main character, he or she must stay with it. He or she cannot enter the mind of the character’s mother or best friend or tell us things that the character hasn’t experienced. When you evaluate point of view, keep the following questions in mind: Who is the narrator of the story, and what is this narrator likely to know?
Setting in a novel can either function as a
backdrop
or as an
integral
part of the story. As the name suggests, backdrop settings are created from
vivid descriptive details that may be interesting in and of themselves, but the story could easily be moved to another setting without losing much. Jack Gantos’s popular series of books about Joey Pigza, for example, could be set in any contemporary American town. They draw their power from plot and characters, not from their setting.
Other novels would disintegrate if they were removed from their settings, because setting is integral to the action and characters. This is especially true of historical novels in which setting often functions to clarify the conflict in the story, as happens in Lois Lowry’s
Number the Stars
. An integral setting must be clearly described and made as real as the characters so that the reader can not only picture it but feel it.
Aside from
clarifying conflict
, integral settings function in several ways. The setting can act as an
antagonist
as it invariably does in survival stories since the protagonist is always at the mercy of threats from the environment. In
Holes
, for example, the desert setting of Camp Green Lake makes day-to-day life difficult for Stanley, who must labor under the hot sun all day, digging holes. But it becomes even more antagonistic when he and Zero leave the camp and head out on their own into the barren wilderness.
Settings frequently serve to
illuminate character
. In her sequence of books about the Logan family, Mildred D. Taylor has created the fictional Depression-era small town, Strawberry, Mississippi, to explore race relations and to show the strength and dignity of the African-American family.
Setting can also operate on a
symbolic
level by encompassing two levels of meaning simultaneously. In
The Underneath
, setting functions in this way, as the “underneath” places are set in opposition to symbolize both safety and danger. This also extends to looking underneath the surface of a creature’s skin to see deep inside its soul.
Language dictates style in all writing. With respect to fiction, we look at both the literal and metaphorical ways an author uses language. What words has the author chosen and how have they been put together?
Literary devices
enrich the language of the novel and evoke emotional responses in the reader. Authors of children’s fiction face a special challenge, as they write for an audience with limited experiences when it comes to understanding the symbolic use of language. Outstanding children’s fiction uses literary devices geared directly toward young readers.
In
Words of Stone
, Kevin Henkes uses a remarkable range of literary devices, all based on a child’s worldview. His prose is filled with
connotations
related to sensual childhood observations of people and the natural world of the backyard, making his metaphorical use of language easily understandable to child readers. I will use examples from
Words of Stone
to define the various types of literary devices.
Imagery
is the use of words that appeal to any of the senses: sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch.
Words of Stone
is filled with child-friendly imagery: Blaze states that Joselle lives in “a house the color of celery.” He notes that she “smelled dusty, like a ladybug” and he makes a reference to his own “blister-smooth skin.”
Figurative language
refers to the use of words in a nonliteral way. There are numerous examples of figurative language in
Words of Stone
, beginning with the title itself which signifies the difficulty Blaze has in communicating with his father, as well as Joselle’s tendency to build walls between herself and others by lying. A common type of figurative language is
personification
, which means that nonhuman objects or animals are invested with human characteristics. Henkes uses personification when Blaze’s father tosses a key across the breakfast table and it “stopped right beside Blaze’s plate, kissing his fork.”
Simile
, the comparison of two dissimilar things, generally with the words “like” or “as,”
is another common type of figurative language we see throughout the book. After Blaze spends a day playing outside, “dirt stuck to his body like bread crumbs,” and when he speaks to Joselle, his voice is “as quiet as insect wings.”
Metaphors
make implied comparisons. Henkes uses stones metaphorically throughout the novel on several different levels. These objects for serious outdoor play used by both Blaze and Joselle—by Blaze to mark the graves of his imaginary friends and by Joselle to spell out mean-spirited messages to Blaze—are linked by implication to the stone on Blaze’s mother’s grave. Once Blaze and Joselle resolve their differences, he observes, “the stones were white moons that bled together.”
