Character Writing, Part I

Editing my own pieces is a bit of a pain. But there's a form of editing that's far more pleasant: Rewriting everything from scratch. See, when you write something with enough words you literally change your own mental model of the world in the process, and with that new mental model you can often rewrite the piece, make it better, and do it all much more quickly. And I certainly have enough words under my belt today. After a cherished friend and respected critic made the point that I write characters that tend to clash together and sound the same, I decided to take arms against the problem. And I started by writing a long, long piece exploring what actually makes characters work and what makes characters fail. It ran a bit too long for my tastes, so I'll simply rewrite it from scratch. It seems like exactly the sort of piece where if I were my own editor but also a different person from myself, I would tell myself as an objective observer to rewrite the thing because that often clears up flaws. So I took my advice and did it.

"Mr. Plinkett" is a character on Red Letter Media, and Mr. Plinkett's insanely long critiques of the Star Wars prequels have attained the status of Canon among Random People That Talk About This Kind Of Shit. Taken together, the Plinkett reviews form a crash course in how to exhaustively dismantle every shred of respectability from a cultural product without needing to resort to cheap rhetorical blows (though there is plenty of below-the-belt stuff). Taken together, the Plinkett Star Wars reviews demonstrate not only an exhaustive hatred for George Lucas' prequel trilogy, but also an exhaustive knowledge of film and storytelling to back the hatred up. The reviews are also wickedly funny, and the Plinkett character himself is more entertaining than anyone in the prequel trilogy.


What's really impressive is that even little, incidental points that Plinkett make turn out to be devastatingly on-point and dismantling of the increasingly remote possibility that the prequel trilogy succeeded at anything artistically. For example, at the 9 minute mark of a 90-some minute review of "Episode I: The Phantom Menace", Plinkett casually asks a group of friends to take part in the following exercise:

"Describe the following Star Wars character WITHOUT saying what they look like, what kind of costume they wore, or what their profession or role in the movie was. Describe this character to your friends like they ain't never seen Star Wars."

Essay structure generally demands building from weaker to stronger points. So it's quite remarkable that Plinkett's reviews can obey this structure and still get an instantaneous knockout at the 9 minute mark. The friends that are asked to perform this exercise seem comfortable at first giving adjectives when asked about Han Solo, because of course Han has dozens of descriptors. Loose cannon, bad boy, lovable thief, troubled past, all that stuff. Okay, he asks, what about Queen Amidala from Phantom Menace? Blank stares and then laughter as we realize that no one knows who the fuck one of the leads actually was as a human being. Yes, okay... she was more assertive and caring than perhaps you'd expect a queen to be. She had that whole decoy thing going. But overall, Amidala was played by Natalie Portman and she was a Queen that formed a character that the Jedi helped and Anakin met and had something to do with the Trade Federation bullshit at the center of the plot. And that's about it, and no, I'm not being reductive. She gained some depth in the following two movies, but in Episode I, this crucial character is not a character at all, but a prop.

C-3PO? Everyone's ears perk up. Dozens of descriptors. Prissy, effeminate, comic relief, etc. come to mind. Even if you don't like C-3PO, it was pretty clear what he was providing as a character. What about Qui-Gon Jinn? What's his dynamic in the story? What's his personality? What are the ambitions of the central character? Nobody knows. He's a bit more rebellious than your standard-issue Jedi. But that's about it. Obi-Wan is a bit brash to Qui-Gon. But that's only because he's young and it's convenient to the plot for him to be brash to Qui-Gon. That's the whole deal with Obi-Wan. And so on. Jar-Jar is arguably the most-well-characterized humanoid in the entire prequel trilogy, because at least you know where Jar-Jar Binks stands. He made the decision, now lives with the decision.

Anyway, Plinkett's Test (as I'll call it) is a fascinating way to see whether a character you're watching is actually a character or a sort of Plot-Advancing Robot designed by the writers to get the plot from Point A to B, humanity optional and at the actor's sole discretion. For example, "Phantom Menace" and the entire prequel trilogy, as well as the Matrix II and III. All of these movies (and a great deal of work commercially- and critically-acclaimed) are fraught with these Plot-Advancing Robots (PAR is a nice accidental acronym there).

Plinkett's Test, if you will, is sort of a fictional analogue to the Turing Test from computer science, and it straightaway gives us the opportunity for a neat hierarchy in film and literature:

• Extras - Level -1 characters: These "characters" are barely even that. They litter the landscape and storefronts. If they have any speaking roles they immediately move up to... 
• PARs - Level 0 characters (get it?): Don't pass Plinkett's Test but they may have unique roles, professions, impact on plot and characters, elaborate costumes, and even a great deal of power. Superficial but exist meaningfully in the universe of the work. That said, the audience can only identify with Level 0 characters vicariously, typically speaking - as in, by imagining that they themselves are in that role and profession and costume and the ability to react to the other characters. For example, Grand Moff Tarkin. Or any of the characters from the prequel trilogy.
• Real Human Beings (And Possibly Real Heroes) - Level 1 characters: These are the first characters that are developed enough to pass Plinckett's Test. They have humanity in spades, at least in the sense of having characteristics independent of their role. Suddenly the character is not simply The Prince, but The Prince That Also Is Sullen And Has A Love Interest That Is Unrequited. Level 1 characters are not necessarily deep or thoughtful - they are just people you could conceivably have a conversation with and which conversation would not just be plot mechanical or incidental. In fact, if you have a Level 1 character, and you put them into a conversation, you can actually hint at a depth of character that could later bump them up to a Level 2+. A great example of this are Badger and Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad. They are comic relief characters that have the basic worries of life and livelihood ahead of them and plenty of characteristics and personality, but little else. There is an inner life with these characters, but it's not very meaningful or apropos to anything. There's no change, or growth, or self-actualization as characters there. Which brings us to....
• Rich Inner/Outer Life - Level 2 characters: The eagles of literature - these are characters that not only pass Plinckett's test and have motivations and characteristics like Level 1 characters... but also have principles, have goals, have back-stories, have futures, have ambitions, and so on. Defining quality, I'd say, is that a Level 2 character is well-characterized enough that their human characteristics (i.e. the role/profession-independent things you'd say about them as human beings) are powerful enough to act as instruments in and objects of the plot. For example, let's say you have a character who is prideful (say, Walter White). Walt is well-characterized enough as prideful that he can sensibly reject an offer out of pride, and his pride, in turn, can be wounded by a rejection.

Much more to say here, but that's all for now. Stay tuned.