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NOVEL PROTAGONISTS: SEARCH IN THE UNCONSCIOUS
The creation of novel protagonists is one of the most important tasks facing a novelist. In the story, actions dominate the characters. Sometimes these are drawn only by whatdo or say
We can find stories where the appearance of the characters is included in an extensive way, but usually it is not so. At best some traits of character or personality are enough to tell the story. With the protagonists of the novel, that is not enough. We need to know our protagonists almost almost like ourselves.
Norman Mailer in his essay A Spectral Art, Reflections on Writing , advises connecting with our unconscious. However, that connection with the unconscious of which Mailer speaks is not always possible. He may feel that he is being forced, violated. Knowing how to recognize when we should continue or abandon writing can help us avoid blockages.
In the course of shaping a character, as you look into its existence, there invariably comes a point where you recognize that you do not know enough about the person you are trying to create. In those moments, I assume that my unconscious knows more than me. As we go through life, after all, we observe everyone, deliberately or without realizing it. Maybe, out of the corner of your eye, you capture someone in a restaurant that represents an inspiration or a particular threat or possibility, potentially a friend or enemy … and the unconscious gets to work on that. He needs very little data to put together a comprehensible portrait because it is to be supposed that he has already done most of that effort. To use an unhappy analogy,
Por otro lado, el inconsciente puede sentirse con frecuencia violado por lo que pedimos, por lo que, en realidad, logramos extraer de él. Tal vez una buena parte del material que está suministrando ahora estaba archivado originariamente para sus propios propósitos. Supongan que el inconsciente tiene una raíz en el más allá que nuestra mente consciente no posee. Si es así, tendrá nociones más profundas que nosotros sobre la muerte. Atrevámonos, entonces, a conjeturar que el inconsciente convive en términos estrechos, incluso familiares, con esa presencia elusiva en la mente consciente: nuestra alma. Si tal es el caso, el inconsciente puede sentirse explotado por la presión del novelista de extraer tanto de su producto a partir de sus recursos.
Suppose that the relation of the unconscious to the conscious is analogous to that of a Greek slave cultivated in the service of an overwhelming Roman master. If we use this idea as a working premise, we can assume that our subconscious is full of the most cheating types of resistance. All that the writer receives is a sense of opaque, tense resentment. Maybe the unconscious is not willing to probe the required material. The acute form of this is writer’s block. But, in that sense, there is a touch of writer’s block in almost every work day. It is part of the writing experience. Certainly we go well for a page or two, maybe even as many as four or five. In happy days, one is writing as if everything were there, a gift. You do not even seem to have much to do with that. You are only on hand to transcribe what is appearing. Then comes the moment when our ambition commands us to move forward: “Three pages from the end of the chapter. You can not stop now, not with this wonderful streak. “ At this point, very often, the sentences begin to be forced, and you feel: “No, we have to leave it for now — dammit, damn — now tomorrow morning will be lost, but, no, do not try to finish it now, you’re going to ruin it. “ That is what you learn with time. damn, now tomorrow morning will be lost, but, no, do not try to finish it now, you’re going to ruin it. “ That is what you learn with time. damn, now tomorrow morning will be lost, but, no, do not try to finish it now, you’re going to ruin it. “ That is what you learn with time.
