Make Every Word Count by Gary Provost

Author:Gary Provost [Provost, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Writing, Reference
ISBN: 9780898790405
Goodreads: 702813
Publisher: Writer's Digest Books,U.S.
Published: 1980-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Can Bad Guys Be Courteous?

In his excellent book on writing, The Craft of Fiction, William C. Knott uses a character named Jenkins to make a few points about characterization. Jenkins is a heavy, overbearing oaf of a man, a grabber, a pusher. Knott puts him through a few scenes to show how these qualities of Jenkins manifest themselves in little actions like buying a movie theater ticket, stopping at the candy counter, etc. Then Knott writes:

Sink into Jenkins’ consciousness for a moment. Walk with him down the dim aisle of that theater. He is already munching on that chocolate bar as he starts into a row, his eye on a vacant seat in the center. He is anxious to sit down and watch the picture and as a result doesn’t give the old lady sitting in the first seat a chance to get her tiny feet out of the way. He steps on one, crushing it beneath his heavy boot. The old woman cries out.

Now. What does Jenkins do? Does he apologize?

Of course not. You and I both know better than that. If he utters anything even close to an apology it would be completely out of character.

That’s what William C. Knott wrote, but on my copy of the book from the Marlboro Public Library some naughty person had penciled in, “Why? Even bad guys can be courteous.”

Yes, of course bad guys can be courteous, and there might be times in Jenkins’s life when he does apologize to a woman for stepping on her foot. But this toe-stepping episode is presumably not crucial to the story. It is only there in the first place to demonstrate certain insensitive characteristics of Jenkins. Knott put it there to show us an aspect of Jenkins’s character, and if Jenkins were going to apologize to the woman, the incident would not have been mentioned. Knott didn’t tell us what Jenkins had to eat for breakfast or what color socks he wore, either. He just selected some of the incidents and traits that would cause us to imagine the character he wanted us to imagine.

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