One Daily Practice to be a Better Writer, and Person
How to protect yourself from a closed mind
I remember watching Mrs Doubtfire as a child and finding it extremely funny and heart-breaking. Robin Williams, in the role of Daniel Hillard, is the perfect hero for a kid. The fun dad who’s only goal in life is to spend more time with his children, fighting against the nonsensical and boring adult world.
Believe it or not, watching the same film as a parent was quite a different experience. How can you not stand with Miranda, Daniel’s wife, who’s trying to protect her children while working a full-time job, cleaning up after her husband’s explosive ideas, always forced to be the bad guy?
Sometimes a good story will have many other stories hidden within.
The irresponsible father fighting to see his children, the overwhelmed mother struggling to find the best balance for her family, kids discovering humanity in their parents, and so on and so forth. When done well, each story will resonate with a specific audience, and yet, everybody is watching the same movie frame by frame.
While packing multiple stories into one is an interesting subject on its own, one blog post cannot cover it all. Maybe not even ten posts would, but we need to start somewhere, and, in my opinion, you can’t go wrong if you start from a place of understanding.
Understanding your characters is the most important step in their development. You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to like them. You don’t even have to excuse them, but if you don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, you’re in trouble.
If the reader can’t follow the reason behind characters decisions, you’ve already lost them.
You can hide (or uncover) motivations wherever you like in your story, but they need to be somewhere, even if implied. Have you ever wondered why James Bond’s villains always explain their plans just before the climax? 007 needs that time to come up with an unrealistic escape sequence, of course, but the villain is also telling the audience why they’re so evil and twisted.
Obviously, there are much better way to convey backstory, but you get the gist.
And this is also why morally grey characters are so amazing. They open up multiple stories, multiple points of view, multiple ‘what ifs’.
I know. I promised a daily practice, and I’m getting to it, I promise.
Maybe I’m overstepping here, but hear me out. Why not extend this need for understanding from characters to people?
Yes, real people, such as your nosy neighbour, your annoying and, frankly, quite sexist co-worker, or even your friend’s spouse with ridiculously extremist political views. Have you ever tried understanding them?
I hide it well—not—but for the ones of you who didn’t spot the signs, I’m Italian. In Italy, in recent years, there’s been a disturbing wave of young people falling in love with fascism. Seriously. When at Uni, I thought I wouldn’t even be able to be in the same room as a neo-fascist.
I was wrong.
I became friends with a guy; the nicest, most selfless person I had ever met, who opened up his house to me, and showed up there every time I needed him. It turned out, he was rather fond of Benito Mussolini.
My brain broke. How was that possible? He was supposed to be the embodiment of evil, the very person I was prepared to fight. Instead, I would have been happy to see him marry my sister.
We talked, a lot, until I understood.
He came from a family of academics. His parents weren’t really around when he was little, so he grew up with his grandfather, his hero. He taught him everything, passed down his values, and as it happened many times in Italy before WWII, he was part of a group of people who knew nothing about fascism, apart from its benefits.
All he knew was that, before Mussolini, his family was struggling, and after he became “Il Duce”, they got land, and money, and protection. There was no social media back then, only their neighbours, and they all had no idea of what was going on in the rest of the country.
I thought profoundly of that exchange of worlds, of what it meant to that family. My friend loved his grandparents, and they were wonderful people. Maybe not greatly informed, but exceptionally kind. I didn’t agree with their worldview, but was it inconceivable? Could I not understand where my friend was coming from? Of course I could.
Try to understand the chain of events leading to that moment, to that decision you would have never made.
I’m not saying we should stop fighting violence or abuse because there’s a reason behind it—not at all. I’m just saying that it’s always good to see what’s under the surface. Even when we still need to clash against others, even when we’re directly affected, I think it always helps to understand, to not be left in the dark wondering why.
And this is especially true for your readers.
So, here’s my daily practice for you. Every day, hold on for a second before judging. Try to understand the chain of events leading to that moment, to that decision you would have never made. If you can do this with real people while they get in the way of your routine, it will become second nature. Doing the same with your characters will be extremely easy then. And, who knows, some of these people might become your best-written, morally grey villains.
Alla prossima.
Great article (as always) Francesco! I strongly believe as well in the importance of understanding the rationality behind "the surface". The best stories are the ones in which you ("understand" and) empathise with the villains. This allow you to discover your grey areas and become a better person. Clearly the same reasoning is valid for everyday life, and you have explained it with great clarity.
Can confirm you're a very understanding person.
The 'Toy Story' movies work in a similar simultaneous way, on multiple levels and with different meanings for different generations.
There's a conundrum at the heart of this excellent practice: Are you friends with someone because you understand them, or you understand them because they're your friend?