At some point during your writing career
you will probably be called upon to create characters
that are not only beyond your experience as a human being
but potentially beyond anybody's experience as a human being.
There are, for example, at the shallow end
you've got insane or psychopathic characters
that you might need to write
but there's also...
supernatural characters
animals
alien lifeforms
all sorts of extraordinary imaginary beings
or even, in my own case, severed heads on spikes.
I remember that, in my novel, Voice of the Fire
I had a chapter about one of the Gunpowder Plotters
who all came from Northampton, or at least
that was where the Gunpowder Plot was actually plotted.
I had one of them, Francis Tresham
who had been the one who had informed
upon the other Gunpowder Plotters
and for providing these services to the authorities
he was allowed to die of a horrible disease
in the Tower of London
and wasn't actually burnt to death
like his fellows such as Guy Fawkes and the others.
But Francis Tresham's head was put on a spike
at the end of Sheep Street in Northampton
so that we could all go and look at it.
I wasn't around personally at that time.
And in my novel Voice of the Fire
I thought it might be quite interesting
to have a whole story told
from the point of view of a decomposing head on a spike.
So, you have to think
"What would that experience be like?"
Now, of course, that experience doesn't exist.
Severed heads on spikes are not actually conscious
or at least I really, really hope they're not.
But in my story, I was thinking
"OK, I'm a severed head on a spike."
Probably, my brains have long since disintegrated.
There will just be a few clinging relics
around the inside of my skull.
What if one of them were to start itching?
What would I do? Perhaps I would contrive to
rock my skull back and forward slightly upon the spike
so that the spike could scratch and relieve the itch.
What sort of things would I be thinking
if I were a severed head on a spike?
I wouldn't be able to actually see anything, would I?
Because the birds would have had my eyes
so...
I would be able to hear things, though.
Actually, this is all nonsense
they will have had my ears as well.
But for the purposes of my story, I was sort of thinking
yeah, you've got a very limited position for looking at things.
But if you can make it seem realistic
if you can imagine yourself into that space
then you will make it a real and unrepeatable experience
for your readers as well.
So...
Yeah, that's one form of extreme character.
Now, at the deep end of characterisation
you might have something like the character that I introduced
during one of the chapters of my novel Jerusalem
where I wanted a character who could see everything
that was happening to all of the characters in the story
irrespective of which time period they were in.
I wanted a completely omniscient character.
Now, since I'd already mentioned the Archangel Michael
in the earlier chapters of Jerusalem
and since we do have a statue of the Archangel Michael
standing on the top of our local Guildhall in Northampton
where he seems to be holding a pool cue
at least in my version of events...
I thought, what if we make this statue
the absolute observer?
The still pivot around which
the rest of the book is revolving
the thing that can see everything
with his carven stone eyes
that he knows everything that is happening to every character
he knows everything that happened to their ancestors
he knows everything that will happen to their descendants
in 1,000 years' time.
This is all going around inside the head of this stone angel.
Now, that was quite difficult. It wasn't a long chapter
because you can't keep that sort of stuff up forever.
That intensity of focus.
But that would probably be the deep end
of characterisation.
Now, one of the things that you should watch out for
if you create a particularly compelling character
good or evil
is the way that this will colour
at least briefly, your own personality.
It's almost like an act of willing possession.
You've invited these people into your head
and they may stay around for a while
I remember during the, what, ten years
that I was working on my book
about the Whitechapel murders, From Hell
that the principal character, Sir William Withey Gull
was a very, very compelling presence
and my family and loved ones would note that
if I'd been writing a couple of chapters of From Hell
that I would have a very sardonic, Victorian manner
that I was wearing like a cloak.
These things, if you are creating them
with enough intensity and passion
they will inevitably colour your own consciousness.
Now, in regarding extreme characters in general
you may reach a point where you are called upon
to handle franchise characters
characters that you haven't created, that you do not own.
These generally come into two forms.
You've got the franchise characters
that aren't doing well
or you've got the franchise characters
that are untouchable legends
where you're not going to be allowed to do anything
really serious to change them.
Actually, the ones that aren't doing well
are your best bet.
Because if their sales figures are down that low
then you are probably being offered the character
as an act of desperation.
Because no matter how terribly you manage the job
you probably can't make it any worse.
Which, of course, gives you a splendid opportunity
for making it much, much, much better.
As an example from my own work, I...
The first job that I was given
when I started working for American comics
when I was headhunted or "brain drained"
by the Americans
that would have been Swamp Thing.
Which had been a comic created in the early '70s
about a vegetable entity
a scientist who's fallen into a swamp
with some kind of chemicals
and, as you know, "chemicals", that can do almost anything.
So, he falls into the swamp
blub, blub, blub, blub
after a couple of months or an unspecified time
he arises from the swamp as this...
green swamp monster
that looks like it's made out of vegetation.
And actually
although the character had a certain appeal
I mean, yeah
big swamp monsters, what's not to love?
On the other hand, it had got a massive amount of limitations.
This was when I applied the technique that
I have since learned was fundamental to the alchemists.
They used to have a formula
that they knew as "solve et coagula".
Now, what "solve" means
it's basically taking something to pieces.
If we were talking about a Swiss watch
then what "solve" would mean is to take apart
every component of that watch
until you understand what they are all for.
You understand how to put them back together
in an improved form.
This is the "coagula" part of the formula.
So, with "solve" and "coagula"
you're basically talking about analysis
where you analyse something to find out why it isn't working
or why it isn't working as well as it could do.
You take it apart.
And then there is the act of synthesis
where you put it back together in a hopefully improved way.
This was what I did with Swamp Thing.
I looked at the character, I looked at the origin story
and I noticed that
when the scientist is caught in an explosion
and is blown up and stumbles into the swamp
in the first place
I was looking at the artwork and I noticed that
the improvised bomb
taped to the underside of his laboratory table
six or seven sticks of dynamite
was about 18 inches from his face
when it went off.
So the first thing I concluded was...
"Well, he's dead, isn't he?"
I mean, if that happens, you're dead.
And he didn't really stumble out of the door
of his little shack in the swamps.
No, he was dead by that point already.
The force of the blast probably blew him out of the door
and anyway
this chemical formula that he was working upon
that wasn't meant to affect human beings
it was only meant to affect plant life.
So...
that thing that came out of the swamp
that's not him, is it?
He's dead.
So what happened there?
And I started thinking about it
and I thought, OK
his body, saturated with this chemical formula...
His body, already dead, goes out into the swamp
where it gets eaten.
It decomposes, it is eaten by all of the insects
the plants, the microorganisms
that make up that part of the swamp.
They are taking his actual physical material
in through their roots.
And this is something that was meant to affect plants.
I also remembered something that I'd heard
about some experiments done with planarian worms.
Where... this is a very cruel experiment.
Where you get one planarian worm
and you teach it to run a maze.
Then you, rather unkindly, you put it in a centrifuge
and you turn it to a paste.
You then feed that paste to other planarian worms
that have not been taught to run the maze.
And at which point, we discovered that
the untutored worms
once they have eaten their learned comrade
they can run the maze just fine.
Which tends to suggest that intelligence can be passed on
as a foodstuff.
A bit like in some cannibal traditions
where the wise man of the tribe will be eaten
by the rest of the tribe
in order to pass on his intelligence.
So, I was thinking...
Yeah, so you've got this
decomposing dead body in the swamp.
And then you've got a lot of plants that are infected
by its intelligence, by its consciousness.
Plants who think that they are the human being.
Plants who build themselves a body
that mimics the human form
even though it is rough
and cannot possibly be as finely detailed
as a body made of flesh.
And that this is what had happened
to the Swamp Thing character.
He wasn't a transformed human being at all
he was, as I put it, "a ghost dressed in weeds."
He was a plant that thought it had been a human being.
Now, by doing this
taking apart of the character
and then putting it back together
in a form that actually works better
it completely changed the character
it completely turned him around.
When I took over the character
it was on the verge of cancellation
it was selling something like 17,000 copies a month.
By the time I left it, it was well up over 100,000 copies
and everybody was very pleased with me.
So, this is an example
of how to use the formula of "solve et coagula"
when you're dealing with a character
on the verge of cancellation. Now...
as I mentioned, you might also
this is perhaps a bit more unlikely
be offered a big-name character
that you can't really mess around with too much.
In this case, the only thing you can do
is look back at the past of that character
see what worked about it
try and emphasise that
as a way of perhaps celebrating the qualities of the character
rather than revising them.
Now, in general
when you are dealing with characters
it is advisable to
always listen to your characters
to allow them their integrity
to allow them to have their way
in terms of the narrative.
If there's something that that character
seems to really want to do, then probably let them do it.
Yeah, always listen to your characters
always allow them their complete integrity.
And...
Basically, no matter how horribly
the narrative will call for you to treat them
then allow them that integrity.
Treat them as if they are your friends.
Albeit friends that, regrettably
you sometimes have to kill.