“How did you know I’d drink the moonshine? You must have
known from observing me that I don’t touch the serpent’s venom.”
Sumac
giggled and sneered and sucked on her ersatz cigarette. She tittered with her
teeth, biting on the cigarette holder.
“You
struggle against chaos. You fight to hold it at bay, but it overwhelms you, the
tide rushing in. Dance on your toes, but you can’t hold it back. And you longed
so for it. In your eyes, I could see it—how you’ve chased the darkness, hoping
for its embrace. Emancipation. Freedom. All I had to do was put the glass in
front of you and curl my lips and show my smooth, lovely thighs. You were
sniffing for it.”
—Ragtime Ascension (Ragtime Cycles) by T. Fox Dunham
A Clockwork Orchard: Rivets & Rain published by May
December Publications
At the heart of effective character is the unique spirit,
yet also there is the same core identity prototypical to the human animal. I
have observed people all my life: listened to their life stories, watched their
actions, remarked on the common cycles and motivations that compel them. I have
discovered that every person is an individual, but the human heart is identical
in its needs. No matter how different people are, the same needs drive them in
life.
People want to be loved and are scared of being hurt.
Of course, in life there are many gray shades and complex
mathematical matrices to identity. My statement is a generalization, but it is
supported; and though I still have much to learn about the human heart, I can
put it present it with confidence. There are exceptions to this axiom, as with
all systems, and these exceptions also make for fascinating characters.
When writing characters, it is important to
remember that fiction is not a report on reality or real life. Like the stage,
narrative fiction is its own plane, a surreal reality. This is an art form that
has evolved for centuries. We are writing of dramatized reality. Characters
can’t be copies of real people. They are the extremes, the archetypes, the
deities and symbols. We already have a medium for direct reality, facts
reported and life witnessed. Fiction is a different format. That’s why most
real life stories need to be reorganized and dramatized, applied to a dramatic
pattern, an arc that builds.
My characters are never clones from life. I never take a
person I know and represent them exactly in my work. My characters are
composites, elements of several people and myself in varying levels, blended
together then shaped in extremes of the physical, emotional-mental and
spiritual. A character’s soul is his or her voice. My readers often comment
that even though some of my characters have minute physical presence, their
characterization is strong, indelible because of their voice. Their voice defines character: how they see the world,
respond to changes, grow and change.
A character’s voice is their soul, the way they digest
their world and give back to it.
* * *
The Lady Poison Sumac, Drag Dancer at the Pink Gopher.
Poison Sumac is an iconic character in my Ragtime Cycles.
She is a transvestite, a drag queen. She is chaos manifested in a human shell.
Born in the burned wastes leftover from the Wild-Eyed Fire—the great
conflagration which ended the modern era of humanity—the child Poison Sumac lived
in a barbarian’s world that had no regard for law or life. Her milieu helped
define her, educated her. Chaos became her faith. She has one goal: to aid and
watch society collapse then dance while it burns. This is her character voice,
and it was defined by her birth, the setting of her life and confirmed by the
actions of the people around her. This seeded in Sumac, growing inside,
devouring and transforming until it became Sumac’s nature.
“You’re going to cover the world in darkness,” she said. “I
must love you.”
“All the
equipment is still in my home, the cathedral. With sound, vibration I will
renew, invigorate. I will tell him how proud I am, how wrong I was. He will
wrap his hands around my neck and kiss my cheeks. I will make him immortal.”
She clapped
like a child, pleased by the clowns in the show.
“How
terribly cruel,” she said.
—Ragtime by T. Fox Dunham
From Doctor Fantastique’s Show of Wonders
In the Ragtime Cycles, Poison Sumac is the dealer of
Ragtime—a narcotic that not only alters the body but also the mind and the
spirit. It is a remnant of the old paradise, the sum and final product of a
course of science and evolution. It survived The Wild-Eyed Fire and was kept
and guarded like a religious artifact until it found its way into the
possession of Sumac. She saw it as the fire to burn it all, to expose the truth
of the human animal, the ridiculous nature of life. Sumac is a nihilist. Life
is an error to her, a cosmic mistake, and she finds elements of society like
law and decency to be fraudulent, a lark. To her, sex, love, loyalty, and faith
are vapid, meaningless. They are expressions of vanity, futility. All life ends
and is forgotten. While people scream in terror at the inevitable darkness, she
laughs at them. She giggles wildly into the night.
So she serves the Preacher, the nameless figurehead of the
city with no name. Such names are forbidden. Names give power. The people of
this last city secretly have named it after a line from a poem that survived
the Wild-Eyed Fire. They whisper the name of the city: Lovers Be Lost. She aids
in The Preacher’s plans for ascension, using the drug Ragtime, but she is not
motivated by duty or faith. She observes only to see him fail, to affirm her
own absence of faith and acceptance of what she believes is the true nature of
life.
Poison Sumac exists to pleasure herself in the suffering of
others as their plans of control fail. This is her nature, her voice, how she
sees the cosmos. You will see it clearly in narratives I have copied, and you
will find it sutured into the stories.
Three stories have been published so far in the Ragtime
Cycles. I have listed the previous two. A third story, The Tick-Tock Heart of
Starbat, was published in Jake’s Anthologies Punk Issue. Starbat was partly based on my close friend Star, who has drawn some of the sketches of Poison Sumac. I hope to have a recent sketch to link to this blog.
I am developing the
stories into an anthology and planning a novel. I will then script this novel,
and I am seeking a production company to turn it into a noir animated film. I need a good publisher or production company if you're interested.
WRITING CHARACTER VOICE:
The best advice I can give in writing character voice is to
define your character’s nature then let it fill you. When I write, I give life
to my characters, and I hollow myself out with a melon baller. I turn my person
into a pipe organ that my characters can play. Character voice is their nature,
the sum of what they are. Some of that does come from you as the author, but
your characters also require autonomy to be able to truly express themselves.
They are extreme in nature, unlike real people who tend to blend in with the
group. As an author, you need to turn over control of your narrative to your
characters, to allow them to move as motivated by their natures. This risks
your well conceived plans and plot, and if you’re doing it right, your
characters will often through a bowling ball into your hall of mirrors. Your
characters will rebel against your conscription, to the rigid confinement of
your designs, and if you listen to them, they will steer your narratives in new
and surprising ways.
* * *
And make sure to pick up a copy of A Clockwork Orchard: Rivets & Rain from May December Publishing. I am honored to be included with such talented authors.
The TOC for our Steampunk Anthology – A Clockworks Orchard:
Rivets and Rain: Michael Seese, Never Mind The Nonsense, Here’s The Sex
Truncheons – Paul Boulet, Skymanned City – Mark Jones, Running Out of Steam –
Adam Millard, A Clockwork Orang(utan) – Dorothy Reede, A Demonstration of
Loyalty – McAbee Gail, Sheriff Holt and the Purple Stagecoach Mystery – Bob
Lock, Il Risorgimento – T Fox Dunham, Ragtime Ascension- Christopher Eger, The
Assassins Assassin – and Jill Watts, Feast of Souls.
Follow me on Twitter:
@TFoxDunham.
Facebook page for
updates on my work:
* * *
New Sun Rising Anthology
I also want to ask my readers to pickup a copy of The New
Sun Rising Anthology, edited by the illustrious and determined Annie Evett
and teeming with poetry, short fiction, artwork and spirit of some of the best
of international talents—somehow I snuck in there too for my story, Cherry Blossoms
Never Die. Money raised by the anthology will go to support The Red Cross in
its efforts to rebuild after the nuclear accident and natural disaster that
struck Japan.
What I love about this anthology is that it is a reminder of
the beauty of Japan. Where other anthologies chronicled the natural disaster, New
Sun Rising set out to showcase the soul of that ancient and mythical land
and remind the world why it must be preserved.
I thank you Annie Evett for an inspiring job and your
diligence in seeing the project through.
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