All or Nothing: Characters That Are Smarter Than the Writer

May 25, 2009

Characters That Are Smarter Than the Writer

Q: How do you write about characters that are smarter than you are?

Thanks,

AC

A: AC, it was great having you in class this semester. And, actually, I'm going to use your name, if you don't mind, because your short story is up for a major award--the League for Innovation Prize, and though I haven't heard back from the national judges yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that you are going to win it. We are all very proud of you at MDC, Alexander (Cherin).

Now back to your question. First of all, no character is smarter than you because you are the writer, which makes you God and thereby all powerfull and all knowing.

LOL

But never mind that. The most tried and true method for creating really smart characters is to base them on real life brainiacs. The first step, of course, is to do the research. Study the writings of the brainiac--get a bio or two on them--read up on what others have said about them, especially the writings of those who have had personal encounters with them like their friends, family, and colleagues. In this way, you will get a good feel for their personal characteristics and a sense of how others perceive them--and usually you don't need more than that to write your fictionalized clone of them. In fact, a good book about two great brains is on my list on this page--The Professor and the Mad Man--which is a really great read.

Now here is my question to you: Why do we find it difficult to write about people smarter than we are when we have no problem writing about people stronger, older, younger, sexier, braver, uglier, taller, shorter, more athletic, or more talented than we are?

Thanks,

Preston

1 comment:

Unknown said...: I don't think there's as much of an audience for someone of more intelligence than, say, Michael Jordan. Also, a lot of fun stories of going against the odds or the under dog stories, which I think many people favor more, would not work under our current paradigm regarding intelligence. We think its pretentious and genetic. We're born intelligent, whereas we can work to become a good enough athlete.

Though people are mystified by talent, I don't think there's a great deal of conflict for a talented individual. Simply, less of a story for someone like Preston Allen. However, John Nash, of Beautiful Mind, or Steven Hawkings, or someone with a severe handicap allows for a story.

I also think authors have an ego issue. I have an ego issue. I hate conceding to a "superior" opponent at some game of wit. It's an ungodly terror compared to losing a basketball game. For a basket ball game loss, we justify it by saying we didn't practice enough. But if you argument is debunked or you're humiliated because of some intellectual joust, no one will accept you didn't do enough homework; they'll think you're not smart enough, which stings deeper than not being strong enough. Everyone knows the David and Goliath story. Everyone at least wishes they were Goliath if they don't have the cunning to be David. Imagine an author who is neither? and their ego issues with that?; June 7, 2009 at 9:59 AM

Here's the plan . . .

Please email me at prestonthewriterallen@gmail.com with your gambling questions and your publishing world questions. I will use this site to post your questions and answer as many of them as I can.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see a list of Reading Group Questions for Discussion and a list of video interviews of writing heavyweights Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, J California Cooper and others.

Also, feel free to purchase any of the books on this site to support the best writing talent in the country.

Thanks,

Preston

My other blog, which has a wider range of topics, can be reached at http://www.prestonlallen.blogspot.com/.

Professor James Haskins

For those of us who had him as a teacher at the University of Florida in the mid 80s--you know why he is here on my page. What a teacher. What an experience.

I remember walking to his office for one of those jam sessions (I made some mistake or another in one of the essays that I had submitted to him), and I spied on his wall a poster for the Francis Ford Coppola movie the Cotton Club. I noticed for the first time that the words "based on the James Haskins book" were embossed on the poster.

I blurted out, "Oh, Professor Haskins, you're THAT James Haskins!"

He rolled his eyes at me and spit out, "So what are you telling me, Allen? That a black man can't write a book?"

I stuttered my apology as I would stutter many apologies to him that semester, and he launched into me for a half hour berating--reminding me loudly and sarcastically that in my introductory essay to his class I had indicated that my career ambition was to be a novelist. How then could it surprise me that he was THAT James Haskins?

I had no answer for him, as so often happened that semester. I was quite humbled.

He was a difficult man, to say the least, but over time I came to enjoy his class, though he often put me on the spot in front of the others. I was the only African American in the class besides himself.

He was my CHILDREN's LIT professor, and I must say I learned a great deal from him, though not about children's lit.

At some point in the middle of that semester, I began to give serious consideration to becoming a college professor when I grew up.

I thank James Haskins for that.

Rest in Peace.

All or Nothing Reviews

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

Reading Group Questions for Discussion

ALL OR NOTHING
Reading Group Questions for Discussion

1. Based on her upbringing, her typical reaction to P’s gambling throughout All or Nothing, and her decision to nurse him back to health after the shooting, how would you describe P’s wife Hon?

2. Discuss the use of setting in the novel, particularly how Las Vegas gambling compares to gambling in Miami.

3. What aspects of P’s personality and his upbringing, including his relationship with his father, might have contributed to his becoming the kind of gambler that he is?

4. Using his wife (Hon), C.L., S’s wife, Missy and his fat girl as particular examples, discuss what role romantic love plays in P’s life.

5. How are P’s attempts to properly parent his children undermined, or otherwise impacted, by his gambling?

6. In what ways does E.V.’s gradual decline, which P is a witness to, affect his feelings about his own addiction?

7. What is meant by the quote, “The only addiction stronger than gambling is charity,” and how is it supported (or contradicted) by the actions of P? The professor? Missy?

8. P complains to C.L. about outsiders that “they don’t understand us.” What is it that outsiders do not understand about gamblers? How do outsiders view gamblers?

9. What explains Missy’s decision to come to the aid of P’s son?

10. To what extent are the gamblers in All or Nothing superstitious? Religious? Scientific?

11. Explain the professor’s theory of “roundness” and its connections to P’s epiphany after he shoots his son.

12. How do the quotes and the parenthesized headers at the beginnings of some of the chapters assist in the development of the plot? How do they assist in the development of P’s character?

13. How do gamblers feel about money? Where do they get it from? What is its purpose?

14. At the GA meeting, P calls himself "the sickest one here." What is the sickest thing, in your opinion, that P does in the book? What is the sickest thing any of the gamblers do in the book?

15. Why does C.L. partner with someone other than P to cheat the casino?

16. What important truth was P trying to teach our friend D about the nature of addiction after their fist fight at the GA meeting?

17. At the funeral C.L. tries to sum up P's life by exclaiming with tears in her eyes that P had a great life, he had fun. How does this sum up P's life? Gambling addiction?

18. Based on what you have learned about gamblers in All or Nothing, is it likely that P’s son will eventually gamble again? Will Missy?

All or Nothing

At the Pen Festival 2010

May 25, 2009

Characters That Are Smarter Than the Writer

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