Supporting Characters, Puzzles, and Brown Rice

 I despise Sudoku. Really. The sight of one of those number puzzles makes my stomach turn, my head hurt, my eyes go bleary…

I love crossword puzzles.  I have a fantasy that someday I'll spend an entire Sunday morning with a cup of coffee (several cups, actually) and the Times crossword, preferably in a tiki hut overlooking a never-ending white sand beach and azure blue water.

Numbers irritate me, but words I love. 

When I started writing plays, I loved the puzzle of figuring out how to convey every detail through dialogue and a sprinkling of non-verbal action: exposition, plot, character description… everything. Nothing can happen without an actor saying or doing something on stage.

The puzzle is figuring out how to let the audience know the deep dark reason behind the main character’s irrational loathing of brown rice without a narrator or without her saying, “I hate you, brown rice! I have always hated you. I hated you when my mother tried to substitute you for the delicious, delicate, easy-to-chew white rice that I loved so much. Mother thinks you’re sooooo much better when really you’re worse.”

Writing a novel in first person is a little bit like writing a play. Because the reader can’t go anywhere the main character isn’t, the actions and words of the main character must do all of the story-telling. Her actions and words have to be subtle clues that cause the audience to quietly say under their breath, “Aha!”

As heroic as she may be, the main character can’t do it all on her own. Supporting characters are also important pieces of the puzzle. They’re like the pieces of the border already in place, waiting for that gratifying, satisfying interlock with that one piece of sky that has the missing corner of the cloud.

Sure, supporting characters have their own unique individual personalities, but really they exist to shed light on the thoughts, the desires, hope, and fears of the main character. When I write, the main character’s closest friends are really extensions of herself - her conscience and her naked desire. They are the angel and the devil on her shoulder.

The angel says, “You really should try the brown rice. It’s higher in fiber and much better for you.”

The devil says, “Fuck all the rice. Have a glass of wine.”

The main character is left to decide between the two while the reader silently cheers her on, hoping she’ll choose the brown rice or maybe the wine.

It doesn’t matter really. The rice is a metaphor anyway.

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