Characters and Flaws: The Mad Men Edition

I'm back, and giving you Part 2 of Characters and Flaws like I promised. This post will attempt to demonstrate how equally flawed characters can elicit different reactions from the audience. Also, I just want an excuse to talk about one of my favorite shows ever. Seriously, if you haven't seen Mad Men, you need to do it yesterday! I can wait.

For the rest of you, let's start with the show's protagonist, Don Draper. I'll give you a moment to wipe the drool off your keyboard.
Our ad man is a walking laundry list of flaws. He cheats on his wife regularly (not just casual flings, mind you, but full-on relationships), and hides his past to the point where he pays off his long-lost half-brother to never contact him again (which leads to the half-brother's suicide). He's got the suburban house, Grace Kelly clone wife, and two children, but it's mostly for show. Basically, he's the embodiment of living a lie.

Now let's look at his nemesis, Pete Campbell, weasel-faced bastard extraordinaire.
He too, cheats on his wife (just not as often, because he doesn't have half the game Don does), and once tried to pimp her out to her publisher ex-boyfriend so he could get his crummy short story in The New Yorker. Throughout the first season, he slept with secretary Peggy, played mind games with her and acted like a turd when she got promoted to copywriter (he can't control a woman with new-found self-esteem and hates it). Though he works like hell to get respect in the workplace, his sense of entitlement overshadows his work ethic and talent as an ideas man.

So why does Don get our sympathy and Pete get our scorn?

Don, for all his flaws, still has a code of ethics, no matter how warped we might find it. Sure, he loves his adultery, but he won't use his rank to bang his way through the secretarial pool like the other guys do. Yes, he hides his past, but for good reason: his real mother was a prostitute and his father could rival Mel Gibson in the drunken asshole department. But he raised himself up from his hardscrabble beginnings, reinvented himself from scratch and worked his ass off to get where he is today, and who doesn't love a good rags-to-riches story? Also, his outsider status allows him to side with the underdogs of the world (proto-feminist Peggy, closeted Sal, even his girlfriends go against the grain of society). Empathy and a code of ethics (not to mention charm to spare) go a long way.

Pete on the other hand has no moral code. He'll use any means to get what he wants, including blackmail and flaunting his family name. There is no line he won't cross and that makes us squirm. Sure, we get a little glimpse into his past and how his family has always treated him like a second-class citizen, but instead of giving people the respect and consideration he wants for himself, he perpetuates the cycle of mistreatment. He is slowly redeeming himself through Season Three; he gets along with his wife a lot better now, and he tried to get one of his clients to tap into the African-American market since their products happen to be big sellers in predominantly black cities (he may or may not actually be racially progressive, but he's at least smart enough to realize that a black person's money is every bit as green as a white person's).

Now for the female counterparts, starting with Joan Harris (formerly Holloway).
She gets catty, won't think twice about sleeping with married men, and she wasn't exactly nice to her ex's new black girlfriend (remember the backhanded compliment about Paul being "open-minded?" Yikes!).

Now let's look at Jane Sterling (formerly Siegel).
She too is catty, doesn't mind sleeping with married men, and like Joan, she has no qualms about using her sexuality to get what she wants.

So why does Joan get more love than Jane in the Mad Men fandom?

Like Don, Joan has her own moral code. When she gets snippy at the girls around the office, it is usually for good reason. When you read between the lines, she's offering advice underneath the venom, but if she's too nice, she won't be taken seriously as the office manager (remember, second-wave feminism hasn't happened yet). Also, she gives the phone operators her utmost respect (and gifts!), because without them the agency will go down in flames. Yes, she slept with married men while she was single, but when Roger Sterling offered to leave his wife for her, she wouldn't have it, and she wouldn't be his kept woman either. Joan is her own person.

The "open-minded" comment she gave Paul's black girlfriend, Sheila, is definitely inexcusable through a post-Civil Rights lens. For the time, though, her bigotry was really no different from most people around her (as the civil rights movement picks up steam in later seasons, we'll have to see her reaction before passing final judgment). As loath as I am to defend her remark, Joan would have been just as harsh if Sheila had been white; her race was an easy target, but not the reason for Joan's bitchiness. Just like with her in-office cattiness, that "open-minded" comment was her veiled way of warning Sheila that Paul is a cad and a poseur, and probably using Sheila as a prop for his bohemian image.

What about Jane? Where Joan has depth, Jane is transparent, and like Pete, Jane seems to have no code of ethics. When it comes to any redeeming qualities, her transparency ends here. We don't know if she's truly smitten with Roger (who later leaves his wife for her) or if she sees him as the consolation prize since Don turned down her advances; the scene where she recites that sappy poem to him could have been a heartfelt gesture, or it could have been a ploy to keep the new sugar-daddy around. We don't quite know the motivation behind her giving Roger's daughter an overly expensive bridal gift. Is she trying to make nice with her new stepdaughter (who hates her) or is she trying to show up Mona, Roger's ex wife? As for her cattiness, when she makes a bitchy remark, she tends to make passive-aggressive cutesy faces as if to say, "Oops! Did I say that?" If she at least owned her bitchiness like Joan does, it would give her some integrity.

So my point? Your characters can have as many flaws as you want. Just make sure you pick the right traits to balance them out if you want them to be sympathetic.

And because I'm just a teensy bit in love her, I'll leave you with more Joan:

ETA: This post covers up to Season 3, just so you know.

Character and Flaws: A Love Story, Part One

Open up almost any writing book and it will extol the virtues of the sympathetic character, which makes sense since most people don't want to read a book if they don't give a damn about who's in it.

Does your main character have to be like Mary Poppins and practically perfect in every way in order for the reader to care about her/him? Ick! No! For one thing, perfect people don't exist. Sure, you might know people who seem perfect, but they have their flaws too; they're just better at concealing them (a skill many of us would love to have). For another thing, perfect characters are boring because they have no room to grow and improve, and part of the fun of reading is seeing how the characters change as the result of the book's events.

Flaws are also a good way to make your protagonist someone your reader can relate to. Of course, you want these to be forgivable flaws. If your main character is a pedophile or a wife-beater, chances are, your reader is either going to throw the book across the room, root for your character's downfall (which had better include dying in a chemical fire), or send you a crap-ton of hate mail and dead rats. But I digress.

Now, these flaws have to be real flaws and not something that only serves to enhance how awesome your main character is. A strategically placed scar that brings out your hero or heroine's fabulous bone structure is not a flaw. Someone caring about their friends too much is not a flaw. People constantly asking your genius hero for help is not a flaw (yes, I've seen this, and let me tell you, it made a great appetite suppressant). Having an oh-so-tragical past is not a flaw either. Google the term "Mary Sue" and you'll see just how reviled these not-flaws are.

Your main character's flaws should be personality flaws, flaws that get him or her into trouble, flaws that s/he has to work through in order to grow as a character. You know, actual obstacles. For example, let's say your heroine has a bad temper. If she were a Mary Sue, this would likely be her only flaw (aside from a tragical past) and she'd have the most adorably bad temper to boot. Everyone in the story would think it's cute the way she pouts (her slightly too-full lips, of course) and stamps her teensy little high-heeled foot whenever she throws a tantrum. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just jealous and will be relegated to bad-guy status.

Your temperamental heroine will be written better than this, of course. Her blow-ups actually get her into trouble and threaten to keep her from reaching her goal, whether it's making partner at her firm or bringing about world peace. Other characters (and not just the ever-so-jealous bad guys) are willing to call her out on her bullshit, and by the end, she hopefully learns that popping off at someone for looking at her the wrong way isn't the best way of going about life. No, she doesn't have to turn into some mealy-mouthed doormat who bakes cupcakes for her enemies (without poison, spit, or ground glass in them, that is), but she should actually know the difference between being aggressive and being assertive. This is character growth.

For another example, let's say your hero has that tragical past after all. The past isn't a flaw in and of itself, but a person's past can inform the way they act and think in the present. If he had suffered a betrayal back in the day, maybe his fatal flaw is that he can't trust anybody and his character arc involves learning that everyone's not out to screw him over. Maybe his cynicism gets him in trouble at a crucial point in the book. Take that not-a-flaw and turn it into one.

Besides the fatal flaws, since you want your characters to be human and believable, they're likely to have a few bad habits, sometimes even full-on vices. Remember, you're writing a novel, not some Fifties pamphlet on moral hygiene. The occasional drink, f-bomb, or joint isn't going to make your character a bad person. Just don't go to the other extreme and use your character's vices as shorthand for their "edginess" (don't get me started on the word "edgy"), because that's lazy and cliched. Habits and vices have to be honest to your character is what I'm trying to get at.

Genres like action movies, superhero comics, and glittery novels about the jet-set tend to have a little more leeway when it comes to how flawless the characters are, because this is what the audience loves and expects. They want an adventure and to live vicariously through these virtual titans. Even then, those characters still have the occasional flaw or two, like Superman and his Kryptonite and double life, or the ruthlessness of the so-called rich-bitch heroine who wants to break through that glass ceiling in your glitter-and-glamor novel.

No matter what flaws you give your characters, their virtues have to outweigh them whether it's a matter of quality or quantity. Stay tuned for Part Two where I give you examples using some of the characters in Mad Men. If you haven't seen it, Netflix it already.

So you wanna write a novel

If you've decided to take the plunge into the world of novel writing, I'm not going to discourage you and tell you you're crazy. I'm sure you've got well-meaning friends and family members for that. Okay, I might tell you you're crazy, but I mean it in the best possible way. Trust me on that.

While there are no hard-and-fast rules to the process, a beginning writer would do well to at least learn some guidelines. As you hone your craft and gain more confidence (and the talent to back up said confidence, one would hope), you'll get a feel for when you can and cannot break the rules you've learned before.

It really doesn't matter if you begin with a vague plot idea or simply a character you're dying to put on the page, but you have to be absolutely passionate about what you're writing. Yes, it's a good idea to be mindful of the market since you don't want to shop out a Bridget Jones type of book ten years too late, but don't write a vampire book simply because vampires are the latest thing right now. By the time you write (and revise!) the book, get an agent, and go through the publishing process, that bandwagon book you wrote will likely go out of style.

The point is, you have to love what you're writing or else your readers will be able to smell your apathy like a gallon of Axe body spray on a 13-year-old boy.

In order to write well, you have to read, read, read. You'll find that advice in a lot of books about writing, and for good reason. I was watching a panel discussion on the writer's craft a long time ago and one creative writing instructor (I wish I could remember his name) had some great advice in that vein:

1. Read literary fiction and classics so you'll know what's good.
2. Read popular fiction so you'll know what's appealing.
3. Read poetry so you can learn how to economize your words.

If you still feel like you're flying blind, it would probably be a good idea to buy or check out some good books on writing. The titles I suggest are in no way a comprehensive list, but they'll at least help you get started.

1. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Necessary for those days when you need a cheerleader. She's funny, she's irreverent, and she gives you permission to write a bad first draft (or the Shitty First Draft, as she calls it).
2. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. This isn't a technical manual on how to write, but once you read it, you'll want to buy a bunch of notebooks and fill them up as soon as possible. Writing begets writing, so anything that inspires you is worth the money.
3. The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray. Since you'll want something more technical, this book serves as a writing class you can stick in your totebag. It covers everything from character development basics to setting to organizing your plot in a cohesive fashion.
4. Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card. Since you can't have a book without characters, this book gives you in-depth information on how to create characters your reader will care about.

So there you go. There's really nothing else to do now but to spread on some butt-glue, grab a chair, and start planning your novel.