I love writing male characters for my novels. Understanding the average man is supposed to be simple – if folklore and fairytale would have us believe. In some surface respects, that may be true. But both men and women all have complexity and personal histories, or even trauma’s that have shaped them. So the reality of just ‘a simple man’ can be something else.
When I write male characters, I like that they tell me who they are, just as much as my female characters, and they can show me who they are through their actions, or their desire for actions. ’Inaction’ can be revealing, too, as it’s also an action or choice, of sorts. Men tend to say a lot with actions. In writing male characters, it feels particularly important for me to convey moral character and integrity, as I feel the world needs good men standing up more than ever.
As characters ‘download’ to me creatively, they start speaking to me. They will wake me at night, they will interrupt me in my day. They want to be known. And they want their stories to be told. It’s a curious thing that I seldom question – how they present themselves to me. I form strong impressions of them through my senses and through scenes that appear and play out above my head, much like a movie. For some, I hear their words, I feel their courage, and parts of themselves they hide…their drivers in life – places where they may once have been broken. For other characters, I may feel their hero’s journey…or their yearning for redemption, leaving me to figure out the why, the how, or if they are redeemable at all.
I feel particularly drawn to the psyche and character development of military men (and yes, some women join the defence forces too, I realise that). Despite anyone’s personal ideals or opinions, I can’t think of a more equally heroic and tortuous kind of job than being a soldier in a war. As many of us are aware, suicide numbers are high in the American military, in particular. Not only must soldiers endure their own psychology upon return to some kind of ‘normal’ life, but they also risk the wrath of regular folk’s judgment, which must be brutal when so many likely sign up for noble reasons, with enormous risk and cost to themselves.
Below, I’ve included a brief excerpt of a character, ‘Tucker Martin’ from my current partly-written novel. He’s a military chap, not a major character, and this is one of his earliest appearances. I liked writing this piece as it came to me so quickly and strongly – I didn’t have to ‘explain’ who Tucker was…I could just feel him in this scene. Once I’d researched ants (something that is surprisingly easy to spend hours on), and red ants found in the location, this writing literally fell out of the sky without too much editing required. When words come through like this, it is such a joy.
War has ravaged Tucker’s soul. And whilst he’s difficult, and I have not yet completed his journey, it feels important to find some compassion for him along the way.
I’ve altered any curse words in case the faint-hearted have a problem with them… Dots denote other sections not included here. ———
Fu*king red ants, Tucker thought, glancing down in the sunrise light at the colony on the move in front of his dusty military-grade boots. For a few meaningless moments he fixed his gaze upon the tiny creatures’ industrious activities. They were swarming over a dead cicada on the parched soil, devouring the dried-up miniature carcass as if it were a hotel buffet. It was a shell of a life form now, worth nothing to nobody, except some scavenging low-life insects.
The skin around the brow of Tucker’s leather-baked face attempted to crease as his dark eyes looked down with contempt at the tiny life forms. Rosacea red patches caked his cheeks like bad make-up. But since Tucker never bothered looking at his face much, it didn’t matter to him. A crazy person once told him the redness was from the brew he’d been drinking.
Yeast, they said.
Fu*k yeast.
His eyes were dead. Not the kind of city-dead where people encountered pockets of love yet still walked asleep, it was more the kind of underworld-dead, where the bridge to the soul had long since crumbled. War tended to have that effect. And he’d been in a few.
…….. Fighting for country or freedom, Tucker thought, promptly spitting a chunk of white phlegm toward the earth and watching it rain down on the ants like giant meteor. With momentary fascination he noticed the colony begin to scurry toward his ejected pus-like organic mass. Freedom – what did that really mean on Earth anymore? Watching some reality-shit show on television whilst sitting in a box, paying your slave bills, and kidding yourself you were secure…and free? He snorted again at the thought. What did that amount to in life…or loyalty, for that matter? The only loyalty he’d ever known was fighting for the man beside him, but even the desire for that had dried up inside.
……… Tucker’s blood boiled. Glaring down at the ground, he spied another colony of phlegm eating ants quietly making their way in an orderly fashion past his size twelve combat boots toward the ravine opening. He promptly drove a foot down hard on them. ‘Fu*k ants,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I hate ants.’