Reader Question: Can writing a character bio get in the way of one’s creative process?
What if the bio veers away from the writer’s take on the character?
A question via email from Hamilton Hollands:
My question is do you think that when writing the character bios
before writing the first draft, that this can potentially get in the
way of the story creatively? For example in Silence of the Lambs -
Clarice and the fact that she witnessed a lamb screaming, which slowly
comes out in the third act. Lets say hypothetically, if the author
consciously put another fact into her past life before writing, the
whole title and theme might have changed. Can you control the outcome
of these back stories in the conclusion of the film and where you want
it to go to, consciously to a certain extent?
Seems like there are a few issues here, Hamilton. Let me try to parse them out. First, your point about “The Silence of the Lambs,” you’re absolutely right that if the book’s author Thomas Harris had envisioned a different experience in Clarice’s childhood — a meteorite striking the ground near her, a car flying off a cliff and crashing, a mongoose killing a python — her life-story would be different than what it is in the book and movie. So the specific details writers come up with when spending time with their characters and their respective biographies does matter as — naturally — seminal events in a character’s past will influence their present and future.
There is another point here, however. The fact that Clarice witnessed the slaughter of the lambs on her uncle’s farm in Montana is an event upon which she unconsciously ‘attaches’ a larger set of emotional issues that she has as a result of her father’s murder. If you recall, her father was a sheriff in rural West Virginia. When Clarice was just a young girl, her father was shot and killed when he surprised two burglars. In other words, her father was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing (more on that later). Her father’s death was the single biggest event in Clarice’s life as it shook everything about her existence to the core. We know it’s critically important because the two flashbacks in the movie — playfully sneaking up on her father when he gets home from work (in his sheriff’s uniform) and at the funeral parlor where Clarice (as an adult) approaches an open casket only to see (as a child) her father’s corpse — are both tied to her father and his death.
In my view, Clarice feels guilty about her father’s death. This is common among children who lose a parent or sibling and in fact can be a coping mechanism. It’s far more threatening (psychologically) to a child to try to comprehend the total randomness of life and the possibility that death can strike you down in an instant — as it did with Clarice’s father — than to assume some measure of culpability for a parent’s death. At least with the latter, the guilt is something the child can control; random death, not so much.
When Clarice witnesses the slaughter of the lambs, she attaches the guilt she feels about her father’s death onto the fate of the lambs, and we know this because of how she responds:
CLARICE
I took one lamb. And I ran away, as
fast as I could... DR. LECTER
Where were you going? CLARICE
I don't know. I had no food or water.
It was very cold. I thought - if I
can even save just one... but he got
so heavy. So heavy..
She tries to save a lamb which symbolically is her attempt to ‘save’ her father. But as she runs, her rational self tells her that she can not, in fact, save her father, and her guilt — again symbolically — is what weighs her down: “but he got so heavy. So heavy…”
Harris could have come up with any event in Clarice’s past ala the slaughter of the lambs, but the fact is he had to devise something upon which Clarice could affix her guilt. And again, you’re right: If Harris had envisioned Clarice witnessing a mongoose killing a python instead of the slaughter of the lambs, the book might have been called “The Silence of the Pythons.”
But there’s a reason why Harris chose — or perhaps more apt to suggest that the idea of the lambs came into Harris’ consciousness — because it is the perfect symbol for this particular story. In ancient religions including Judaism, lambs were sacrificed because they were considered to be pure and innocent, thus ideal candidates whose blood could expiate the sins of the people. Christianity picked up this theme in relation to the ‘sacrifice’ of Jesus on the cross in the ancient hymn:
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Clarice projects the fate of her father — his death — onto that lamb she picked up and ran away with because both of them were blameless, pure, innocent. Her father was ‘slaughtered,’ just like the lambs. Plus the lamb imagery extends even further:
DR. LECTER
Do you think if you saved Catherine,
you could make them stop...? Do you
think, if Catherine lives, you won't
wake up in the dark, ever again, to
the screaming of the lambs? Do you...?Catherine Martin, Buffalo Bill’s latest kidnapping victim, is also an innocent and if somebody — and Clarice feels that it is specifically she — doesn’t do something, then Catherine will also be ‘slaughtered.’ So Clarice couldn’t save one lamb — her father — but perhaps she can save another one — Catherine Martin — and in so doing silence the lambs.
But even that still wouldn’t ‘atone’ for her guilt which is why I assert that psychologically, while Clarice wants to save Catherine Martin, she needs to ‘slaughter’ Buffalo Bill. By the way, the serial killer’s real name is Jamie Gumb. Look at that name again. Gumb. Lamb. Interesting comparison, yes? Especially if you consider that his slaughter and the shedding of his blood could serve as an effective symbolic expiation for Clarice’s ‘sins’ — her infantile sense of guilt regarding her father’s death.
So as I say, the lamb is the perfect symbol for the working out of Clarice’s story.
The larger point is to look at Clarice’s backstory as an object-lesson re screenwriting. For it is the specifics of her character’s past out of which arise the major plot elements as well as the key themes of her emotional / psychological journey — all of which underscores the importance of doing character biographies. Do we run the risk of a bio “potentially [getting] in the way of the story creatively”? I suppose so, but the upside is far greater — that going into your characters, digging deeply into them ought to provide you with all the raw material you need to create complex yet coherent individuals, and plots that service who they are, what they want, what they need, what their goals are, what can challenge them en route to their goals, and so on.
But as always, there’s no one right way to write. Every writer is different. Every story is different. Some may find character bios to be restrictive to their creative process, others may find they facilitate the process. My advice: Test the waters of a lot of different approaches and discover what works for you.
For more articles in the Go Into The Story Reader Question series, go here.
