Squeaky clean:
As a child, unlike my younger brother who always seemed to be in some kind of trouble, I was the “good son.” From his school teachers, my mother would occasionally receive a list of my brother’s latest transgressions. He crawled under a desk and made believe he was a dog and wouldn’t come out. He refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance—he claimed he was Italian and didn’t have to stand for the American pledge (for the record, although it turns out I have about two percent Italian blood, both our parents were born here and our heritage was Jewish/European/Syrian with a bunch of other random stuff thrown in). He was with a bunch of other kids caught throwing rocks from the school roof—unfortunately, my brother was always the one caught holding the bag, or in this case, the rocks.
But me? I was owner of a squeaky, clean record. Never arrested. Never spent a minute behind bars. The worst thing I ever did—and unlike my brother I didn’t get caught—was to play hooky from Hebrew School (it wasn’t very risky since both parents worked, which meant there was no one to rat me out for being home at 3:30 rather than 5 o’clock.) Otherwise, I toed the line, always effortlessly managing to stay on the right side of the law.
But who likes squeaky clean?
And yet, I’ve always been drawn to characters on the edge…that would be the edge of the law. I remember the first time the light bulb went off allowing me to realize that often the most interesting characters were the ones who were morally and ethically challenged. And so, when as a teenager I watched Paul Newman’s portrayal of the ambitious, self-centered morally challenged Hud in the movie of the same name, I had an epiphany: I might not like him, I might not trust him, I wouldn’t want to add him to my best friends list, but dammit, he was so darn interesting and compelling, I couldn’t take my eyes off him, while wondering what anti-social thing would he do next.
Most actors and actresses will tell you they enjoy playing characters far from who they are. They’ll also tell you the worse the character is, the more enjoyable it is to play them. For me and many of my writer friends, it’s very much the same when it comes to writing. All my characters are flawed in some way and often morally challenged—it’s what makes them interesting to me and hopefully my readers. And let’s face it, while it’s fun writing these characters, it does present some unique challenges, primarily because I have to go “outside” myself in an attempt to produce a character that’s 180 degrees from who I am.
Perhaps offering an example will help explain what I mean.
The risk of boredom
After publishing five Henry Swann novels, I was ready to pack it in. Not because I didn’t enjoy writing the character—he was fun in large part because he’s so different from me—but because I’d taken him about as far as I could and I’d risk boredom with my own character, which trust me, isn’t a good thing.
A magazine article I’d read years ago about a notorious silver thief who’d never been caught in the act, fascinated me. So, when I decided I want to write a novel about America’s obsession with winning, with coming in first, this article popped into my head. Why not tell the story through the eyes of a master burglar, a man who’s brilliant, arrogant, athletic and totally amoral? In other words, the complete opposite of me.
Therein lay my challenge. I was writing a character who was completely opposite to the way I am. If he zigged, I would have zagged. If I cried, he’d laugh. If I’d help, he’d hinder. As a result, every time I reached a point in the story where I needed Hoyt to do something that was, well, let’s just say, not very nice, I had to stop and ask myself not what would I do, but what wouldn’t I do?
Creating characters unlike ourselves
At first, it wasn’t easy, writing against the grain like that. The question I’d have to keep asking myself was not what would I do in this situation but rather, what would mean, amoral, narcissistic Francis Hoyt do? At first, this was challenging. But after a while not only did it come easier, but it was fun, because it allowed me to get into someone’s head who was totally the opposite of me.
It wasn’t the first time I had to do this. After all, every time a fiction writer sits down to work, we’re creating characters who usually aren’t us, even though they may share certain traits with us. Francis Hoyt isn’t me, but he certainly is a part of me, a part that might do certain things if he could get away with it, or if he didn’t have a conscience.
Here’s an example. There are two guys after Hoyt: Charlie Floyd, a newly retired Connecticut State investigator, and Manny Perez, a recently suspended Cuban-American Miami police detective. At some point, Hoyt learns these two guys are after him, but instead of lying low, Hoyt knocks on the door of Floyd’s Connecticut home and introduces himself to the two lawmen. I never outline my novels and, in fact, I don’t know what’s going to happen on the next page, much less the next chapter. I just put my characters into a situation and let them be themselves.
The fun in writing a law-breaking jerk
Anyway, I’m writing this scene and I get to the end, when Hoyt is ready to leave, when I suddenly stop and ask myself: wait a minute, what would Francis Hoyt really do in this situation? (not what Charles Salzberg would do, that’s for sure). Well, he’s arrogant enough that he wouldn’t leave that house without stealing something, from right under the noses of the two men out to get him. And so, before leaving, he pockets an expensive silver ashtray. And he gets away with it.
After writing that scene, I knew I was on the right track. As Flaubert once replied after being asked how he could write from the POV of a woman in Madame Bovary, “Madame Bovary, c’estmoi,” Francis Hoyt, c’estmoi.
I was having great fun behaving like a law-breaking jerk. And so, after I finished the novel I was working on, Canary in the Coal Mine, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to write next. Suddenly, my mind drifted back to Francis Hoyt and I began to wonder what happened to him after Second Story Man ends. After a while, it became more than just wondering. I wanted to find out. And the only way to find out, was to start writing, once again donning the mantle of a master burglar.
The result was Man on the Run. And, as I wrote, it was as if I’d never left Francis Hoyt, or more precisely, like he’d never left me.
“One part heist movie, one part psychological thriller, three parts great character and blend, Salzburg’s superb Man on the Run will keep your head spinning from the first page to the last.”–Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times-bestselling author
Charles Salzberg, who rarely leaves the island of Manhattan where he was born and raised, began his literary life in the mailroom at New York Magazine, thinking somehow it would lead to his real dream: writing the Great American Novel. Restless, and too young (and stupid) to realize the consequences, he left the magazine after only three months and began life as a freelance magazine writer, with absolutely no idea what he was doing.
After a successful career as a magazine journalist for New York Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Redbook, New York Times etc., book reviewer, nonfiction book writer, he made a move to fulfilling that dream of becoming a novelist when his first novel, Swann’s Last Song, was published and wound up being nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. After losing, he swore he’d keep writing crime novels until he won something.
After four more novels in the Henry Swann series, he wrote two successful stand-alone novels, Devil in the Hole (named one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense Magazine) and Second Story Man (nominated for another Shamus and a David Award, both of which, true to form, he lost). He finally broke the losing streak when Second Story Man was named winner of the Beverly Hills Book Award. He’s also published three novellas, to be found in the collections Triple Shot, Three Strikes and Third Degree. He teaches writing in New York City, is a Founding Member of New York Writers Workshop, and is on the boards of PrisonWrites and Mystery Writers of America-NY.
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Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her multi-award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.
Learn more about her latest poetry chapbook, Sleepwalker
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