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.However, for sexual tension to make two characters more important, the audience must recognize them as meeting the general social standards of sexual attractiveness.When Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert met in It Happened One Night, the audience instantly recognized them as suitable sex objects.This does not mean that all participants in sexual tension have to be physically beautiful, though that is certainly the easiest way.If you have made an unbeautiful character important to us for other reasons, we will regard him as sexually attractive despite a lack of physical beauty, and sexual tension will work for him.John Merrick's devotion to the actress played by Anne Bancroft in The Elephant Man was charged with sexual energy, even though actor John Hurt's makeup was repulsive.On a milder level, the television series L.A.Law brought off a similar effect between the characters played by Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker.Tucker is short and pudgy, with a receding hairline, playing meek tax lawyer Stuart Markowitz; Eikenberry is a tall, attractive, compelling woman playing high-powered trial lawyer Ann Kelsey.The audience did not see any sexual possibility between them.In fact, when a drunken Kelsey proposed a night of unwedded bliss to Markowitz at a party, it was comic because it was so unexpected—so odd.Gradually, however, the sexual tension grew as our sympathy with Markowitz grew.We recognized that he was a good man; we identified with him and his attraction to Kelsey; and finally we felt a strong desire to bring them together.Sexual tension intensifies the audience's involvement with all characters involved.However, as several TV series have discovered to their sorrow, tension dissipates when characters come together in sexual harmony.It isn't like violence, which establishes the villain's credibility and makes the next round of jeopardy even more powerful.Instead, sexual fulfillment has the same effect on sexual tension that the death of the victim has on jeopardy.For that character, at least, the tension is over.The writers of Cheers quickly realized their mistake and split Sam and Diane; the writers of Moonlighting never gave David and Maddie a moment to enjoy sexual harmony before putting them back in hopeless, hilarious con-flict—and the sexual tension remained high, at least for a while.SIGNS AND PORTENTSAnother way to increase the readers' intensity is to connect a character with the world around her, so that her fate is seen to have much wider consequences than her private loss or gain.King Lear's climactic moment is linked with a storm, and though we take his attempt to command the wind ("Blow, winds! Crack your cheeks!") as a sign of madness, the fact is that the wind is blowing, the storm is raging, and we receive the subliminal message that what happens to Lear has cosmic implications.His daughters' betrayal of their oaths to him, their plotted patricide, is more than a private tragedy—it is a disorder in the world, which must be resolved before the universe can again be at peace.In tragedy and high romance, the connection between a character and the world around him can be quite open.The ark of the covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark is more than a secret weapon—its opening represents the unleashing of the power of God.When the villain opens it, the storyteller makes sure we understand that it isn't a mere booby trap that kills him.The ark isn't opened until it is brought to a special holy place, and when the lid comes off, we see spirits spiraling around, terrible winds and fire, finally culminating in a whirlwind that disturbs the very heavens.Likewise, Oedipus's sins cause a famine, which doesn't end until he pays the price; storms rage across the moors in Wuthering Heights exactly when the mood of the characters is most turbulent.Even when you're trying for more subtlety, however, signs and portents are still vital tools in drawing your reader more intensely into the tale.You simply disguise the cosmic connections a little better.The great storm becomes a gentle drizzle; the flaming sky becomes a sweltering day;the roll of thunder becomes a distant siren in the city; the famine becomes the wilting of a flower in the window.The connection between character and cosmos will still be there, and, often without consciously noticing the portents, the audience will become more intensely involved with what the character does.You can't control everything the reader feels, and no two members of your audience will ever be emotionally involved in your story exactly to the same degree.Still, there are some things you can control, and if you use them deftly, without letting them get out of hand, you can lead most of your audience to intense emotional involvement with your characters.The audience won't necessarily like the characters, but they certainly won't be indifferent to them.WHAT SHOULD WE FEEL ABOUT THE CHARACTER?ANY TIME YOU SHOW CONFLICT BETWEEN CHARACTERS, you want your audience to care about the outcome.Perhaps they'll have an intellectual interest, if the conflict is over some idea or principle they happen to care about—but their feelings will run far deeper if they have great sympathy for one or more of the characters in conflict.Sometimes you'll want your readers to take sides—to be rooting for one character and hoping the other will fail.You'll want them to sympathize with the character who stands for what you believe in—the character you conceive of as representing Good.In fact, your readers will respond this way even if you don't plan it.Let's say your main character is Howard Eastman, a much-decorated Vietnam veteran who has gone into government service.There he becomes deeply committed to the cause of a group of freedom fighters in a Central American country.When Congress votes to cut funding for these freedom fighters, Eastman determines to find ways to keep them alive and fighting.So at great risk—to himself and the administration—he circumvents Congress and finds various semi-legal ways of getting American money and weapons to his brave Central American friends.If you have made Eastman sympathetic to your audience, they will assume that you approve of what he's doing, especially if you make his opponents unlikable.If you have created Eastman's character well and continue to make him sympathetic throughout the book, most readers will go along with you, liking Eastman and hoping he'll win [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]