Alpha Dogs - Agents and Rogues

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


I think I've wound down to the last I want to say in this series about Characters and their relationship with Money and Power.  (I would use a different word for Money -- one that starts with W and rhymes with "health" -- but every time I use it, I get SLAMMED by get rich quick spammers.)

Just to review, we're talking right now about Dominance as a character trait -- inspired originally by another blogger's tongue-in-cheek ranking of her own characters on a scale inspired by the fad for BDSM billionaires as romantic heroes these days.

So when I talk about "power" or "dominance" I'm talking specifically about characters exerting control over other characters. And I suppose I am particularly talking about characters who do this professionally, or at least as a life calling.  And I've mostly covered the territory: talking about the guns for hire who take control for their clients, and public servants who lead a team and wield authority (or not).

I just have three (well, four) more famous characters I want to talk about, and they blend from one kind of character to another, so I might as well cover them in one long post.

The key element of these characters is that they mostly work alone.  In the case of the first two, they are public servants. They do have authority and somewhere in the background is a team to back them up -- but we mainly see them working alone against their foe.  In some sense, they are like "agents" rather than cops.


Columbo - The Hound, or The Fox?

The TV show Columbo first appeared as a TV movie in 1968.  But in 1971, NBC created a series they called The NBC Mystery Movie, which played a rotating set of shows every Sunday night, and Columbo was one of those (along with MacMillan And Wife and McCloud).  It was created by Levinson and Link -- who had created many great mystery shows -- from Mannix to Ellery Queen to Murder She Wrote.

Levinson and Link were particularly brilliant, though, at stand-alone mystery dramas: TV movies which played out like a stage drama.  Always a battle of wits between charaters - someone trying to get away with a crime, and someone determined to catch him.  But you never knew exactly what each of the characters were up to.  These were clever, literate, deadly games.  (Two of these are currently available on YouTube, though they can be hard to find on DVD: Rehearsal for Murder and Vanishing Act.)

That was how Columbo began, and how it continued to play once it became a series.  And that twisty, game-of-wits nature is why I bring a cute cuddly chracter like Columbo into a series about domination.  I mean, yes, I did talk about Margie Gunderson, but that was in reference to her leadership style.

Although you do see Columbo interacting with other cops, for the most part, they work separately from him.  They are the system, collecting and processing evidence.  He interrupts them to look at it, asks them to get info for him, but his job is separate from theirs.  Even in those episodes where they give him a young sidekick, it seems as though the kid is there to learn from him, not really to assist him.  Columbo doesn't need or want a personal team.

In terms of our subject of "dominance" then, the interesting part of Columbo is how he handles the killers.  He's the lion tamer, the crocodile wrestler.  The guy who goes in and, carefully, politely and without breaking a sweat, talks the monster into trapping himself.  Call him The Killer Whisperer, if you will.

Columbo's technique of dominating a killer (and make no mistake, that's what he's doing from the moment he first meets him/her) is what makes him so delightful to watch.  It isn't just that he seems to bumble around and get distracted and act harmless to get the killer to relax.  No no no NO.  That's the surface, but if that's what you think is going on, you are missing the beauty of the interaction.

These are inverted mysteries -- we see them from the killer's point of view.  So when Columbo bumbles in, he may seem to be harmless to the killer, but he also "accidentally" drives the killer up a wall from the moment he enters.  He sets his hook, and then proceeds to play the killer like a fish.  And not just for fun: he's carefully maneuvering the killer into trapping himself.

A typical scene has Columbo coming to the killer for help with the case.  Some stupid little loose end bothers him.  It's always something that is beneath the interest of the killer.  The killer should just dismiss it and ignore him.  But because the killer is a killer he's hyper alert.  He can't help but be at least a little bit interested.

So he listens, and Columbo immediately gets distracted; "Holy mackerel, look at that vase!  You know my wife would love a vase like that.  How much do you think something like that would cost?"
He does this to force the killer to pay closer attention -- to commit to listening and finally to ask "What do you want!?"

Then Columbo goes into the next phase of manipulation: he tells him about the odd little loose end, and lets the killer explain it away.  He totally accepts this explanation.  He is grateful.  The killer relaxes.  He thinks he's back in control, and then Columbo looks puzzled and says, "Oh, but that can't be true, because of this other evidence...." and totally blows the explanation out of the water.

From here on in, the killer will never be relaxed again.  Columbo has his complete attention, even if he doesn't have the guy's respect yet.  He continues to play the game, dropping tidbits, directing the killer's attention at will.  But never being an outright threat.  He is careful to let the killer believe that Columbo doesn't know the significance of these little clues.  Finally Columbo accepts that the killer's vague secondary explanation is probably right, and starts to go.  He may make it partway out the door, even.

The killer is relieved.  He needs to think about this.  But then Columbo comes back.  He's got his brow furrowed, his fingers pressed to his forehead.

"Oh, just one more thing...."

And then he drops a bombshell that is of critical importance to the killer.  And the killer is left with an urgent need to do something.

It's not just that Columbo is persistent or annoying or even generally unsettling.  It's that every single thing he does -- every bumble, every distraction -- is carefully timed and chosen to tie the killer in tighter and tighter knots. And often very specific knots.

Peter Falk, who played Columbo, always said that he didn't believe Columbo even had a wife.  He believed that the entire thing, from begining to end, was a con game.  I don't believe this myself, because even in the second season, we see Columbo talk about his wife to his vetrinarian.  Why would he con the vet who isn't even remotely connected to the case?

All the same, I think Falk nailed it that when Columbo talks to the killer, every detail is planned and calculated.  He's conning the guy even when he tells the truth.

If you have never seen Columbo, I recommend starting with the earlier seasons.  The show evolved, over the years, and got more cutesy, less sharp.  Even so, any Columbo is better than no Columbo.


Bud White - Budding Vigilante

The movie L. A. Confidential, like the book it was adapted from, is a classic of hot, 1950's West Coast Noir.  It's a larger story, about various scandals and corruption among the cops, gangsters, celebrities and scandal mongers in Hollywood of 1950's L.A.  Like other books by James Ellroy, it is inspired by real events that happened in that fair city.

This is not the functional LAPD of Columbo, or the precise correctness of Samuel Gerard's U.S. Marshal Service.  It's a world where powerful people get away with murder and worse, and where the good guy cops might very well moonlight as the baddest guys of all.

Bud White, played by Russell Crowe, is a simple guy in a complicated world.  He's just a detective, a minion.  He's not terribly bright, and doesn't ask questions of his own, and is perfectly willing to be as corrupt as necessary in the cause of justice.  Planting evidence is just what you do to be sure the bad guys get caught.  You could say that Bud it a team player.

But Bud also has a hobby, something he does all on his own, although his fellow cops know about it.  Bud, whose father killed his mother, hates "Woman Beaters" with a passion far beyond what the job can contain.  So he hunts them down, and keeps them in check.  In the opening scene of the movie, he's supposed to be picking up booze for the department Christmas party, but he stops along the way to take care of a little business.

Bud's methods are as simple as his philosophy: brute force.  Beat the guy up, handcuff him, scare the excrement out of him with threats.

But his power comes from a deep seated rage.  Where Sam Spade might pretend to lose his temper to scare the other side, Bud White really means it.  I decided to show you the scene below from the middle of the movie, because it's a more heightened example.

The set up is this: Bud's fellow detectives are investigating a murder at an all night diner.  They've picked up a couple of young men with blood on their clothes, and a fellow cop (Exley, played by Guy Pearce) who is brilliant at interrogation has them in adjoining interrogation rooms.  He's just gotten the younger one to confess... except not to the crime they're investigating.  This is a crime they don't even konw about -- a Rape.  (The ultimate in woman abuse!)

As the clip begins as everyone is just beginning to realize that this is a whole different case.  (It's only about a minute and a half.)




Exley is by the book, and good at what he does, but when it comes to abuse of women, Bud it outside and above the law.  And his simple direct brute force dominates everything -- the oak chair, Exley, the suspect.

When that inner rage is triggered, Bud becomes a vigilante.

However, that incredible force of nature makes him valuable to the LAPD of the time, so for him vigilantism is just a hobby that comes in useful at his day job. 

And he's a nice bridge into the last group I wanted to talk about in this series: the Rogues.


Sir Percy Blakeney - Laissez-faire Rogue

There are a lot of characters in film and  literature who work outside the law. However, most of them are not great examples for this series.  They're free spirits.  They aren't into dominance so much as twitting the authorities.  Often they are thieves and rescuers.  They right wrongs.  Bad guys may be punished, but mostly bad guys are just stopped from doing their evil deeds.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a perfect example of this laissez-faire hero -- he rescues people from the guillotine.  He does his best not to kill anyone, or to hurt anyone more than necessary.  Late in the series, he even rescues his nemesis -- a man who certainly deserves to lose his head if anyone does. (Although I have to admit it has been a long time since I read that book.  Maybe Chauvelin does get caught, but the person who matters most to him is saved. But I think he is left to live out his life in peace, knowing it is by the grace of a hero.)

While the Pimpernel loves to push the buttons of authority figures (sometimes playing the same sort of psychological games as Columbo) dominance is not his thing.  As a matter of fact, his thing is sometimes showing that he could dominate but won't.  Becuase domination is what villains do.

But there is one rogue hero who is all about domination: The Saint.  The original Simon Templar wasn't the idle gentleman adventurer we see in the TV show with Roger Moore.  The orginal was a vigilante.


Simon Templar - The Man Who Hates Crooks

The Saint's modus operandi was to target a villain -- say a drug dealer or head of a gang -- rob him, humiliate him, and hand him over to justice, and then take ten percent of the proceeds and give the rest to charity.  He did this as an outlaw, and the police were always on his trail.  (Though he often managed to keep his nose above legal hot water, and was also a friend to his persuers on the police force.)

He reveled in the intimidation and humiliation and sometimes put the victims at risk to be sure he could properly punish the bad guys.  Of course, he did it with more style than Bud White.  His signature card -- that stick figure with the halo that is associated with the character to this day -- was intended to terrify his target.  While the Scarlet Pimpernel left his calling card behind after a rescue, the Saint left it up front, a warning like the Black Spot: "I'm coming for you."

My own inclinations lean much more to the Pimpernel type hero than the original Saint.  Alex, from The Case of Misplaced Hero, was raised to be like the Pimpernel.  And though Karla compares George to The Saint, in The Man Who Did Too Much, she's talking about Roger Moore.

And that's it for this series on Characters and Money and Power.  If something truly interesting crops up, I might do a wrap up post next week.  Otherwise, I'm more likely to take up related issues in some distant future series.

On Friday, with the Story Game, we'll be talking more about the character types from Romantic Suspense (the Heroine and Hero, specifically) and maybe a little about the character structure of related genres, like Whodunnit.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dogs: Public Servants - Mommy Dog, Officials and Overseers

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Oh, boy, today's post split in two on me.  This particular trope is rich and varied, I guess....

In the comments on yesterday's post, Angie pointed out that Marshal Sam Gerard has a fatherly side.  Sure he tells Dr. Kimbal that he doesn't care (about justice), but he actually does care.  That's the flip side of being the gruff and demanding team leader and coach: he cares deeply about his "kids" - his team.  And about his duty as well.  Part of the reason he picks on people, especially other authority figures is because they are not doing their jobs well.

It is this devotion to duty -- this caretaker role -- that makes these types of characters so attractive.  They are just about my favorite type of character.

And yet I almost never write this type of character as a protagonist.

Furthermore, when I think about the many examples of famous characters I came up with for this post, I discover that there really aren't any protagonists in the bunch.  Oh, a few of them are co-protagonists (as is one of my own) but for the most part, they don't completely carry the story themselves.

Why is that?

Two related reasons.  One is that impact characters and co-protagonists have a freedom that main protagonists don't.  They don't, in particular, have to have fatal flaws or weaknesses to overcome.  They can be more mysterious, less forthcoming, funnier and more surprising.  So... you can write them as perfect, or powerful as you want to.  You can have more fun with them.

And that leads us to the other reason: They are powerful, whether you like it or not.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, they have the authority vested in them by the government or organization for which they work.  They either have minions, or they can draw on minions.  They are naturals as The Cavalry.  They also make great fairygodmothers - pulling some strings in the background.  They make good mentors and great pseudo-antagonists -- that is, the person who provides opposition to the hero when the real villain is hidden.  And when you're telling a story in which the protagonist is a bad guy (such as with Columbo) they are the antagonist.

Mommy in Chief

But for now I want to get back to the concept of team leaders; the concept of a public servant who takes care of not just the team but the community. And also, provide you with an extreme contrast to Sam Gerard:

I give you the very pregnant Chief of Police of Brainerd Minnesota, Marge Gunderson, from the movie Fargo.

Margie has a very different leadership style from Sam Gerard.  She is a gentle and soft-spoken leader of a gentle and soft-spoken people.  In some ways this scene reflects some of the same types of things as the one from yesterday, with very different cultural connotations.  (Another similarity: like Tommy Lee Jones, Frances MacDormand won an oscar for this performance.)

Here is a four minute clip of Margie investigating a triple homicide in the tiny town of Brainerd Minnesota.  (The movie Fargo is quite violent and gruelling. This scene, though epitomizes how it is also wry and funny.  And even a little sweet.)




Most of Margie's minions don't show up for the triple homicide because ... it's cold out.  Geeze, it's Minnesota in the winter. We don't know how she is going to handle this, because she keeps her reaction to herself (but we get a hint later on).   The only thing we see of her leadership style is when her sidekick gets an obvious fact wrong at the end of the clip, she gives him a surprised look and says, "I don't know if I agree a hundred percent with your detective work there."

For the most part, Margie interacts with her minions the same way she interacts with her husband.  They kind of mill around, doing their routine and get the job done.  A little reminder here and there should be all that's necessary.  They are hardy northern folk, after all.

You wouldn't think these small town folks would be up to handling a triple homicide by vicious gangsters.  But you know what?  Margie is on it.  She and her sidekick, Lou, persue the information gently and politely but doggedly until she catches a brutal killer, single handed.  And then as she drives him to jail, she gives him a gentle commentary -- hardly even a lecture -- on how much destruction he's done for so little purpose. "There's more to life than a little money.  Don't you know that?  And here you are, and it's a beautiful day." 

You get the feeling this is how she'll handle her cops who didn't show up at the crime scene earlier.  It's the disappointed mom talk.  And maybe for her team, a lecture like this will work.  They are dutiful people, who are grateful for a "beautiful day" when it's cold and overcast and perhaps even blizzarding.


My Own Characters

I have two very different characters who fit into this model, both from serials I have posted here:  Captain Rozinshura from The Case of the Misplaced Hero, and Rocken from Test of Freedom.


Rozinshura - Your Friendly Neighborhood Official

Rozinshura is an official in a revolutionary government.  His nature fits somewhere on the spectrum between Margie and Gerard. He's a lot more friendly and cuddly than Gerard, and also willing to be as indirect as Marge, but he has no cultural issues with exerting his authority.

And like Gerard, he tends to operate with a flock of minions.  He wades into the scene and directs people, often without looking at them or where he is pointing, just as Gerard did in the clip yesterday.  But while Gerard takes over with the full and correct authority of the United States Federal Government, Rozinsura does it whether he has authority or not.  He bluffs his way through everything. If you call his bluff, he'll keep a straight face and give you another line.

And that's part of what makes him a good facilitator -- by taking responsibility onto himself, he not only gets the job done, but he also gives his superiors plausible deniability.  (In some ways, it's a part of his job to be like he is.)  But he also does it because he's a true believer.  The party functionaries over his head?  They're not The State he serves.  They're just the temporary form it has at the moment.

He even does it to ME.  I write a story where he's a secondary character, he declares he's a co-protagonist.  I come up with a story where he is the protagonist, he declares that's totally wrong. He should be the one who makes the protagonist's life interesting.

Given what he is like, I wish very much I could show you a clip of another movie.  Unfortunately, that move is currently available only in French, without subtitles.  (I have it somewhere myself with subtitles, but I can't give it to you.)

Les Ripoux is a movie about an old crooked cop (played by Phillip Noiret) who gets a new straight-laced young partner.  When I look at it, I really think that Noiret's performance had a great influence on me when I created Rozinshura. He's French, he's laid-back, he displays bald-faced chutzpah. Sometimes it's like Claude Rains in Casablanca ("I'm SHOCKED!  Shocked to find there's gambling going on here!" "Your winnings, sir." "Oh, thank you very much!")

There is one scene in Les Ripoux which displays how this unauthorized use of authority can make this kind of character like The Cavalry.  After the new cop arrives, he tries to get a room in a cheap hotel recommended by Noiret, but the hotel is full up, so the kid calls him to report that he can't get a room.  Noiret shows up with a squad of gendarmes, and raids the place.  "There," he says as he strolls back out. "Two prostitutes and an illegal immigrant.  Now you've got three vacancies."

(If you want to see it, here is a link to Les Ripoux in French.  The scene starts at 12 minutes in. It's pretty clear what's going on in that scene without understanding French.)


The Overseer

I'll end today's post on a character who is trapped in a very different version of this model: Rocken, the overseer on the prison farm in the serial I did last winter, Test of Freedom.  When Rocken introduces himself to the new prisoners, he says,  "If you make trouble, I'm the one who'll beat the hell out of you.  I'm the one who decides what work you do, and how much to feed you.  You'll make me happy, won't you?"

Rocken would seem to be just an arm of the oppressive institution above the prisoners, but he's got a big twist: he's a prisoner himself -- a murderer with a  life sentence. And for all that he hangs on to the hope that if he pleases his evil overlord he might some day be free again, he hasn't actually lost his humanity and good sense.  He's buried it as deeply as he can.

The fact is, he identifies with the prisoners.  He doesn't see himself as an instrument of justice, just a herdsman who manages resources and does his best to take care of them.  Even though he knows he's hated by the men, he takes on a protective role toward them.  Cursing them when he has to punish them, relenting when he can get away with it.

I have drafted the continuation of this story, and I'd like to find a way to finish the series -- because Rocken has a whole lot more to happen in his story.  Jackie, the main character (and another anarchist, but of a very different kind), has a really strong effect on Rocken.  There is a major battle of good and evil going on inside the guy, and that will explode.

And this may be a good place to split this post off in prep for the next post.  Because, though Rocken fits with these team leader characters, he is also a minion, who does his duty alone, though he wields it with the power of the state.  This makes him a little like some characters I'll talk about next week.

Because some public servants are not team leaders, they are investigators who go out and deal with the job alone.  And as with Rocken, that's only one step away from the last group, which I'll talk about after that - the Rogues.  So next up, Agents and Rogues.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dogs - Public Servants: The Big Dog is Always Right

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Continuing on with the Characters and Dominance series.  This time we're talking about public servants, in particular the enforcers of society: cops, soldiers, bureaucrats and the like.

And when it comes to the classic kind of "mind games" domination that kicked this series off, I can't think of anyone better than U.S. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard of the 1991 movie, The Fugitive.  Played by Tommy Lee Jones.

What is most interesting about him, in terms of this series, is one element of contrast between him and Jules of Pulp Fiction (whom I talked about last week).  Jules is a gangster - but under that dangerous and flamboyant gangster style, he uses law enforcement techniques to take and keep control of a situation.  Including things like being reassuring and kind.

Gerard, on the other hand, uses the techniques of a particularly smart school yard bully.  While he has all the tools and skills at his disposal, his favorite tool of control is dirision and sarcasm.  But unlike in the schoolyard, he uses them judiciously, intentionally, and if you look closer it's not quite like the schoolyard bully... it's like the leader of a schoolyard _gang_.  He is also very much like an ultra tough drill sergeant or coach, too. 

And in that sense Gerard is much closer to the definition of an Alpha Dog than anyone I talked about last week: he's the leader of a pack.

But more than that, he is in a chain of command and has authority.  Which is true of all the public servant characters I'll talk about tomorrow as well. This might make a character seem weak.  After all, unlike the Paladins of last week, these guys don't get to pick and choose their clients.  A gun for hire can refuse a job, or quit, and still go on being exactly what he is.  These guys have to keep their jobs to continue being what they are.  So doesn't that make them weak?

No. 

If we're going by Sam Gerard, not at all.  Being a part of a pack -- even being one of Gerard's sidekicks -- means you wield the full power and authority of the pack.  Including the power and authority of those above you, who can command additional packs as necessary.

But Gerard, like any great coach or drill sergeant or ship captain or gang leader, wields a second kind of authority.  He's the BEST.  He's smarter, sharper, more on the ball, more competent than anybody.  And so is his team, partly because he constantly nags at them.

But because they are the best, too, they nag back.  He is always in charge, but if you live up to his standards, you have the right to push back.  He is at ease in his authority.

I couldn't find a perfect clip for Gerard, but I think this one illustrates a lot of my point -- the teamwork, the wielding of authority even with other authority figures, the hyper-competence. Unfortunately, it's a rather low quality clip.  I'll describe it below the clip.

This is the entrance moment for Gerard and his team.  It's the beginning of act two, after a horrific wreck of a train and a prison bus has set our hero -- an innocent man on his way to prison -- free.  He runs off through the woods, the movie cuts to a short time later.  The scene of the wreck, filled with law enforcement and emergency responders, and in through the mass of flashing lights slides the plain dark car of the federal marshals.



That very first line, "My my my my my, what a mess."  Spoken like the guy is almost bored.  It takes more than a train wreck to impress Sam Gerard.  He nags and banters, as well as points out details and barks orders as they make their way through the site.  Note that the team banters and nags back, but they are all business about the details and orders.  These guys are proving that they are SO good that they can have a running comedy routine without missing a beat.

But the important part here, is how he treats the OTHER authority figures, which starts about one minute in. On the one hand, he does the minimum he needs to do -- as if to prove they aren't worth his time to nag.  A state trooper stops him he doesn't say who he is, he just pulls open the flap that covers his badge and asks who is in charge.  Then when the guy tells him, he intentionally gets the name wrong -- just like a school yard gang leader would to show his disrespect.

But when he meets Sheriff Rollins, he does politely introduce himself.  Rollins makes the mistake of being condescending.  Gerard lets him. The guy gets a chance to prove himself worthy or not.  Gerard observes a moment, looking harmless, and yet his eyes are narrow, watching.  The guy proves himself incompetent by simply accepting the witness's story.  Gerard is still polite, and suggests what he should be doing, but the guy tries to pull authority on him. It's his investigation, he gets to blow off "advisors." 

And Gerard lets him do that, and then lowers the boom, by taking away his authority. Very sarcastic, but also very bored.  And watch the woman marshal, who with perfect timing, taps the guy on the arm and hands him the paperwork as Gerard speaks.  He already HAD the authority when he gave the polite suggestion.

Let's just face it and say Gerard is mean.  He lets people lead themselves into traps and makes fools of them.  But that's also how he turns them into subordinates.

And that's exactly what this scene turns out to be: he and his team came in and took charge of all the other teams.  This is the process by which he takes charge.  The troopers and sheriff's deputies and all are new recruits.  He dominates their alpha dog, gets the evidence and the story while the sheriff is still stammering and trying to deal with the fact that he's lost status.

And when Gerard straightens up and says "Listen up, people!" he has completed the take over.  Everyone there is a member of his team now -- they're his minions.

And once in charge, like a good coach or officer, he barks out clear information and orders.  It's like formal a military briefing, but off the cuff.  (He knows exactly what to do and how and why at any moment.)  And then, like any coach, he signs off with the command to hit the field: "Go get him!"

Not all public servants are good leaders (or leaders at all).  Sometimes they are minions.  Sometimes they do their best work alone, even when they can command others.  But they all have the leverage of authority.

Tomorrow I'll talk about a few other types, in particular I'll talk about Marge Gunderson from Fargo, who exerts authority in a somewhat different way.  Then on to some more lone characters, who work with their teams in the background, such as Columbo.  (That will likely be next week.) And one more famous character: Bud White of L.A. Confidential. Because Bud isn't entirely a team player -- and he gives us a segue into the last type of Alpha Dog, which I'll talk about next week: the Rogue.

See you in the funny papers.

Index Post on Characters, Money and Dominance

I decided that this index needs it's own separate post.

This is a series of posts inspired by another blogger, who was musing on how her characters measure up to the current fad for Billionaire Bullies as romantic heroes.  This inspired me to start musing on how my characters, and famous characters in popular culture, relate to Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery.

It turned out to be a long series, so this is an index.  (Links will be updated as I write them.)

Introduction

*Billionaire Bad Boy Scale (First thoughts)
*Billionaires, Vampires, Wolves and La Bete (A look back at the inspiration for the series - which is not at all what I'm going to talk about for the rest of the series.)

Money Week (Sept 30 - Oct 4)

*Monday: Wealth and Glamor
(Wealth is glamorous, yet my wealthiest character, George Starling, is not really very glamorous -- and that's what makes him interesting.)
*Tuesday: Wealth and the Zen Gunslinger
(Mick and Casey McKee have no wealth or glamor, but they've got what they want.)
*Wednesday:Wealth and Pragmatism
(A look at the characters from The Serial, who run the gamut from rich to socialist.)

Alpha Dog Week (Oct 7-11)

About characters exerting dominance (and will probably have three posts, although if it makes sense, any of them may get kicked to a future week.)

*Monday: Alpha Dogs - How Characters Take Control
(It's the nature of the protagonist, no matter how weak, they need to learn to take control, or else you've got a tragedy on your hands.  We'll talk about Samuel L. Jackson and Pulp Fiction.)
*Tuesday: Paladins: On Dicks, Saints and Saddle-Bums
(Outsiders for hire - including Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, George Starling and Mick McKee.  The guys you call when you can't handle something yourself.)

Alpha Dog Week 2 (Oct 14-15)

*Monday: Public Servants: The Big Dog is always Right
(Marshal Sam Gerard, of The Fugitive, is your ultimate Alpha Dog, because he leads a pack.)
*Tuesday: Public Servants: Mommy Dog, Officials and Overseers
(Other team leaders - Marge Gunderson (Fargo), plus Rozinshura, Rocken, and a short side trip to Paris.)

Alpha Dog Week 3

*Tuesday: Public Servants: Agents and Rogues
(Columbo, Bud White of L.A. Confidential, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Saint.)

As for "Jackasery and Inner Torment" (the third quality of those Billionaire Bondage Boys) - I may not do a separate post on that, or I may do it later.  Not sure until I get there.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations via Paypal)

Alpha Dogs - The Paladins: Dicks, Saints and Saddle Bums

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Yesterday I talked about the ending of Pulp Fiction as an example of a professional character taking control.  Jules is pretty extreme, and though he concludes by deciding to use his powers for good, he's no good guy.  As he terms himself, he has been "The Tyranny of Evil Men."  I won't be talking about evil men in this series. It's about good guys, or at least mostly good guys.

I mean THIS Paladin. He has a gun, he will travel.

And today I'm going to talk about a class of character I call "Paladins."  This may not be the best term for these guys, but I have such a strong instinct to call them that, that I went with it.

This Gun For Hire

Real paladins are actually officials -- they're honor-bound sidekicks of the king.  In gaming they are "Lawful Good" characters who are loyal to right, and follow their code of honor.

The guys I have in mind.... maybe not so much.

There's another connotation of the word paladin, though, and that is the roving hero, the free lance.  They're nobody's sidekick.  They're the professionals -- the answer to the question in the theme song of Ghost Busters: "Who you gonna call?"

And their loyalty, along with their skill and dominance, is for hire.

But that leads to a built-in conflict for these characters:

If you're for hire, you're not in charge: the client is.  But if you're a gun for hire, odds are the job itself is something the client can't handle, and requires someone who is more dominant than the client. Perhaps someone intensely dominant -- a true Alpha Alpha Dog who can handle anybody.

But a person who can handle anyone is going to be a loose cannon.  In those cases, it's only his code of honor that keeps him in line with his client.


Sam Spade - Alpha Alpha Dog

For someone like Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, this works because it's game he likes to play.  He is so alpha, that he doesn't mind doing the client's bidding.  It's like indulging a child.  But it's clear from the start that his will, and his code rules.  If it suits him, he'll destroy you.  Neither feelings nor right and wrong hold him back. Only his code.

But that's what makes him a powerful ally.  Furthermore, part of the reason he cultivates that attitude is that it's good for business.  A loose cannon -- someone who might do anything -- is scary and dangerous.  Even the most powerful of men have to watch out for loose cannons.

And that's one of Spade's biggest tools in taking charge of a situation.  His power doesn't come from money or authority -- or even from the calm calculated masterfulness of someone like Jules in Pulp Fiction.  It comes from the fact that he's fearless and unpredictable ... and uncontrollable.

My favorite bit from The Maltese Falcon movie is when Spade first meets The Fat Man, Caspar Guttman (Sidney Greenstreet).

They engage in genial negotiation, two Alpha Dogs feeling each other out.  But then, as Guttman continues with the pretense of rational persuasion, Spade simply explodes.  He throws a wild, irrational hissy fit.

If this were actually a rational negotiation, this would be a terrible move.  But Spade isn't negotiating, and the hissy fit is coldly calculated to let Guttman know that.

But the most interesting part of this scene is after the explosion, Spade storms out, and then, as we see him leave the hotel room, he transforms, like a werewolf becoming human again.  He didn't actually lose his temper.  The whole thing was a cool and calculated strategy.

Here's a clip.  If you want to just see the relevant parts, you can skip to about halfway through -- maybe two and a half minutes.  Spade explodes at 3:17.




My favorite bit here is at the end; after Spade pushes the button of the elevator, he pauses to admire the way his hand is shaking.  He enjoyed that wild bit of adrenaline.  He's not doing this for the sake of the client.  He's not even really doing it for money.  He's doing it because he likes it.  He's an alpha dog. He does what he likes.

In the very next scene he gets to revel in different kind of loose cannon moment: the district attorney calls him in to be questioned, and again he starts at ease, but then stands up and is a smart ass -- even going so far as to make a joke with the man's subordinates -- as he tells the guy that his authority means nothing.

I suppose Spade is as good at disrupting the control of others as Jules is at taking control.

Probably the most interesting thing about Spade, though, is how he reacts when someone gets the better of him: When Joel Cairo -- the effete character played by Peter Lorre -- pulls a gun on Spade, Spade takes the gun, knocks him out.  On waking up, Cairo is utterly subservient.  He's polite and pleasant and cooperative.  He totally accepts that Spade's in control of the situation.  He makes a deal with Spade, and then meekly asks for his gun back... and then turns it on Spade and goes right back to what he came for -- he wants to search Spade's office.  Spade is amused and even delighted to be beaten this way, and cooperates fully.  He could take the gun away again, but he respects someone who is a stubborn as he is -- who plays the game like a game. (The whole five minute sequence is here.)


Of the characters I talked about last week only three of them fall into this "gun for hire" category. That's Mick and  Casey McKee - my crime-solving young gunslingers from Have Gun, Will Play and other stories -- and George Starling, who straddles a couple of categories.

And all three of them -- even Casey -- are actually what I call Alpha Beta Dogs.


Casey McKee - Alpha Beta-ish Dog

Casey is by nature very alpha.  She is just a teenager, but she grew up in outlaw territory and she learned young, as a matter of survival, to be a cross between a wildcat and a rattlesnake.  And it's not a game either.  She's too small and too female to laugh off any violations of her personal space.

And yet....

Casey is very much aware that Mick has much better social skills than she does. As a matter of fact, she's just a little bit in awe of his ability to come right out and talk and joke around with people. Although she will never openly admit it, she recognizes that her doofus husband is actually smart.  She admires his brain.  And he can do things and take her places she never would otherwise go.

And she's not the only one.  In the back story of the series: when Casey met Mick, he was riding with a legendary -- and ornery -- lawman named Harry Lowe.  Harry and Casey are extremely alike.  (Except Harry is a man and gets more respect.)  He had very poor social skills, and though he didn't need Mick to solve puzzles for him, he did come to depend on this goofy kid's social ability.

So even though both Casey and Harry are ornery people who call the shots, they both recognize that there are times they would rather defer to Mick.


Mick McKee - Beta Dog with a Gun and a Wife

Mick's chosen profession is freelance law man.  So he has to have the skills to take control of a situation, to dominate when dominance is necessary.  And he learned from the best, so he has all of those skills that Jules exhibited in that scene I talked about yesterday.  Or at least all the social skills: Mick knows about looking the right person in the eye at the right time, about calming people down, but putting an edge in his voice when he needs to.  He knows how and when to be fearless when necessary.

He's at ease with all of those things, but dominance not really his nature. He'd rather joke you into something than use force.  And being scary?  He'd just as soon let Casey do that part.  And it works particularly well because, while people tend to underestimate her, his smiling narration (and obvious respect) tends to draw attention to her more dangerous attributes.

As I mentioned up top: being a gun for hire is the source of a built in conflict, and Mick and Casey probably feel it more than anyone.  They are there to do dirty work.  Other people's dirty work.  And they're young, and they haven't quite got all the ethical ins and outs of their world or profession worked out.  Spade may have his internal code figured out, Mick and Casey don't quite.

And that causes a little angst in them.  Are they doing the right thing?  They live in a world that isn't black and white, where breaking a law might be the right thing. Where doing a good job may mean killing somebody.  This doesn't sit easy, but Mick figures that's how it's supposed to be.

George Starling - The Cat Among The Pigeons

Is George an Alpha Beta Dog?  Um... sort of.  But really, George isn't much of a dog at all.  He does compare himself to a retriever at one point, but others have a different animal in mind.  About halfway through The Man Who Did Too Much, George tells a co-worker; "I did not set the cat among the pigeons."

The other guy gives a long significant pause and says: "George, you ARE the cat among the pigeons."

George is very goal-oriented. He has no interest in social structures, and no interest in dominating others.  He has kind of a thing about busting things up when he sees people being dominated.  But he isn't interested in taking over.  It's just in breaking up the situation.  And he tends to shake things up because he doesn't respect or recognize things like pecking orders.

He was once a Mountie.  He is not a Mountie any more because... well, you know that motto about how Mounties always get their man? Well, apparently you're only supposed to do that when it's your assignment.

And yeah, he probably would have been happy as a Mountie if he'd been allowed to chase down Gros Pierre in the Yukon and drag him back trussed like a Christmas goose -- but that's not a matter of domination. It's not a dog correcting a rogue dog in his pack.  It's a cat catching a mouse.

As for dominating him...  George will do anything you want, as long as you are A) female, or B) a father figure or C) a kitten up a tree.  (Otherwise, he's really hard to nail down.)

And that's probably the only reason George is in this category of Paladin, because he really isn't a gun for hire. He doesn't need or want the money.  He has a job becuase then someone will give him assignments, and he has found the job where gets to help people and the boss doesn't try to stop him.  (That was the rest of the statment by his co-worker "You are the cat among the pigeons, and that's why Eva calls you.")

But George also fits in another category, which I'll talk about next Tuesday: the Rogue Hero.  But before I get to that, I want to talk about the one category that George clearly doesn't fit in at all: The Public Servant.

Next week on Monday we'll be talking about cops and soldiers and bureaucrats.  I'll be talking about Columbo and Marshal Sam Gerard of The Fugitive, and of my own characters; Captain Rozinshura and some supporting characters like Sergeant MacGreevey and Uncle Rosie.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dog Week - Characters Exerting Control

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.



This series started with some musings by another blogger on the fad for dominators (as in BDSM bondage "doms") in romantic heroes these days.  But I'm taking this subject to a broader level. It's something all writers have to consider and deal with; that protagonists have to take control of something -- themselves, the situation, the bad guy, something.

But I'm talking, in particular, about characters for whom taking control is an actual skill set.

For some it's also a personality trait, but not for all.  And because I write mostly in the genres surrounding mystery and adventure, my characters are sometimes called upon to be downright dominant, whether that's in their nature or not.

And in these genres, this kind of dominance is aslo more than just a character trait or a skill set.  It's a part of the plot.  It's an important theme that runs through such stories: the ethics of dominance, resisting dominance, the social uses of it, etc. (Even in a cozy mystery -- the killer is someone who used unacceptable force, and the point of the detective work is ultimately to take the killer into custody.)

So instead of starting with my own characters, I'm going to kick this off with a movie that really illuminates those things -- the skills, the themes, the ethics.
  
Pulp Fiction - The Epilogue

This is a movie many of you may never want to see, and I am not recommending that you do.  (Though it is brilliant if you like the kind of movie it is.  I can't really watch any other Tarantino movie, though I admire his work.)  I just think that everybody -- every writer, certainly -- can benefit from the lessons of one scene, the epilogue ending.  And so I'm going to talk about that and offer a clip for those who haven't seen it.

Pulp Fiction is a violent crime movie about dominance and bullying, but also about chivalry, and honor and characters with a personal code.  It's full of extreme contrasts.  For instance the opening scene is a pair of sweet young lovers -- Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey-Bunny (Amanda Plummer) having coffee in a diner.  They're sweet, they love each other, they call each other cute names ... and they are also professional armed robbers.  They are discussing a change in their career -- from robbing liquor stores to robbing banks -- but decide, in the end, to rob the diner they're in instead.

Then the movie cuts away and tells the story of other characters -- criminals and gangsters all -- until the very end, when it cuts back to that scene in the diner, where we see that among the customers in the diner are a pair of hit men.  We've seen them throughout the movie, and they're really dangerous guys.  Mean, uncompromising, highly competent, and they've had a really bad day.

However, the meanest, baddest one of all, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) has just revealed that he's rethinking what he wants out of life.  And just then the young robbers leap to their feet and start waving around guns and screaming.  They're terrifying, abusive -- screaming, waving guns, shoving people, threatening them personally -- until they have complete control of the diner.

And then they face Jules.  Jules would just let them take his wallet and leave, but they want the briefcase he has with him, which belongs to his boss and he is honor-bound to deliver it safely.

So Jules has to take control back.  And it's not something he can do by just pulling out his gun.  There are two of them, armed and on edge, and determined to keep control -- and when they realize he's a threat, they are even more determined to keep control.  Jules is alone, since his partner had gone off to the men's room.  And worse yet, the partner comes back, gun out and ready to shoot, just as Jules is getting things calmed down.

So at any moment, everybody's going to start shooting.  Jules must dominate all of them. And he does so mainly with his voice. (Yes he has a gun, but they all have guns.)

I want you to see this for two reasons -- one is because I want you to see how he does it.  The other is because I want you to hear what he says as he explains why he doesn't kill them.  This speech is about dominance, and defining the weak and the strong and the protector and the tyrant.

It's all about what we have to think about when we have characters take control.

There is only half the scene here (the clip's about four minutes) and it starts after he's got everybody calm.  But he uses the same techniques in the clip as he used before it.  (Especially when his partner returns just a moment into this, and things get a little crazy again.)  Jules shouts and uses expletives and points his gun like everybody, but notice what his real main tools are:

He focuses -- he looks only where he needs to look (mainly keeping control of Pumpkin, whom he calls "Ringo" because of the English accent), he gives simple and reasonable orders.  He talks like a parent, "point the gun at me, honey, you're doing great."  He frequently uses names -- and one of the first things he did to take control was to get Pumpkin to give him Honey-Bunny's real name, Yolanda, because he does not have physical control of her, and she's getting hysterical.  And that's exactly what anybody would do if you have to get control of a frightened child: ask the name, use it to establish familiarity.  It is a professional technique.

But most of his energy if focused on Pumpkin/Ringo.  It's Control 101.  He keeps eye contact, he frequently demands responses -- though he is not bullying (not saying "I can't hear you!").  He keeps it on a practical level.  Pumpkin must calm Yolanda down, he must indicate that he understands. Jules doesn't have to rush him -- he's rushing himself.  And that's a part of control too, to be doing the opposite of what the victim expects.

And watch what Jules does with the gun and his face as he comes to the conclusion of his speech about the Bible verse and righteous and evil men.  As he reaches his final point, his manner is more intimate.  He moves the gun closer, which is scarier, even as his face becomes more expressive and his point more benign, and it seems like this whole thing is to be sure Pumpkin doesn't miss the point.  He relents only when he's done.  And everybody is so dominated, they are afraid to move.  Jules has to say "go" very softly and gently.

Here's the scene.  It's full of bad language.  Cover the cat's ears....



For this series, I'm not going to talk about villains -- even reforming villains like Jules -- I'm going to talk about heroes (and impact characters) and how they take control.  I'll break them down in to three types which my characters fall into.  I call them Paladins, Public Servants and Rogues.

I'll start tomorrow with the Paladins (who I am defining slightly differently than they do in gaming and history; I'm making a specific reference to Wire Palladin, the hired gun from Have Gun, Will Travel).  Paladins, in this case, are champions: hired guns and private eyes who are hired to be Alpha Dogs for people who are too weak to protect themselves.

I'll talk mainly about Sam Spade, of The Maltese Falcon (and maybe a little about Wire Paladin) and then my own characters George Starling and Mick and Casey McKee.  (Link to Paladins - Dicks, Saints and Saddlebums)

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Characters: Wealth and Pragmatism

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.

ALL OF MY characters, even the ones I talked about Monday and Tuesday, have a pretty pragmatic take on wealth.  But the previous characters have a very loose attitude toward money, which may be best summed up by another character of mine.

Luther Cymck ("It's pronounced JIM-check!") is a not very bright but oddly wise bank robber from a screenplay called "The Scenic Route." (It's not available for you to read, but I'm working on it, okay?)

When he discovers that their Big Bank Robbery did not net them very much money at all, Luther institutes a new rule for his misfit gang:  Never count the money.

"There's only two amounts of money," he says.  "Either there's enough or there isn't."  And he points to the pile of loot and says.  "If you want to buy a pack of smokes?  It's enough.  Tank of gas?  It's plenty.  You want to buy a race horse, it's probably not enough.  At least for a good one."

And though it would be cool to own a race horse, he admits, it really isn't necessary, so the money they have is enough.

Today's characters are also pretty relaxed about money... but they have bigger plans.


A Romantic Age

The series these characters come from is what I call The Serial, or The Perils of Plink.  It takes place in a world inspired by the Golden Age of Silent Movies, and fiction of the same period.  So the characters are built on archetypes from an age when the world was changing rapidly.  Modernism seemed exciting and soulless, and old romantic values seemed on the wane -- but were much loved.  It was an age of revolution and social change -- which might have shaken up our ideas of good and evil, but still maintained a strong romantic sense that there _was_ such a thing as "good" and "evil."

(You can find a the rough draft of the first story here on the blog in serial form -- The Case of the Misplaced Hero.  It's also available for sale as an ebook, but I'm about to upload a new and improved edition, so wait until this weekend if you intend to buy it.)

Alex -- The Misplaced Hero

Alex is a rich, idle college student, much like Don Diego Vega (the guy who became Zorro).  He was raised by his odd-ball aunt to identify with Zorro, to emulate him.  But he was also raised in modern-day Michigan, and his aunt seemed to be talking literally about swordfights and rescuing peasants, so it seems like a game to him.

It's only when he finds himself in the world he thought she had made up that he realizes he can be everything he wants to be. He can save the world or at least people in it.

In the Case of the Misplaced hero, Alex is actually dropped into Awarshawa without anything but his clothes.  He has no money or access to it, and he doesn't care. He has left that world behind and found his destiny.

It's only when his sidekick, Professor Thorny, points out that wealth is a super-power -- it's what gave Batman and Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel the power to do great things -- that Alex realizes he needs his money.  And though we don't see it in that first story, I can tell you that when we meet him later on, he will be cultivating his wealth for use in heroism.

As for the "Million Jelly Beans Factor" I mentioned with the previous characters: there is no frivolous desire he would waste that money on.  He might use a million jelly beans as a diversion to help him distract the guards while he breaks into the secure facility to rescue the maiden or steal the document that will prevent a war.  He can be pretty playful, but if he does anything that seems self-indulgent, it'll be to mislead somebody about what he's really up to.

But that's the more mature Alex than you will see in the first story.

Alex's sidekick Thorny, on the other hand, was a cynical burnt-out shell of a college professor, and now he considers everything to be a wonderful indulgence -- even danger.  He'd be perfectly willing to shoot the wad on jelly beans.  Or more likely, Doritos.  (That's the one down side of an alternate universe -- no Doritos.)

And what would happen if Alex lost his fortune?  Nothing.  Alex would simply continue with different resources.  Maybe becoming like Robin Hood, and financing his adventures by robbing his enemies. And Thorny would enjoy that too.


Plink -- The Well-Placed Flapper

Plink is actually Lady Pauline, the Baroness of Beethingham.  She is just 21: young, beautiful, rich, and soaked in priviledge and social position, and she thinks it might be jolly good fun to use said wealth, power, etc., to have adventures and do good.  She is not as driven as Alex.  She doesn't really have a mission.

As far as Plink is concerned, jelly beans would be lovely.  There is nothing wrong with little excess, but only if you have people to eat them up.  Perhaps we could invite some orphans over or something.  That would make a smashing party.

However, in spite of Plink's frivolous site, she is not an airhead.  She has guts and enthusiasm, and she can be very serious and practical when she needs to be.

If Plink's wealth were taken from her, I think it would throw her for a loop.  But she's young and adaptable, so the circumstances that took her wealth away would be more traumatic than the actual loss of money.  That is, her wealth includes her staff, who are like a family to her.  Would the circumstance in which she lost her money cause them to lose their livelihood too?  Would everything she knows be destroyed or would she simply lose access to it?

But what is a more interesting question to me will eventually be brought up when Plink gets herself a sidekick (in a later story):  When her aunts insist that she take on a paid companion (in hopes of settling her down) she hires a poverty-stricken radical journalist, which is going to create some intersting "how the other half lives" scenarios, but since Lily is pretty young and naive herself, I think she's going to get more out of it than Plink will.

Which brings us to another side of the political situation in this alternate world:


Rozinshura - The Revolutionary Bureaucrat

Captain Rozinshura is an official in the Anarcho-Bureaucratic Republic of Awarshawa.  He isn't a bad guy -- more of an impact character, and sometimes hero of his own stories -- but his country is full of bad guys and also often in conflict with Plink's country of Imperia.

Rozinshura is more or less a communist.  But more than that, he was born at a time and place where he was pretty much in the army from birth.  It was an anarchist army, but all the same: there was never a time when he actually owned anything, his clothes are his uniform. His needs provided by the state.

And ironically, that makes him the most acquisitive person in the bunch.  That's partly due to his job: he's a facilitator which means he's in charge of distributing resources.  As far as he is concerned, that means he "owns" everything that comes under his sphere of influence.  It also means he is responsible for it, and he takes that very seriously.

He's kind of a reflection of George: since he "owns" everything around him, he doesn't really think much about possessing anything personally.  And if he believes you actually need a million jelly beans?  He will find a way to provide a truck load of the closest approximation thereof that he can acquire. 

UN-like George, however, Rozinshura will actually think it through.  He's a logistics guy.  Not only will he consider whether you actually need that many jelly beans, he will weigh cost/benefit ratio on expending the effort, and he will consider whether you actually have room to store a million jellybeans.  If you don't, you won't get a million of them.

On the other hand, if you do have room to store a million jelly beans, and he has a million jellybeans that need to be stored -- you may get them whether you want them or not.  And if you objected, he might throw up his hands helplessly and hand you a huge stack of paperwork to start the process of having them removed.  (There is a little bit of Sgt. Bilko in Rozinshura -- though it is more in his methods than his motives.)

What if you were to give Rozinshura an enormous fortune?

He'd thank you for this great gift to the Republic of Awarshawa.

It's not that he isn't self-indulgent.  If you gave him a basket of peaches, he might very well pick the largest and juiciest for himself.  But he loves his life, and he has no personal use for a diamond car or a million jellybeans or a grand fortune.  Not that he would ever turn such things down.  He'd just process them into the system, for the greater good of the state.

That's enough about wealth.

I was going to relate the rest of this week's posts to the subject, but I've changed my mind. Instead, there will be no Thursday post, but on Friday I'll introduce one of the new features I'll do off and on this fall: The Writing Game.

Then next week, we get to what I consider the most interesting part of the wealth and power posts: POWER and DOMINANCE!  I'll talk about classic characters -- like Sam Spade, Columbo and Zorro -- as well as my own characters.  The subject will be whether they are Alpha Dogs and how they manage to get their way in all sorts of situations.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Characters: Wealth and the Zen Gunslinger

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.


Yesterday, in our ongoing series about characters and wealth and power, I talked about one of my richest characters, George Starling of The Man Who Did Too Much. One of the things I mentioned about him is that he really doesn't care much about money and might even be happier if he didn't have it.

Today I'm going to talk about another pair of characters who have no use for money -- and that's a good thing because they generally don't have much of it: Mick and Casey McKee of the Mick and Casey Mystery series.

The Zen Gunslinger

Mick McKee is not what you'd call wealthy, though he is what you would call entrepreneurial: he and his wife Casey are gunslingers for hire in the old west.

They own their horses, their weapons and gear, and the clothes on their backs.  Since they are young and inexperienced and one of them is a girl and the other a bit too sweet-natured to impress people as an effective gunman, they really don't get your top-of-the-line gunslinging work.

When they get a little extra cash, Casey might insist on upgrading their hats or their weapons.  But Mick?  He's always happy when they have enough cash to sleep in a real bed.  The fact is, there are really only two things he wants in life: Casey and pie.  He'll even give up the comfortable bed for a little more of either one of those.

One irony of their life: they probably have more money than it seems, because on those occasions when they have more money than they want to carry around, they put the extra in the nearest bank.  It's never very much, but they have cash squirreled around all over the west.

But as it is not the age of Paypal and internet transfers, most of the time that money is out of reach.  So they live hand to mouth, day to day.    And now and then, they truly hit bottom: at one point in Have Gun, Will play, they find themselves stripped of everything -- horses, weapons, gear.  Casey has managed to hang on to her boot gun, but Mick barely even has the shirt on his back.

Though that is the low point of the story for he and Casey, it is also the high point, as they sit and make love under the stars.

They are very existential that way.

What would happen if Mick and Casey were to become fabulously wealthy?  There might be a few Beverly Hillbillies moments, but I suspect they'd put the money in a bank and ride away.


When I think about both my mystery series -- not only Mick and Casey, but also George and Karla from yesterday's posts -- the characters are pretty zen about money.  They're detectives -- their interest in is in justice and figuring things out.

And though there is always a certain level of laid-back existentialism in my fiction, wealth plays a much more powerful (if not important) role in lives of the characters of The Serial (a.k.a. The Perils of Plink -- which started with The Misplaced Hero.)

I decided, because it's different, to stop here and tell you about Alex. Plink, Thorny and Rozinshura in tomorrow's post.  (Once again, you'll find the index to the series at the bottom of this post.)

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Characters: Wealth and Glamor

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.


Last week I talked about how the incredible wealth of the billionaires in some popular fiction genres is really just a stand in for the magic power of earlier types of stories, such as Dracula.  (And how it all goes back, in a Freudian sort of way, to sex appeal.)

But even when I look at it on a more literal level, without going into the psychological symbolism, wealth is still a kind of magic.  And not just in fiction.  In the real world, wealth is glamorous.

Whether it's Nick and Nora Charles sipping martinis while casually solving crime, or Minnie the Moocher dreaming of diamond cars with platinum wheels, or the old world gilding of royal accoutrements, wealth has that magical sheen.

And that's what the word "glamor" actually means. It's the glowy sheen that flickers over the surface of magic.

The thing about glamor is 1.) wealth isn't the only source of it, and 2.) some people are more affected by it than others.

And that brings me to the first characters of my own that I want to talk about: Karla Marquette and George Starling, the lead characters from The Man Who Did Too Much, a cozy mystery set in Northern Lower Michigan.

George is the wealthiest character I've ever written.  Karla is pretty well nigh immune to glamor -- especially as it relates to wealth. 


Glamor vs. Content

When Karla first sees George, she notes three things.  He seems depressed, he stands like a cop or a fed or an IRS agent, and the trench coat he's wearing is much too expensive for any of those.

By this point it's pretty clear to the reader that Karla is a geeky small town spinster with no interest in fashion -- so one of my beta readers objected to the fact that she would know the trench coat was expensive.

To this reader, "expensive" meant "designer label."  Or, in other words, glamor.  And she was right, Karla's knowledge of designers and fashion is pretty much limited to what she sees on the red carpet at Oscar time.

So no, Karla wouldn't know if George's trench coat was from a high-profile designer, or whether it was this year's style, or years out of style.

What Karla sees is quality of materials and craftsmanship.  And because she's not interested in clothes, that's all she bothers to note: it's expensive.  But if you asked her, she would point out a million details that she simply took in unconsciously: The fabric, needlework, the way it fits, the way it looks broken in without looking worn.

The fact is, George's clothes are not fashionable.  They're as conservative, plain and unstylish as he can get them.  He likes to blend in.  He has them tailor made because A) his tailor knows what he wants, and B) his tailor knows exactly the sort of damage George is likely to do to his clothes, and adjusts for that, and C) it never occurred to George to get his clothes anywhere else.

That last is only half true: his tailor doesn't make "gear."  So George gets his winter boots and fatigues and workout clothes and stuff from sources of top notch professional gear -- not the stuff that's in fashion, but the stuff that will stand up to abuse and weather. But he's also a light traveler, because he has the money to buy what he needs wherever he goes.  If he needs something, he'll get it from the nearest vendor, even if it's Walmart.

George, in other words, is very wealthy but he's not in the least bit glamorous.  And that was one of the great problems of his youth, because his family is not only very wealthy, but also very glamorous.

In Chapter 17, when Karla points out to him that he has more grace than he thinks he does, he puts it this way:

"I was well brought up.  The Starlings are a very polished family.  But that's not the same thing.  The truth is, I'm not really a Starling."

"You were adopted?"

"No, no, I didn't mean that."  He laughed.  "Although there is much speculation about how I must have been switched at birth.  Somewhere there is a family of dockworkers or gangsters with a polished politician for a son they can't account for."

If Karla were Sherlock Holmes, she might have deduced all that from his clothes, but though she is incredibly intuitive, she withholds judgement, and only notes the clues to what he is like: he has the demeanor of a cop, but his clothes are too expensive, and he's driving a tacky rental car and he speaks with an unidentifiable not-British accent.  Not your average bear.  A puzzle, in fact.

Which is exactly what he's intended to be.

So I kinda want to just leave it there.  There's a heck of a lot to say about George and his relationship with wealth, and how other people view him because of it, but the fact is, he is a puzzle to himself and to others, and that's part of what the series is about.

All the same, I will talk about him when we get to the subject of Alpha Dogs next week, and I think I should use him to introduce three topics about wealth that I'm going to compare among a bunch of my other characters tomorrow.

1.) Wealth as a Super Power (at least to characters who have it).

George could be Batman.  He could be spending his money on cool tools to give himself great powers -- but he just doesn't think of that.  George is a very "in the moment" kind of guy.  He doesn't equip himself for contingencies.  He only carries a gun when he actually plans to use it.  If he even bothered to think about it (which he doesn't) he would say he doesn't carry a gun because he'll just take it away from the bad guy if he needs one.

2.) The Jelly Bean Factor.

Money tends to bring out a person's secret irrational longing.  So when they win the lottery, they go out and buy a million jelly beans, even though they couldn't possibly eat them or store them. George has had everything he wants all his life. He doesn't really want for anything like that.  But if he believes you need a million jelly beans, watch out for dump trucks full of multi-colored sweet things.  (So you've got to be careful what you say around him.)  George's secret irrational longing is for approval.

3.) What would happen if George were to lose his fortune?

He'd probably be happier. He'd rather make his own way, and he has great survival skills.  As it is he let his family put his money into trust for him because he has a problem with gold-diggers.  But if he had no money, he'd also have to face his demons more directly.  Right now, if he sees someone in minor distress he can often buy his way out of his compulsion to help them.  Not being able to do that would put him at risk of becoming an outlaw.

Tomorrow I'll talk about a pair who would seem the opposite of George: the wandering saddle-bum detectives, Mick and Casey McKee from the Mick and Casey Mysteries. Then Wednesday I'll talk about several characters from The Case of the Misplaced Hero, who cover a spectrum from the very rich, to the very socialist.

See you in the funny papers.

Billionaires, Vampires, Wolves and La Bete

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery (inspired by the fad for Billionaire Bad Boys, and a series of posts by Kyra Halland.)  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.

Kyra kicked this off just as a fun little riff on the current fad in romance fiction for Bullying BDSM Billionaires who seduce young innocent, virginal women.  She wryly decided to see how her own characters stack up against this super hot fad.

She did it for fun, but how she did it raised some very deep themes that really go far beyond a fad in one genre.  Wealth, power, dominance, asocial "acting out" behavior, redemption (deserved or not) -- these are all big issues in fiction.

But before I start talking about my own fiction, or about the wider themes, I thought I might take a deeper look at that Billionaire's theme itself.  Take it all the way back to the origin....

No, not Fifty Shades of Grey.  Further back that that.
Twilight?

Okay, we can pause ever so briefly here to acknowledge that.  I haven't read Twilight, but I understand that the romance in it wasn't bondage and dominance based. But that's only because it's a modern spin on something older that really is right in line with Dominant Billionaires.

Dracula

What is a vampire, in terms of story and theme and symbol?

He's a powerful, seductive but somewhat frightening being who can mesmerize innocent young virgins, and transform them in an animalistic, ritualized, symbolicly sexual encounter, with which he refreshes and renews his own life essence, while awakening in them animal appetites like his own.  Thereafter they are his willing slaves.

These modern billionaire BDSM fetishists are Dracula with two differences: we don't have to cloak the sex in symbol any more, and instead of magic, they have money and power.

So in these billionaire stories wealth isn't money -- it's magic.  It's power.

But to really understand it, we have to go back further.

The modern Dracula story is really kind of screwed up by Victorian prudishness.  Not in the fact that it hides sex behind a symbol, but in the fact that women have to be saved from Dracula.  He's a monster, and these ladies have to be saved from liking what he does to them, because liking sex makes the ladies into monsters too.

So we go back somewhat further to versions that strip away those cultural mores altogether and dive straight into the unconscious human psyche.  Fairytales and folklore.

La Belle et La Bete -- Beauty and the Beast

There are many different versions of this psychological trope -- and nearly any fairytale with a lady in it, it's going back to the same sexual angst.  Little Red Riding Hood is a variant.  Sleeping Beauty is a variant.  But I think these are for the younger psyche.

Red Riding Hood, in particular, is about that first confused, pre-conscious awareness a child has about sex.  Sex is like a wolf -- it's weird, scary and invasive, and sometimes wears a mask, and in the small child's mind those first inklings don't really seem any different than other irrational fears.  Fear of the dark, fear of being consumed.  Fear that Grandma isn't really Grandma, because when she gets angry or is hiding something, her face changes. (That one is one that sticks with us. It's called The Uncanny Valley -- and it's a hard wired fear of things in disguise.  It's why clowns are so scary.)

And the Little Red Riding Hood type stories are about being brave and facing the fact that the wolf exists.  In other words, it's not about sexual awakening, just sexual awareness.

But that story stays with us.  It's in a primal part of our brain that will continue to respond to patterns for the rest of our lives, and it's why monster stories continue to haunt us throughout our lives.

Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, is about the next step.  It's about that first irrational inkling that the scary, invasive uncomfortable thing we later know as sex is kind of a mesmerizing biological imperative.  You can't escape it.

But you can redeem it with love.

The beast is repellent.  He's a monster.  He is powerful and controlling and enchanting.  Belle has no choice but to face him, live with him.  But he's also a man, and if she can see beyond the beastlines, overcome her revulsion and actually make contact, she can make the beastliness go away.

In the meantime, for the dude, it's can be about feeling like an alien beast, and braving the rejection, and becoming human again.

This isn't about redeeming an abuser.  It's not that logical.  It's tapping into the remnants of a major existential crisis in our past -- when the child's brain is reconciling repulsion and attraction.  That's also a pattern that gets hard-wired into us and lasts a lifetime. (And yes, abusers do exploit this part of the brain too, but that's not the fault of fiction.)

This particular pattern isn't just about sex.  (That's just a particularly powerful part of its development.)  It's about overcoming our discomfort with anything unfamliar.  It's about overcoming prejudice.  It's a part of our journey to maturity.

But the romantic version are about sex. And the billionaire stories are just about facing the wolf, and getting past the fear and revulsion and reconciliing with the fact that we have sexual appetites.  Redeeming the wolf is about accepting our own sexuality.

And in those stories, wealth is just a symbol for magic and hormones.

You can find traces of those primal symbols in all stories, but for my fiction, the themes are up closer to the surface. They're more rational, more social and even political than psychological.

I suppose that with a fairytale and with erotica, it's a lot more about the psychology of the reader.  With less visceral stories -- definitely with my stories -- those kinds of elements are more about the psychology of the character.

Next time (Starting Monday) I'm going to be talking about Wealth.  It's not a subject that exactly interests me, in and of itself, but it does have a role, and it does actually say something about my characters.

That one may be a two parter, or even three parts.  Not sure yet. (Next Post: Wealth and Glamor.)

See you in the funny papers.

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Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)