While thinking about the topic of today’s discussion, I checked my Facebook page (where we all get out writing ideas, right?) and came across a post from Cowboys and Indians Magazine on the 50th anniversary of Willie Nelson’s The Redhead Stranger album.
Good Lord, I’m getting old.
If you haven’t heard this LP, just think Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.
back in 1975, This concept in country music was a departure from Nashville’s unnecessary symphony orchestration, and Willie wasn’t interested in continuing this new wave of music. He wanted to return to his roots. To do so, he came to Garland, Texas, (where I worked as an educator for 35 years) and recorded this “concept” album in a tiny one-room state of the art recording studio only a block from Garland High School (where I taught from 1985-86, and discovered I had no interest in becoming a vice principal at that level).
This album was based on an entire story revolving around the Red Headed Stranger who lost the love of his life. Conceptionally, the entire soundtrack is about Parson Shay, a flawed man who murders his wife and her lover. Consumed by grief and anger, he becomes a fugitive traveling the west, struggling with the guilt of his actions. Full of rage, he also shoots a saloon girl who he thinks is trying to steal his horse.
The following lyric, “You can’t hang a man for killing a woman, who tries to steal his horse,” is a novel unto itself.
Willie stripped down so much of the instrumentation that it sounds like an old-school band playing in a garage. When he sent the tapes to his record company, they thought it was a bare demo and wanted to add all that crap he hated.
Because he had full creative control, Willie insisted on keeping it simple, and that album is now ranked number 183 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and number one on CMT’s 40 Greatest Albums in Country Music.
Not bad for doing what he wanted without interference from others who tend to follow the current trend.
Bill Witliff wrote that wonderful screenplay for a movie based on the album, but you’ll likely recognize one of his more famous movies, Lonesome Dove. Based on the book by Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove features two tortured souls, August McCrae and Woodrow F. Call. Gus seeks a lost love, while Woodrow refuses to acknowledge that he loved a prostitute and fathered a child he refuses to recognize.
Many authors explore characters grappling with emotional or psychological trauma that manifests in many ways. This turmoil often stems from loss, or a deep sense of inner conflict, either intentionally revealed by the author, or hinted at through the protagonists’ actions and vague references.
My most recent series featuring Tucker Snow examines a Texas Brand Inspector’s life after his wife and baby are killed by an addict, leaving him to raise a teenage daughter alone. He’s far too impulsive and uses his own brother to step over any imaginary line, laying waste to criminals who, in his opinion, just need killing.
An author doesn’t have to tell readers exactly what drives their characters. The story might, and often does, reveal the emotional issues that drive a protagonist with information revealed throughout the novel.
Mickey Spillane created Mike Hammer, who is driven to seek justice, but he’s a pessimistic creature who survived the Japanese Theater in World War II and struggles to find goodness in the country he fought for.
My good friend John Gilstrap’s Jonathan Grave is another character who seeks justice for all, and his ruthless methods fall outside the law to save hostages most agencies can’t, or won’t save. How do we know what drives Jonathan? Read No Mercy where his backstory is revealed. Is Jonathan flawed? You bet he is.
Aren’t we all?
One reviewer said she particularly enjoyed the “subtle flaws in Grave’s character – flaws he understands and even admits to, but doesn’t necessarily try to correct.”
Other authors have created flawed characters.
Lee Child created Jack Reacher. His major flaw is that he won’t walk off from injustice or a fight. He lays waste to criminals, then moves on to do it again. He prefers isolation, has few social skills, and has an impulsive, extremely aggressive nature.
The Searchers, a novel by Alan LeMay became a John Wayne movie. Amos Edwards (Ethan in the movie) is the most troubled and morally complex character I’ve ever read. Due to a warped sense of honor, Amos is obsessed with finding and killing his captive niece because he believes she’s has been corrupted by her Comanche captors.
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl has more than one. “Nick is not the charming hero we’re accustomed to in thrillers; he’s a deeply flawed and morally ambiguous figure whose actions leave us oscillating between sympathy and suspicion,” writes fan Riya Bhorkar. “Amy, on the other hand, is a master manipulator, crafting her own narrative with surgical precision and leaving a trail of devastation in her wake.”
In Shane, Jack Schaefer’s protagonist by the same name is a mysterious drifting gunfighter who hangs up his guns and falls in love with his employer’s wife. He returns to his old ways when her husband is provoked into a gunfight. He kills rancher Luke Fletcher, (Ryker in the movie), reverting to his old self. LeMay skillfully leaves enough crumbs for readers to see he has a number of faults before he rides off, wounded and possibly dying.
So who is your favorite flawed character, and/or have you created such fictional protagonists? And let’s go one step further. Are these these character flaws cut from whole cloth, or do they come from within?
As I mentioned in my last post, I was headed out for a Mississippi River cruise vacation, with some extra time in New Orleans. We arrived on schedule, checked into the hotel (and because I always try to stay at the same chain, I’d accrued enough points to be a Diamond Medallion member) and they upgraded us to a suite. With TWO bathrooms! Also free breakfasts and a couple of comped drinks at the bar. And a bottle of wine in the room. And fruit.
Like bang for your buck? I have a 
