Slow and careful writing about love

I finished reading The Handmaid's Tale this month. Margaret Atwood's story about a future America dominated by religion and males, with women subjugated and forced to bear children, does contain love and passion, too.

I was struck by the passage below, so beautiful that I made a note of it in my Kindle copy of the book. The writing shows off how loving Atwood is with words of love. Here, the heroine of the book describes her illicit, secret lover, her respite after she's lost the memory of her husband Luke.

I want to see what can be seen, of him, take him in, memorize him, save him up so I can live on the image, later: the lines of his body, the texture of his flesh, the glisten of sweat on his pelt, his long sardonic unrevealing face. I ought to have done that with Luke, paid more attention, to the details, the moles and scars, the singular creases; I didn’t and he’s fading. Day by day, night by night he recedes, and I become more faithless. For this one I’d wear pink feathers, purple stars, if that were what he wanted; or anything else, even the tail of a rabbit. But he does not require such trimmings. We make love each time as if we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there will never be any more, for either of us, with anyone, ever. And then when there is, that too is always a surprise, extra, a gift.

Five summers ago I took a Novel seminar at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, where we studied Atonement. Our instructor advised us to deliver the details of a body your character has come to know and love. Atwood gives us this as well as anybody I've read.

The Four Character Levels

Peter Dunne, movie and TV writer who's won Emmys and a Peabody award, has a great book in Emotional Structure to let you explore and define and show your characters' emotions. Dunne talks early on about the Four Character Levels:

1. Individual: The outer layer, what is shown to the world
2. Familial: The belief system, secrets, seat of guilt
3. Social: Cultural, other-oriented, obligations and changeable
4. Emotional: The real deal, what the character really feels — whether they are aware of it or not.

In 11 pages which Dunne writes very early in his book, he breaks down how these levels show how your hero relates to the world. You can work on these things using the book's exercises. Great stuff.

"Trust your growth," he says to inspire us. "Every time you create a character or write a scene you grow, too. Just as you ask your hero to trust his process, you must trust yours."

As I polish Viral Times in its extensive revision, I keep these levels in mind for my characters. Dorothy Bezder shows up in Chapter Six, to introduce a character she loves who is capable of great violence, all in the name of a vengeful god. What happens to Dorothy after Six? What are her levels?

Artist's choices for me.