I cannot stand stories with unwilling or clueless characters.
Let me elaborate. For a creative writing class I had to read a short story entitled, “A Vintage Thunderbird.” (To my professor: if you read this, please don’t be offended. It was a good story; I learned from it. But it was frustrating, too.) Set in 1970s New York and written from the perspective of a man (Nick) who is in love with a woman (Karen), it is filled with a lack of communication and unwillingness to address real issues.
Nick is mostly dealing with his thoughts for Karen, wondering at their relationship. They appear to be friends, but Nick wants to be more than that. Karen is either unaware of his desires, or she simply doesn’t want to be with him. The main conflict seems to be about their relationship, and it is, but neither of them ever acknowledge it. The conflict in the story is their lack of communication; the real conflict, never spoken of, is their relationship issues.
But since that conflict is never dealt with, we as the reader get a very strange sense of dissatisfaction at the end of the story. Like what we just read was basically pointless because it never addressed the real problem.
I know I’m not the only one who had an issue with this; another girl in my class thought the same thing. I wanted to scream, “Tell each other the truth already!”—but it never happened. Nick would say something shallow about the car, or ask some lighthearted question, and Karen would respond in kind. Even in his own head, though, Nick never addresses what really bothers him. He dances around it; either he doesn’t want to admit the problem(s) to himself, or he is actually unaware of them (just like Karen). I’m not sure which is the case, but one of them almost certainly is. Clearly, by the end of the story nothing is resolved because nothing serious has been addressed. Nick even goes on a date with another woman, though he realizes in the middle of the date that he doesn’t want to be with her. Meanwhile Karen keeps running away with other men—again, either oblivious to Nick’s love or dismissive. The real issues are “pushed under the rug”; the characters don’t seem to want to deal with them, or are so dense they don’t actually notice them.
I’d prefer if the characters were just dense because then I could maybe feel somewhat sorry for them. But they’re people; they’re not stupid. They’re probably choosing not to address the real issue(s).
Of course one could argue that this story is much like real life, and maybe in some ways it is. Maybe some people’s lives are like this. But I appreciate being open with others and discussing issues. Sure, I don’t always bring things up if they’re not super important and if they can be worked out without talking a lot. But I always strive to be straightforward and honest. Small talk is a crummy alternative to real discussion—which may be deep discussion or simply real, honest talk that doesn’t push anything obvious under that rug.
I write my characters this way too. There’s always some stuff that’s hidden; that’s part of internal conflict. My characters don’t always reveal things, either because they don’t want to or because they’re actually unaware of them. But my characters are always somewhat aware of their mental states, always at least somewhat honest with themselves, and always confronting their conflicts and feelings. I guess that’s the issue I have with characters such as the ones in “A Vintage Thunderbird:” they don’t, even in their heads (at least in Nick’s case) confront their feelings. It’s like they don’t care about them; they’re not willing to put in the effort to change their situations or fix their problems.
Perhaps Ann Beattie was trying to be subtle. I can appreciate that, I think; I try to be subtle too. In fact I’ve succeeded in being too subtle sometimes, in that I’ve often had people want me to describe a bit more of what’s going on because they don’t understand the story. That is not good, so I’ve had to work at being clear, too. I struggle mostly with showing versus telling; obviously showing is good, but how much do I let the character show? Some people are more open than others. My character might not show a lot, in which case the reader will be more in the dark about what is happening or what the character is thinking or feeling. But I don’t want my reader to be entirely in the dark.
However, stories like “A Vintage Thunderbird” are, with all due respect to great writer like Beattie, a bit different: when reading them, we the reader know exactly what is going on. The issue is that we know too much, I think—we know what needs to happen to being to address the conflict, and it never happens. This leaves us frustrated beyond belief. When I finished the story I thought both, “Why did I just read that?” and, “Those people are crazy and frustrating.” Similar thoughts, I guess: why was I wasting my time with such annoying, useless characters?
This is just my opinion, of course. I’d like to know others’ thoughts, on this story or others, regarding this topic. Comment away please.