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7/6/09 09:41I've been thinking about characterization in light of the premiere of "Royal Pains," a new doctor-drama that proves I'll watch just about anything on Hulu if I'm bored on a Saturday night. (This is after I had done an hour of Mandarin lessons, for boredom-context).
It is possibly one of the worst hours of television I have seen, outside of the first episodes each season of American Idol where they're just making people cry.
So, the protagonist is an ER doctor in Brooklyn whose life is going absolutely perfectly - and then, on his day off, he sees a teenager collapse playing basketball, takes him in to the ER. At the same time, a rich guy on the board of trustees comes in with a heart problem. He operates on Rich Guy, it looks like everything's fine, so he goes to take care of the kid. The rich guy ends up dying, and the doctor ends up getting fired.
I don't think stories of victimhood work that well in fiction. One of the issues I had with "The Art of Racing in the Rain" was that the Big Issue that threatens to tear Denny's family apart is absolutely, completely nothing to do with him; it's caused by other people being malicious or dysfunctional. A lot of stuff happens in life that is extremely unfair. But in fiction, you are aware all the time that things happen the way they happen because the author has set them up that way; so I get suspicious when things are set up in just such a way that the hero is completely blameless. It feels like that special kind of Mary Sue-ism where you're swimming in your own martyrdom.
Anyway, the protagonist -- Hank -- is depressed and drinking for a month, then his brother takes him up to the Hamptons to get his mind off things. At an exclusive party they've sneaked into, a beautiful woman goes into an apparent drug overdose. The mansion's private physician is there, but misdiagnoses. Hank notices the misdiagnosis from across the room, yells a lot, saves the girl's life. Oh, great. Not only is he Unjustly Fired, he also has to be the Best Doctor Ever. Word gets around, and all the rich people in the Hamptons are seeking out his services as a concierge doctor. And he settles, very reluctantly, on doing that.
If he still had any of my sympathy, he would've lost it here. Hank is completely passive, except when there's a convenient life around needing saving; and yet a job lands in his lap, dealing with rich people in a beautiful place; and he's still kind of "meh" about the whole thing.
The best rule I ever heard about opening a story is that it should take your protagonist from a dangerous situation to a more dangerous situation. And being a rich doctor in the Hamptons just doesn't read to me as "dangerous." It doesn't feel like there's anything there under the surface -- especially when the ending has the pretty young doctor girl telling Hank, "You never should have been fired! You totally did the right thing!"
I think there are interesting ways you could have spun this.
1) Make Hank have done something truly, genuinely bad. He wasn't fired for the truly, genuinely bad thing he did, though -- he was fired for something else. Maybe he broke a rule in the course of covering up the truly bad thing he did, and got fired for breaking the rule, but the bad thing itself was never discovered. But the evidence against him exists, and he knows it. Give him both some earned guilt and a Sword of Damocles dangling over his head.
2) Give Hank a personality besides "blandly good." House works because of the contradictions between House, Best Doctor Ever, and House, A Drug Addict And Not A Nice Person. You don't have to be dysfunctional to be an interesting protagonist, but give him something he's trying to achieve -- this is why it doesn't work for the job to fall into his lap. I think it would be a lot more interesting for him to not be the Best Doctor Ever -- if he has a history of partying and slacking off and just squeaked by in medical school, maybe. Or conversely, if he was a star in medical school but got cocky and overconfident and didn't ask for help when he needed it and ended up killing a guy because of it.
I think I'd still have a hard time caring about the minor medical conditions of the fabulously wealthy. But this is just lazy writing.
It is possibly one of the worst hours of television I have seen, outside of the first episodes each season of American Idol where they're just making people cry.
So, the protagonist is an ER doctor in Brooklyn whose life is going absolutely perfectly - and then, on his day off, he sees a teenager collapse playing basketball, takes him in to the ER. At the same time, a rich guy on the board of trustees comes in with a heart problem. He operates on Rich Guy, it looks like everything's fine, so he goes to take care of the kid. The rich guy ends up dying, and the doctor ends up getting fired.
I don't think stories of victimhood work that well in fiction. One of the issues I had with "The Art of Racing in the Rain" was that the Big Issue that threatens to tear Denny's family apart is absolutely, completely nothing to do with him; it's caused by other people being malicious or dysfunctional. A lot of stuff happens in life that is extremely unfair. But in fiction, you are aware all the time that things happen the way they happen because the author has set them up that way; so I get suspicious when things are set up in just such a way that the hero is completely blameless. It feels like that special kind of Mary Sue-ism where you're swimming in your own martyrdom.
Anyway, the protagonist -- Hank -- is depressed and drinking for a month, then his brother takes him up to the Hamptons to get his mind off things. At an exclusive party they've sneaked into, a beautiful woman goes into an apparent drug overdose. The mansion's private physician is there, but misdiagnoses. Hank notices the misdiagnosis from across the room, yells a lot, saves the girl's life. Oh, great. Not only is he Unjustly Fired, he also has to be the Best Doctor Ever. Word gets around, and all the rich people in the Hamptons are seeking out his services as a concierge doctor. And he settles, very reluctantly, on doing that.
If he still had any of my sympathy, he would've lost it here. Hank is completely passive, except when there's a convenient life around needing saving; and yet a job lands in his lap, dealing with rich people in a beautiful place; and he's still kind of "meh" about the whole thing.
The best rule I ever heard about opening a story is that it should take your protagonist from a dangerous situation to a more dangerous situation. And being a rich doctor in the Hamptons just doesn't read to me as "dangerous." It doesn't feel like there's anything there under the surface -- especially when the ending has the pretty young doctor girl telling Hank, "You never should have been fired! You totally did the right thing!"
I think there are interesting ways you could have spun this.
1) Make Hank have done something truly, genuinely bad. He wasn't fired for the truly, genuinely bad thing he did, though -- he was fired for something else. Maybe he broke a rule in the course of covering up the truly bad thing he did, and got fired for breaking the rule, but the bad thing itself was never discovered. But the evidence against him exists, and he knows it. Give him both some earned guilt and a Sword of Damocles dangling over his head.
2) Give Hank a personality besides "blandly good." House works because of the contradictions between House, Best Doctor Ever, and House, A Drug Addict And Not A Nice Person. You don't have to be dysfunctional to be an interesting protagonist, but give him something he's trying to achieve -- this is why it doesn't work for the job to fall into his lap. I think it would be a lot more interesting for him to not be the Best Doctor Ever -- if he has a history of partying and slacking off and just squeaked by in medical school, maybe. Or conversely, if he was a star in medical school but got cocky and overconfident and didn't ask for help when he needed it and ended up killing a guy because of it.
I think I'd still have a hard time caring about the minor medical conditions of the fabulously wealthy. But this is just lazy writing.