The Blank Slate and Character Development

When I was in college, attending classes about literature and reading Pride and Prejudice because someone told me to (ah the life of an English major!), one of my professors introduced me to Locke's idea of tabula rasa.

On a side note, this professor was passionate about his job - and arrogant. He was a fairly attractive man in his early 40's - one of those men who are called distinguished and who all melt in my mind into one Ken-doll-esque image.

So picture a brown-haired, slightly older, professionally dressed Ken doll, talking to a room of 150 students about how he was leaving the University of Arizona for a school on the east coast because the U of A didn't appreciate or value his intellect enough.

He was more or less an ass.

But he did teach me about tabula rasa, a concept that I still find fascinating. Locke's idea was that we are born a blank slate; all of our ideas, prejudices, inclinations, etc... are formed from our experiences. In other words, we are not born predisposed toward anything; we are only a sum of our experiences.

It's a great big checkmark in favor of nurture on the nature vs. nurture debate.

Lately I've been reflecting on tabula rasa and how much our experiences shape our perception of everything.

Someone recently described the brain to me this way: "Our brains our constantly playing a game of Memory."

You know the game:

So when something happens, my brain grabs that giant cardboard card with the image on it and runs through my brain's filing cabinets, excitedly commenting that "I know I've seen this before - ah ha! Here it is."

The card my brain finds is from a past experience; possibly a past experience from a week ago, but probably a past experience from a year ago; a decade ago; two decades ago.

This would be fine if my brain were only coming up with matching images that were 100% relevant to the moment. But often they aren't.

Here is an example: If you were in a car accident -- a really severe one, where your car was totaled and you had to go to the ER in an ambulance -- as soon as you tried to get behind the wheel of a car again, you would probably freak out. Your brain would go into panic mode and match the image of this perfectly new steering wheel with the old one that got smashed and alarms would go off in your brain and body and you would probably suddenly feel unsafe.

Because your brain was just matching the current image with an old image. Even though the experience was different.

I'm sure God made us this way for a reason, however I wish I could just get a clean slate again, because so often I'm wrong and my perception isn't reality. I have to retrain my brain to check my perception not just internally, but externally.

It's like my brain has been infiltrated by a double agent who whispers lies and half-truths: "Avoid that person, they don't like you; don't do this, you aren't any good at that, remember?; don't say anything, you know what happens when you talk."

These are perhaps (perhaps) extreme examples, but it's true. In trying to protect me and work for me, my brain has (in some ways) become my enemy. I have to root out the double agent, pull the creepy flesh mask off my brain Mission-Impossible-style and reveal the mole for who she is - a deceiver.

That is the best I can do. Reveal the lies my brain keeps telling me. The only time we ever have a clean slate is the moment we are born. After that, the indelible impressions begin.

The cool, less depressing, view of tabula rosa is when it comes to crafting characters. When I write characters, I tend to write them like they are newborn baby puppets who will do and say whatever I want them to because they're mine (mwahahahaha). But that makes for very flat characters.

Instead, I want to think of characters as being born with a blank slate and ask myself: What impressions were made on them as babies? As children? As young adults (when every little thing is of the utmost importance - I don't jest, it truly is)? Then suddenly, they act and react not because I need them to, but because their slates are talking.

To these characters, the way they react is instinctual and real; it is true to them, however untrue (or crazy or weird or demented) it is to other characters.

And suddenly my flat characters are as round as balloons.

***********

What trick do you use to make realistic, round characters?

Top 10 gifts for the book lover on your list

I know how challenging it can be to pick out Christmas gifts for someone you love. I am married to the gift-giving ninja, so I’m familiar with the panic that ensues when you want to get something meaningful, special, and unique, but you end up getting them a gift card. (Not that there is anything wrong with gift cards. I’ve grown to appreciate them for the guilt-free spending sprees that they are.) When it comes to gifts for book lovers, however, I consider myself an expert. Hopefully this guide is useful to you (and who knows, you might end up adding a few items to your own wish list!)

If you have any gift suggestions to add to the list, feel free to post in the comments below. Share your brilliant ideas and spread the magic of Christmas!

10: Mugs with literary quotes.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all book lovers like to drink either tea or coffee. They also must do so out of beautiful vessels, because that is the most inspiring way to drink tea or coffee. Though your book-loving friend may already have several dozen mugs, they can always use more. These beautifully designed mugs made by an Etsy seller will be sure to delight.

9: Library candles

If you can’t have Mark Twain sitting next to you in your living room, at least your living room can smell like Mark Twain. Head over to paddywax.com (hehehe), and browse their collection of library candles that truly capture the essence of various famous authors and their books. Some of my favorites include Mark Twain, which has “tobacco flower & vanilla fragrance notes,” and Edgar Allan Poe, which has “cardamom, absinthe & sandalwood fragrance notes.”

8: The smell of books

As I mentioned in a recent post, almost all book lovers are enthralled by the scent of books. Now, you can bottle that scent and give it to them (sort of). Paper Passion is a perfume for book lovers that supposedly smells like “that peculiar mix of paper and ink which gives a book its unmistakable aroma, along with the fresh scent which a book opened for the first time releases” (according to amazon.com). I’m not sure if your book lover wants to smell like a book themselves, but they could always use it to freshen up moldy books or just sniff it like a junky whenever they crave the smell of books. If this seems too much like a gag gift, maybe stick with the old stand by, candles. The seller Frostbeard on Etsy has a collection of candles for book lovers that include scents such as Old Books, Bookstore, Sherlock’s Study, etc… Honestly, one can never have too many candles.

7: Book art

Get your bookworm a book made into poster, a shirt, or a tote. Over at litographs.com, you can find art made out of the FULL TEXT of various classic novels. My favorites include Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice.

6: Books about books (Meta books. Yep, that's a thing. I googled it.)

It seems obvious, but why don’t you get a person who loves books…MORE BOOKS. Because we can never have enough books. Ever. 

To put a creative spin on this suggestion, look for books that talk about books. I suggest Novel Destinations, a book about places around the world that have literary history, from authors’ homes and museums to locations that played important roles in classic literature. As discussed on a previous post, for Hemingway types who like a little booze to go with their books, you could purchase Tequila Mockingbird (Cocktails with a Literary Twist according to the subtitle). The Reading Promise is a memoir about a girl and her father who made a commitment to read for 1000 days without missing a single one. The Shelf: Adventures in Extreme Reading is a book about a woman who decided to experiment by reading all the books on one shelf of the library regardless of their contents and quality (or lack thereof). Or if you want to stress your friend out by essentially giving them a really really really long to-read list try Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. 

There are also many excellent works of fiction that focus on books (one of my favorites is The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde); a quick google search for "books about books" should give you plenty of options.

5: Magazines about books

There are a number of great magazines about books out there including Bookmarks, the London Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, and the New York Review of Books. Magazines make great Christmas gifts because they are literally the gift that keeps on giving.

4: Games about books

When I was little, my sister used to get mad at me when she wanted to play with me and I refused because I was reading. Maybe if she’d had some of these awesome, book-inspired games, I would have taken a (temporary) break from my paper world for a world of flesh and blood. Get these games for those bookworms that need a little encouragement to interact with others every once in awhile.

Haikubes is “a set of 63 word cubes that is attractive enough to display on the coffee table. Simply roll the cubes and use the words that come up to create an expressive haiku” (amazon.com). 

Bookopoly is a creative, book-themed Monopoly - in other words, way less boring than regular Monopoly. According to dodoburd.com, throughout the game, you “build book clubs and libraries on literary classics such as The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby; collect different genres; and pick up Knowledge and Explore cards for bonuses as you make your way around the board. But watch out for Book Club Fees and don’t get stuck Watching TV or you’ll lose three turns.” 

Another aptly named game, The Storymatic is a story generating game that can be played alone or in groups. As one amazon reviewer complained, all the game variations included in the box basically have you draw cards and tell a story — but for me, that’s a selling point, obviously. I spent lunchtime as a kid with my siblings telling increasingly absurd tales as we built on each other's stories. It was a blast, and I’m sure this game is just as entertaining.

3: Book lover’s basket

Sure, this isn’t exactly the most original gift idea (you can pretty much put “gift basket” behind anything and ta da! it’s a gift) but this might actually be a gift basket worth getting (and giving). Here is why: there is a reason why your friend is a book lover. They love books because they love to read them. And almost all book lovers like to read curled up with a blanket, a cup of tea, a good book, a cute bookmark, and maybe a snack that doesn’t get your fingers too dirty to turn the pages. Also, it should be raining. We read in millions of other settings too of course (peripatetic reading should be a sport), but this is our preferred setting. So why not make that dream come true for a reader you love? Put a cozy blanket, a bookmark, a gift card to their favorite bookstore, tea or coffee, a mug or teacup, a book, a snack, and some rain in a basket with a beautiful bow. Just don’t be mad if they vanish on Christmas day into the book cocoon that you so kindly purchased for them.

2: Their literary thumbprint

All book lovers would agree that certain books impact you in ways profound and become a part of your identity. Each person’s reading history is unique and what better way to capture that than with your thumbprint made out of your favorite book titles? Cherylsorg over at Etsy (good ol’ Etsy!) does just that; using a list of 50 - 60 of your favorite books and your thumbprint, she turns your reading life into a work of art. This is a pricey gift, but it would truly be a treasure.

1: Make fiction reality.

Obviously the number one absolutely most amazing gift you could ever give a book lover is a chance to step into one of their favorite books. I realize this is logistically impossible, but a close second to climbing into a book world is to go places that make it seem like you are climbing into a book world: take your friend on a trip to visit their favorite author’s old house or go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in Florida. Depending on your location, this may be more feasible for some of you than others. 

A gift like this would be more than worth all the hard work and money you put into it; this is the best gift for any book lover, because ultimately, we seek a world other than our own when we read and standing in liminal places like 221B Baker Street or the Charles Dickens museum, these two worlds — the world that is our lives and the worlds in our books — find common ground and we experience the surreal moment where things imagined become tangible. 

So don't dismiss this suggestion too quickly. Spend some time researching your area if you can’t go very far; you might be surprised at what you find that is within a reasonable distance. Or check out Novel Destinations from your library for ideas. 

For those of you in the Oregon area, another option is to check out the Sylvia Beach hotel, a cozy hotel with author-themed rooms that would make any book lover swoon.