Many, many implications for our lives as data, our own personal memories, and what it means to learn.

TED video: Deb Roy, The Birth of a Word is a post from: PurpleCar

Hideous fonts may boost reading comprehension – Laura Miller – Salon.com.

Hideous fonts may boost reading comprehension – Laura Miller – Salon.com is a post from: PurpleCar

As a continuation of my previous post on Happiness, I’ll talk a little bit about Positive Psychology (PP) and the lessons we can learn, as writers, from this emerging field (perhaps in a way you might not predict, though.)

In 1998, the American Psychological Association’s then-president, Martin Seligman, used the term “Positive Psychology” to describe a new trend in Psychology research: the study of how humans become and stay happy. Dr. Seligman was tired of mental illness being the sole purpose of Psychology research and practice; He wanted Psychology to study more of what makes and keeps people happy instead of only mending the sick. PP has been the trending topic in Psych since then.  Graduate students are clamoring to study topics like resiliency, decision-making, sense of control, character strength and uplifting traits. Journals publish more and more studies about the effects of “learned optimism.” Books like Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert are topping New York Times’ bestseller lists.

Like with all emerging fields, PP has its critics.  The biggest and strongest critique of PP is that the field isn’t regulated.  Any person can stick the term “Positive Psychologist” on the end of their name and claim to know how to apply the concepts that certified scientists and counselors developed.  This means that every “life coach” kook is all over the Web promoting themselves as a “PP Counselor,” and no law or national certification program is barring them from doing so.

Another critique that is of lesser strength but more relevant to us as writers is the type of  personality PP seems to attract.  Those kooks on the internet and late-night infomercials are the most slimy of the bunch, but from an outsider’s view it does seem that the PP people have drunk the kool-aid.  PP people are very gung-ho and tend to be exuberant evangelists for the field.  The majority of them are do-gooders at heart; they want people to be happy and they think they’ve found science that can help.

Do you know a person like that?  A person who stresses the positive so adamantly that it becomes unbelievable or in the very least, annoying?  Your answer to this question will probably have more to do with your own place on the cynical scale than with the PP-type you’re remembering, but nonetheless let’s take a look at that character more closely. This person isn’t a snake-oil salesman; they are what I call a Believer.  For reasons they usually aren’t too familiar with themselves, Believers truly feel that their solution is the answer to many people’s problems. How does a first encounter with a person like this go?  What are you thinking?  What would by-standers think as they listened to your conversation?

One thing about people who are enthusiastic about life is that they are usually magnetic.  They light up a room, they are always surrounded by a crowd.  People naturally gravitate toward other people who are happy and seem in control.  But what happens when you get close enough to see that they are just trying a tiny bit too hard to be legitimate?  What if the consistency or substance isn’t there?  How does that character keep up the charade?  How do you see it?  How, if there is truly no substance, do you as a reader discover it? Will it be in the Believer’s frayed pant leg or missing button?  Will it be in the quick glance down she makes after every human encounter? Just like the emerging field of PP, every character must have cracks in the armor.  Even the Truest-Happiest-Believer-of-All-Things-Positive has a ding in the shield.  What is it?  Does the critique of that person’s belief-system hold water?  Could the character make a journey over time to mend the damage?

You need both positive and negative forces in opposing characters for your novel or work of fiction to be memorable.  Chart which side, positive or negative, your character will fall on.  No middle ground.  You can make a sliding scale (using a common measurement tactic from Psychology), but you still must divide the scale into two halves.  The scale can have two of any extremes (e.g. Grape Jelly Fan vs Strawberry Jelly Fan), but you need to put each of your characters on that spectrum.

If PP had its way with your characters, they would test them on a variety of scales to diagnose current states and predict future behaviors.  PP would look at self-efficacy (which is like “agency” – the ability and belief that one can accomplish tasks and goals on their own), resiliency (the ability to bounce back from trauma) and perhaps even sense of humor and daily laughter rates.  The science behind PP is the same as a lot of Personality, Developmental, and Behavioral Psychology, they are just choosing to measure different traits.  As writers, we tend to go into the dark sides of characters; It’s almost easier to write drama than it is to write pleasantries.  But having no happy characters, or people who are optimists that promote achievement and satisfaction in others, isn’t giving your novel the opportunity for some significant conflicts.

Wacko Wednesdays: Positive Psychology is a post from: PurpleCar

***Wacko Wednesdays:  Each Wednesday, I’ll outline a human quirk or phenomenon in the study of Personality Psychology, or perhaps talk about a specific type of research into personality.  I’ll provide information, links, and my own experiences to help you along in your goals of writing memorable characters.***

Writers don’t write about mothers much.  I was at a writing conference where the speaker asked the audience to call out something they’d read that examined the mother-child relationship.   No-one spoke up.  The speaker had made her point.  The mother/child relationship is very complex and close to the heart.  Even Disney likes to kill off moms so they don’t have to deal with trying to navigate those murky-mommy-issues waters.  Fathers, on the other hand, abound in fiction. Father’s Day is this Sunday.  Because we know all psychosis comes from our parents (not!), for today’s Wacko Wednesdays, let’s talk about at writing about the father/child relationship, or writing a character as a father.

For decades, psych research focused on the mother’s parenting as pathology for mental illness in children.  More and more, researchers are looking at the father’s influence (especially with the area of girls and eating disorders). The father’s attitudes and behaviors toward parenting would influence your main character (MC).  The father’s raising of your MC will probably all be backstory that happens offstage (i.e. not in the novel), but it is perhaps the most important character detail that fuels your MC’s current motivations. Let’s take a look at how some psych research examines how a father’s behaviors influence his children.

In the book, “The Role of the Father in Child Development” (.pdf of intro here), Editor Michael E. Lamb outlines the 3 areas that many researchers concentrate on when researching the father/child relationship: Engagement, Accessibility, and Responsibility.

“Whether and how much time fathers spend with their children are questions at the heart of much research conducted over the past three decades. In the mid-1970s a number of investigators sought to describe—often by detailed observation and sometimes also through detailed maternal and paternal reports—the extent of paternal interactions with children (Pleck & Masciadrelli, this volume; Lamb & Lewis, this volume). Many of these researchers have framed their research around the three types of paternal involvement (engagement, accessibility, responsibility) described by Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, and Levine (1987). As Pleck and Masciadrelli note, researchers have consistently shown that fathers spend much less time with their children than do mothers. In two-parent families in which mothers are unemployed, fathers spend about one-fourth as much time as mothers in direct interaction or engagement with their children, and about a third as much time being accessible to their children. Many fathers assume essentially no responsibility (as defined by participation in key decisions, availability at short notice, involvement in the care of sick children, management and selection of alternative child care, etc.) for their children’s care or rearing, however, and the small subgroup of fathers who assume high degrees of responsibility has not been studied extensively. Average levels of paternal responsibility have increased over time, albeit slowly, and there appear to be small but continuing increases over time in average levels of all types of paternal involvement.”

Engagement, Accessibility and Responsibility are the three things you can think about when forming your character.

Engagement:  How “hands-on” was your MC’s father when she was small?  Was he a good guy but had a job that took him away often?  Did he just seem like he was yelling everytime he spoke to his kids, but he was just trying to encourage them?

Accessibility:  Could your MC bring any question under the sun to her dad or was she relegated to communicating with him through his secretary?  Did he send the MC off to boarding school and say “See ya at Christmas?”  Was there always a DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door, but he was very attentive at dinner time?

Responsibility:  Did your MC’s father support his family well?  Was he a good earner but a fierce disciplinarian?  Was he a drinker but loved his family with all his heart?  Was he a drifter that constantly told his kids to reach for the stars?

Look for ways you can build in contradictions in each of these areas, then think about how a kid would reconcile those inconsistencies.  How we judge people is a lot of our character.  A father’s personality greatly influences our sense of judgment. In flat characterizations, fathers are either no-good bums or unsung heroes, drinking louses or quiet loyalists.  Usually a main character (MC) comes to acknowledge the father’s cheating ways or learns to appreciate the constant wisdom that they couldn’t recognize before.  It’s all so cheesy and cheap.  Try to go for some more depth.  What kind of roles does the father character in your book play?  What kind of parent is he?  Is he a stand-offish, everyone-has-to-learn-for-themselves kind of guy or is he a soccer dad that is with his kids every step of the way? How can he be both?  What generation is he in?  Is he a 70-year-old but a modern diaper-changing/sling-wearing dad?  Was he raised to think he’d let the kids grow up before he had any kind of relationship with them, even though he’s just 20 years old?

Take those three aspects of measuring fatherhood, Engagement, Accessibility and Responsibility, and mix and match good and bad characteristics of each.  Make the father character a conflicted, true-hearted, complicated being that marked your MC with distinctive world views. Happy Father’s Day, to all of those dads out there!

Wacko Wednesdays: Fathers is a post from: PurpleCar

Wacko Wednesdays: Happiness

***After a long hiatus, Wacko Wednesdays are back!  Each Wednesday, I’ll outline a human quirk or phenomenon in the study of Personality Psychology.  I’ll provide information, links, and my own experiences to help you along in your goals of writing memorable characters.***

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  -United States Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 4th 1776.

Happy Muffin!

Happiness research has taken the Psychology world by storm.  If you search any book site for the word “Happiness,” you will see a plethora of books written on the subject.  Lately I’ve been reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.  It’s academic research and theory about attaining happiness and how our judgment about what will make us happy in the future is ridiculously skewed by our present thinking.

This book and the advent of other titles in the positive psychology area have inspired me to think about how we, as writers, paint the picture of our characters’ states of happiness.  By looking at your MC and her goals in terms of her motivations and methods of attaining happiness, you can paint a deeper picture of what drives us all.

I’m sure you are familiar with the basic story arc: Main character (MC) starts out with a status quo, then challenges galore are thrown at the MC, lots of roadblocks stand in the way of achieving the new happiness goal, MC overcomes, is a changed person.  The end.    Today for Wacko Wednesdays I’ll run down two phenomena that researchers, namely David Myers, have identified as influencing a person’s happiness, namely Relative Deprivation and Adaptation.

Phenomenon #1: Relative Deprivation

“when we compare ourselves with those less fortunate, we can, however, increase our satisfaction. As comparing ourselves with those better-off creates envy, so comparing ourselves with those less well-off boosts contentment.” -David Myers

Lately I’ve been reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a classic piece of American literature that portrays a devastatingly poor family and their survival struggles in 1900’s New York.  It’s actually making me feel quite good.

Yes I know that sounds bad.  But here it is:  My husband, my two kids and I live in the smallest house in our neighborhood.  We live on my husband’s salary as I’m a full-time mom, but we truly have more than enough.  Still, this suburban life and the American consumerism gets to everybody.  We are inundated with ads to buy more stuff, we read stories of neighbors’ huge home improvements, we hear kids describing their African safari vacations. It’s an affluent area and it seems, at times, that we aren’t keeping up with the Joneses.

The unfortunate Nolan family portrayed in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, truly has nothing.  When they mention clothes, they mean one pair of pants and one shirt for a man and one dress for a woman.  Can you imagine?  I look at my closet full of plain, solid-colored Old Navy t-shirts and feel loaded (wealthy, not drunk).  When the Nolan family mentions meals, they mean oatmeal with no milk or fruit.  I open the freezer each morning and lazily wonder which hunk of meat I have to make that night.  While they want for decent immune systems, we struggle to fight our ever-expanding waistlines.  This book makes me feel so fortunate that I may start it all over again once I’m finished! This is Relative Deprivation at work.  How rich you feel is totally dependent on who you are comparing yourself to. Compared to the Nolans (or many real people in this economy), my husband and I are doing great!  Compared to our friends the doctors, with their big house and insanely lavish vacations, we’re struggling.

photo by Drawsome on Flickr

What do most good ol’ Amurrricanz do when they feel like they are poorer than everyone else?  Apparently they buy lottery tickets.  Recent research has shown the Relative Deprivation phenomenon in full-swing in lottery ticket buyers.  If people are feeling deprived, they make the trip to the local bodega to pick up their Pick 6’s. If they feel better off than their neighbors, they don’t buy lottery tickets.

Here are the questions you can ask yourself about your MC’s Relative Deprivation feelings:  Is she better or worse off than her neighbors, peers, family members?  When does she feel better off and when does she feel worse?  What makes her feel superior?  What kinds of behaviors result from those feelings?  How does she make herself feel better in the short term? Does she eat?  Does she steal their watches? Does she retreat into her packed charity-ball schedule? How does her current state of feeling deprived influence her dreams for the future?  Does she coast when she feels affluent or better off in some other way?  Coasting is what most of us do once we achieve a certain goal or milestone.  That brings us to Adaptation.

Phenomenon #2.  Adaptation

“I’ll never get used to anything.  Anybody that does, they might as well be dead.” ~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1958, spoken by the character Holly Golightly

Adaptation is what happens when a person has hit a windfall, achieved a goal, or just plain got lucky when that Good Samaritan pulled him out of the path of that oncoming bus.  We adapt to having an inheritance, being a college graduate, or being alive to wander into the bus lane again.  The “new” becomes the “same old.”  Lottery winners, on average, aren’t significantly happier than the rest of us when they are surveyed 5 years later.  We dream about California living but apparently Californians register on the same levels in happiness scales as the rest of us.  (See Daniel Gilbert’s book).  We adapt to the new status quo.

When my husband and I moved from Center City to the house in the suburbs, we didn’t see it as the smallest one in the neighborhood.  We saw it as huge and wondered how we’d ever fill it with furniture.  We had just moved from a trinity on Naudain street, banging our heads each time we came down the skinny and treacherous spiral staircase.  The kitchen in that all-stacked-on-top-of-each-other house was tiny and there was no room for the baby I was carrying.  But that house on Naudain was a palace compared to our 3rd-floor walk-up at 18th and Pine. Now we are here in the suburbs for almost 10 years, we’ve lost our coveted and elusive guest bedroom to a second child, and we’d like to upgrade to a food processor and a breadmaker if we had the space in our now-tiny kitchen.  We’ve adapted.  I can read a thousand tragic poverty books (Angela’s Ashes is next), but try as I might, I can’t roll back my “want” clock to the days when we were two grad students living in a 1st-floor alley apartment.  Since that hole-in-the-wall had no light, I simply dreamed of having a view of the street.

Here are some questions about Adaptation that you can ask yourself about your MC: Has she had a windfall of luck lately (e.g., landed that dream job, attracted a super-hero boyfriend, or inherited large sums from an obscure aunt)?  What happens to her after?  Does she adapt and want more?  Does desire for more turn into a disease that will be her undoing?  When is the exact point where she takes her new life for granted?  Does she ever grow enough to notice?  Does she freak out, donate her lottery winnings to a bald-cat nursing home and flee to the Himalayas to live a life of solitude?  Or, like most of us, does she just treat herself to a 1-million-calorie Frappuccino that week?

In their very basic structure, all of the archetypes and character journeys center around some kind of resolution, some little bit of happiness.  Characters are going after a goal; the pursuit and the accomplishment will, they think, make them happy in some way.  The goal could be revenge, it could be love, it could be fifty-two cents.  They achieve the goal.  Everything is coming up roses and they are turning up noses. But then they adapt. Showing your character’s general state of happiness before, during and after the accomplishment of her main goal will help to give life to her and her story.  In daily life, we may overlook details, but in general we are conscious to our own state of happiness.  The pursuit of happiness drives us.  It will drive your character, too.  Show us her struggles to reach her personal happiness.  Be brave and show us what life looks like for her after she gets all she (thought she) wanted.  Be honest with yourself and your characters.  As writers, we are obligated to speak the unspoken truth, especially in our fiction.  Mix in a little rough Relative Deprivation and astonishing Adaptation, and your writing will come alive.

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And of course stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Please comment and let me know your thoughts.  -PC

Wacko Wednesdays: Happiness is a post from: PurpleCar

I never enter contests, especially not writing contests.  It’s usually too much trouble. Sitting around last night watching TV, I wrote up an entry for super-geek Chris Pirillo’s contest.  He’s giving away a bunch of major HP swag.  The entry with the most comments wins.  It’s as simple as that.  Pretty fun.  My entry is fun, but it isn’t controversial nor tech heavy enough to elicit enough comments to win.  Chris is also value-rating the comments, so silliness doesn’t count.  It was a productive exercise though. I joined Chris Pirillo’s GEEKS! social network several weeks ago.  It’s an active community, albeit too large and disproportionately male.  You should check it out.  It’s got a good open source vibe. My entry is entitled “How to Raise Kids and Propagate the Geek Species 201.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek syllabus for a “Geek University” course where I use geek terms to explain “five main guidelines on how to properly raise geeky spawn from pre-alpha stage to formal launch and Initial Public Offering.”  Check it out.

Entry on Geeks! is a post from: PurpleCar

photo by FlyingintheFace

Fly Away Home
______________________________

the moon drifts behind clouds
and shuts off its light.
he waits.

the moon jumps out
then back in,
teasing him like a firefly
floating in the dark.

the road bends.

(dere dit is!) he cheers.
he lights up.
he’s found silver.

(touch) he says (moonah?)
(ooooh reach)
Too High, I Say.

headlamps show only a few feet ahead.
we turn again.

(oh no! moonah!)
It’s OK. I Say.
Tomorrow.

(no, mooonah..)
Rest Now. I Say.

the exit comes
and we change direction
once again.

(moonah! dere dit is! oh, yes!)
(winnow? downah?)

i press the button.
the smooth whirr of the motor
sinks the barrier away.

(mama, yook moonah touch)
he pushes against the restraints
to stick his tiny wing
out to coast on
the summer highway winds.

Ooooh. Mooooonah. Touch.

he has forgotten me
he is flying.

Fly Away Home is a post from: PurpleCar

Showing personality through habitual wordings.

If you could see all the different kinds of real life characters I come across in the tech geek community, you’d never wonder why I spend too much of my writing time on-line. There are some true characters in the Web2.0 crowd, both good ones and bad ones, cheerleaders and haters, zen gurus and crazies. The egos on some of these guys (and I mean guys, because the women are mostly cool) are bigger than the numbers on a bookie’s ‘you owe me’ list. Seriously, it is a VERY good thing that space online is virtual, because the amount of real estate needed to house these overblown self-images would mean we’d have to take over the Americas and then kidnap scientists to develop moon colonies. Like my favorite fiction-writing saying goes: You can’t make this stuff up.

Anyway, FriendFeed is a website where I hang out with these geeks. Forget the friendly name – these people are neither friends nor providers of any food. FriendFeed is an aggregator, i.e. one website that collects little bits from other websites, where you can type in comments in response to those little bits. It’s like a chatroom, but not live.

A big name in this place and in the tech geek community at large is Robert Scoble. I won’t even try to describe Robert; you can google him, he practically owns the interwebz. Recently on FriendFeed he linked to a site run by another start-up boom gazillionaire, Mark Cuban. Mark wrote a short rant about a pet peeve of his. Mr. Cuban’s personality *ahem* shows:

You Just Dont Get It

Jul 5th 2008 3:24PM

I just want to put it out there to save everyone and anyone who deals with me time. If at any point in time you utter the words “Just Don’t Get It” or “Just Doesn’t Get It” in any conversation with me, I will not do business with you.

If you try to justify your business, idea, proposal or whatever and in the course of conversation you utter these words, you have just proven to me that you are lazy. That rather than discussing the merits of another position, you think I’m stupid enough to dismiss that position because you want me to.

If you truly understand your topic its really easy to stand behind your position with facts and well thought concepts. If you have no idea what you are talking about, the other side “just doesn’t get it”

Call it a Mark Cuban rule of investing. If these words come up in any way shape or form, they just dont get “it”. “It” being an investment of my time or money.

Under Robert’s link to the above rant by Mark, a lot of the conversation centers around what “You just don’t get it” really means and bickering over who ‘gets it.’ It got me thinking about how catch phrases can do a great job in portraying a character’s general attitude toward the world. Catch phrases are an efficient way to show a lot of inner information and motivation about a character with a few uttered words of dialog.

The “you don’t get it” phrase is condescending and is meant to stop all protests from the receiver. You can picture the prodigy hacker kid with limited verbal skills screaming it at her parents. We can see an emo teenager saying it through a cloud of his clove cigarette smoke to a wide-eyed punk wannabe outside the coffee shop. And let’s not forget the 60’s, where “you just don’t get it” was the tagline for a whole drug-doused generation.

What is your character’s outlook on life? How can that outlook be condensed into a few words? For example, an administrative assistant who says “F*ck me” under his breath several times through the course of his day is probably a bit of a pessimist who thinks that fate is out to get him. “Everybody deserves a second chance” may be the what gets a slightly-delusional injured kicker through the season.

There are several catch phrases from movies that you can adopt or adapt, like “Life is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump repeated his mother’s adage; it shows the flexibility and resiliency inherent in his character. (Warning: Don’t use that one, though, it’s been too done. You get the idea).

So when you’re thinking about your character’s personality, think about how they’d ‘sum up’ life. Which common or original phrase you could use to portray that perspective? (Warning: Don’t let your character use the catchphrase too often, unless it’s “K-Mart Sucks” and his name is Rainman.) Pepper key scenes in the story with it in dialog or thought. Bonus points: make up a saying that sounds like it could be a common adage.

Do you have a personal catch phrase? No? Ask your spouse or co-workers – they’ll tell you. Think of ones you may have used in the past and start from there. Cool beans! Share your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

L8r aggregator.

Wacko Wednesdays: YOU JUST DON’T GET IT: Catch Phrases is a post from: PurpleCar

***I posted about Multiple Intelligences back in November of 2007.  This is an expansion of that short post.***

Twitter is a site where a person can post a message to a bunch of friends at once.  Sometimes Twitter works like a bulletin board (where you pin up your notice and get no replies) and sometimes it works like an on-line chatroom with a ton of conversations going on at once.

Last night I replied to a post from my friend Laura.  She questioned how it would be possible for someone named Angelina to have a high IQ score (around 136 I think).  Assuming Laura was referring to Angelina Jolie, I responded that a 136 score, albeit high, isn’t uncommon and Ms. Jolie seems capable of such a score.

A firestorm erupted, and this time it wasn’t about Angelina Jolie’s shenanigans.  All sorts of Tweets (i.e. posts) popped up containing anger over the concept of intelligence testing and the permanent public (and more important personal) branding that can ensue afterwards.  My contacts on Twitter interpreted my Tweets as support for and true belief in the IQ test.  At 12:30 a.m., after much varied discussion and much qualification from me, the storm died down enough for me to go to bed.  Embers were still smoldering this morning, as I had a quite few messages waiting for me in my inbox.

As a professional, I am well-schooled in the concept of IQ testing.  In developmental and educational Psychology, the practice of attempting to predict academic performance is well studied and widely used.  I know the history of IQ testing, I know how it is statistically ‘normed,’ I know the design of the questions, the infrastructure of the test and subjects, the list goes on.  You can’t get a decent B.S. in Psychology and a M.Ed. in Educational Psychology without studying testing (not just IQ testing) in painful depth.  Furthermore, my Masters degree focused on research and measurement.  In one course, I actually had to write questions.   So yeah, I know about testing.

The sadness and anger that came about over one or two passing posts made me think about how misunderstood the IQ test is.  The IQ test (most commonly used is the WISC) is meant to predict academic performance, nothing else (there are controversies surrounding it, the most common attack on the test being that it caters to a very specific population.  That is an entirely different post!)  But people who aren’t ‘in the business’ of Psychology and testing catch only the brunt of it.  And indeed, in some backward  districts, one bout of the flu can throw you off an appropriate academic track for your the rest of your elementary career.  The psychological effects of knowing your IQ test score and the public’s view of it can be devasting and long-lasting.

Those emotions definitely came out on Twitter last night.  Many parents and educators felt some relief from the pressure since 1983 when Howard Gardner published a book that proposed other types of intelligences (like Interpersonal) that weren’t measured by any IQ tests.  Dr. Gardner touched a nerve, in the same way a high-level researcher does when she announces scientifically sound evidence that chicken soup helps heal the common cold; We all (especially mothers) sent up a resounding “DUH!”

Today for Wacko Wednesdays, I’ll present part II of Multiple Intelligences.  I’ll better outline Dr. Gardner’s famous theory for my friends on Twitter and writers struggling over the lack of depth in their characters.  Have no fear if your IQ score in 2nd grade was less than ideal!  Don’t worry if your main character is a dud!  Below are some interesting skills that can liven up any party, fictional or non!

Have you thought about your character’s pretend IQ scores?  Is he a genius of observation (Sherlock Holmes) or is he on the very low end of the IQ distribution (Lennie Small – Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men)?  Is she street smart (Stephanie Plum) or totally innocent to the ways of the world (Alice in Wonderland)?  We all know the stereotype of the absent-minded professor or the waitress with a heart of gold.  The mechanic that can fix anything under the sun.  The painter who solves a mounting problem for the NASA space shuttle crew.  The kind neighbor who truly wants to know the answer to ‘How are you doing?’  The awesome kid with the crappy parents who you wish you could just adopt, but who seems to make her own way in the world despite her horrid circumstances.  The list goes on.  Mix one of the ‘alternate’ intelligences in their make-ups and you’ll have a recipe for memorable characters.

According to the on-line free encyclopedia Wikipedia, “Gardner originally identified seven core intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. In 1999 he added an eighth, the naturalistic intelligence, and indicated that investigation continues on whether there is an existential intelligence.” (I’ve read the entry and it seems accurate).

Please read the Wikipedia entry for more detail.  I will give a very brief description along with some creative examples of characters who display those traits.  Wikipedia quotes are in italics.

Verbal-Linguistic: Good at languages, words, speaking, etc.  Bi-lingual characters would be skilled in this.  Mix up the Spanish and English syntax sometimes when your character speaks to show a more common person.  To write a snooty character, have him correct his Mexican mother’s syntax in both languages.  “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include writers, lawyers, philosophers, journalists, politicians and teachers.”

Logical-Mathematical: Sherlock Holmes all the way.  Deduction, computer coding, lie detecting, research, etc.  Less about math than logical reasoning. A typical character would be a small girl who has a lisp and is terribly shy but is a crackerjack detective; she can also see through her evil grandmother’s lies.  “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include scientists, mathematicians, engineers, doctors and economists.”

Spatial: Can mentally picture objects.  Wait, you think, “We can all do this.”  But can you turn the mental image of the object over, around, up, down, sideways and inside out?  Spatial reasoning types do this at (and with) their breakfasts.  They never get lost either, as they have a very keen sense of direction.  Mice are also good at this.  Drop your ‘stupid’ (yet spatially inclined) main character in a maze with a bunch of Harvard students and see who gets out first.  “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include artists, engineers, and architects.”

Bodily-Kinesthetic: Super skilled sporty type, performers, learn more by physically doing a task than seeing it done.  Imagine a character who is a member of a circus family that is mute but is the equivalent of a savant on the trapeze; he can do stunts that no-one in the world has done, and he can be soggy-wet drunk doing them. “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include athletes, dancers, actors, surgeons, comedians, builders, soldiers and artisans.”

Musical: Very aware of sounds, rhythms, patterns in sounds, tones.  Can memorize hundreds, if not thousands, of melodies.  The kid on the street corner who knocks out a beat with stolen drumsticks.  The practically deaf composer.  The temporary secretary in the office who is an amateur opera singer, struggling to get a bit part on Broadway. “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include instrumentalists, singers, conductors,disc-jockeys, and composers.”

Interpersonal: Plays well with others.  Can read a face like a kid can read a ‘Snickers’ logo.  Sometimes swayed in the tides of other people’s emotions.  Empathetic.  A way to twist the interpersonal skill is to have a creepy ESP character that knows the emotions of people just by standing next to them.  Make the character blind to boot.  Great stuff. “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include politicians, managers, teachers, social workers and diplomats.”

Intrapersonal: See the difference? Inter and InTRA?  InTRApersonal skills have to do with self-reflection.  These types are deep, man.  The neighborhood philosopher who reads Plato on her stoop every night and answers every question with a metaphor for the soul.  The hippie skateboarder punk who sits alone, pondering the wheel that is the universe. “Careers which suit those with this intelligence include philosophers, psychologists, theologians, writers and scientists.”

What other intelligences can you think of, like “street smarts” that are a mash-up of two or more of the 7 cited above?  What is a “chicken soup” kind of intelligence that isn’t listed and can’t be measured so easily?  Spiritual intelligence?  Moral?  Existential? Where do you, and your characters, fit in this wide and uncharted territory of the mind?

Wacko Wednesdays: Multiple Intelligences II is a post from: PurpleCar

My husband Gary and I have a friend (who we haven’t seen in a while) named Dave. We met Dave in college. Dave was a very short and slight guy with a personality bigger than a house. Dave was bubbly and he loved everything and everybody. Besides the incredible penchant for enjoying life, Dave seemed like your typical college student. He hung out with us, drank beer, played pool (and lost miserably but never cared) and stressed over term papers. Everything was copacetic.

Until one day Dave announced that he was getting a part-time job at the McDonald’s on campus. That in itself didn’t seem so bad, but then Dave enthusiastically announced that he asked for the first shift. A cry of disbelief rose from the room of friends. “DUDE! That means you’ll have to get up at like, 4 AM in the MORNING!” Dave brushed off our warnings of sure failure and happily started his job at MickeyD’s, sometimes leaving the house before the sun rose. We all gave him a week.

Well. Weeks came and went. Dave was cheerier than ever. Many friends of friends asked us if they could buy some of whatever Dave was ‘on.’ Finally, my boyfriend Gary (now my husband Gary) and I sat Dave down and asked him what was up.

“I just fit in there.” Dave said. “It’s like hanging out with your friends all morning instead of working. It’s totally great!” We were still unconvinced. Maybe Dave was taking drugs. “Listen, why don’t you come in one morning and visit? Then you can see how much fun it is.”

So, somehow Gary and I found our way to the Mickey D’s at some ungodly hour of the morning. I think it was 8 a.m. Crusty-eyed and weary, we stumbled into the eatery. It was practically empty, except for one corner. About 6 or 7 males, all senior citizens, were sitting and chatting, occasionally sipping coffee, and bursting out laughing every few seconds. We searched our pockets for some change and looked for Dave at the counter. A woman behind the register asked to take our order. “Umm, is Dave here? We came to see Dave.” “He’s on break,” she said, and she pointed to a spot behind us.

We turned around. In our sleepy haze, we hadn’t seen Dave sitting smack dab in the middle of those old men, being the life of the party. Dave had them cracking up. We were shocked. Dave, all be him happy and lively, was definitely not funny. He told corny jokes and near-miss puns that were awkward at best. He quoted lines from It Happened One Night and Casablanca. He was just, well, weird.

But here he was, playing to this crowd of gray hairs like he was Big Man on Campus. It was incredible; They loved him! They would talk to the MickeyD’s manager to finagle him longer breaks. They were usually at the door when Dave opened it up in the morning. They sat and sat, past the late hour of 8 a.m. and waited sometimes until 9 before they left, visiting with each other and Dave.

Dave introduced us to each one by name, with proper handshakes all around. One gentleman offered me his seat. They moved their hats from the tabletop to their laps. They showered Dave with mock insults like a bunch of buddies at a sock hop. Dave handed out the barbs right back. Dave was all of a sudden witty and sharp! It was strange to admit, but this group of gray hairs brought out the best in him. He really did fit in.

We talked to Dave later that day. “I’ve always gotten along with that generation better than my own,” he said. “I can’t explain it. I just feel like I’m a 70 year-old trapped in this 20 year-old body. I’ve always felt like that. Not that I feel old. Those guys are just like you and me.”

He excitedly told us that this group volunteered as ushers at the stadium downtown. Dave was going to start ushering baseball games and other events with them. “They’re like kids, you should see them. They prank each other and try to scam free ice cream from the vendors. It’s hilarious!” It meant that more of Dave’s time would be spent away from us, but there was no denying he was in his element. That day we saw who Dave really was, how Dave really saw himself. When we graduated and all moved back to the Philly area, Dave started dating retirees. And ya know what? It was perfectly natural.

Characters don’t always need unrelenting darkness to be interesting. Every day personality quirks like Dave’s can drive an entire novel.

Let’s turn to demographics for some hints.

Demographics is the study of generations and their behaviors. Used mostly in marketing and economics, demographics is a great place for a writer to begin when looking for character traits.

Each generation, usually everyone (in the USA) born within a 20 year span, has shared values and perspectives. In general, a Baby Boomer would be thrilled with a new RV and a Generation Xer would be pumped to get the latest hybrid. A War Generation (Rosie the Riveter and WWII GI Joe) person would never drive a Japanese Car, but Generation Y buys new and used Japanese cars as soon as they can drive.*

Although these generalizations don’t necessarily apply to individuals, you can get an idea of how your character’s world view was formed by the events surrounding them as they were growing up off stage (‘off stage’ is a writing term meaning ‘events that you don’t write about and readers assume have happened’). If your character is 50 years old, you can look up the pop charts and see what the biggest song was the year they were born (1958 – Domenico Modugno Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) ) or perhaps more importantly, the year of their first kiss (1973 – Tony Orlando/Dawn Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree. Although, for that particular flashback I’d choose #4 on that same chart: Marvin Gaye Let’s Get It On).

Sometimes you can make a character interesting, like our real-life friend Dave, by just changing their personality profile to sync with a generation that is different than theirs. In my novel-in-progress, I have a Baby Boomer character that acts more like the ‘square’ parents of her generation. You can imagine a 15-year-old of today that listens to funk and dresses like Sly and The Family Stone. Hollywood movie scripts love this kind of nostalgic young character with “wholesome values” of times gone by set against a modern day backdrop. Last year’s kids movie “Nancy Drew Mysteries” played on this gag throughout the movie. Sci-Fi, in particular, loves the ‘time-transported male hero saves the day with good old-fashioned ingenuity” theme. This unexpected switch in demographic profile can drive a plot.

Below is a very basic chart of ‘Memorable Events’ that shaped the minds of each generation. Use them as a starting block to form a mental picture of your character’s demographic profile. Remember, these are just starting points. Avoid stereotyping your characters. Dave (and the rest of us) will thank you.

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1912-Present General Characteristics per Cohort (‘cohort’ means ‘age group’ in this instance)

* Depression cohort (born from 1912 to 1921)
o Memorable events: The Great Depression, high levels of unemployment, poverty, lack of creature comforts, financial uncertainty
o Key characteristics: strive for financial security, risk averse, waste-not-want-not attitude, strive for comfort

* Pre ‘World War II cohort’ (born from 1922 to 1927)
o Memorable events: men leaving to go to war and many not returning, the personal experience of the war, women working in factories, focus on defeating a common enemy
o Key characteristics: the nobility of sacrifice for the common good, patriotism, team player

* World War II cohort (born from 1928 to 1945)
o Memorable events: sustained economic growth, social tranquility, The Cold War, McCarthyism
o Key characteristics: conformity, conservatism, traditional family value

* Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from 1946 to 1954)
o Memorable events: assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, political unrest, walk on the moon, Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s movement, protests and riots, experimentation with various intoxicating recreational substances
o Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented

* Baby Boomer cohort #2 (born from 1955 to 1964)
o Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the cold war, the oil embargo, raging inflation, gasoline shortages
o Key characteristics: less optimistic, distrust of government, general cynicism

* Generation X cohort (born from 1965 to 1979)
o Memorable events: Challenger explosion, Iran-Contra, social malaise, Reaganomics, AIDS, safe sex, single parent families
o Key characteristics: quest for emotional security, independent, informality, entrepreneurial

* Generation Y cohort also called N Generation (born from 1980 to 2001)
o Memorable events: rise of the internet, September 11 attacks, cultural diversity, 2 wars in Iraq
o Key characteristics: quest for physical security and safety, patriotism, heightened fears, acceptance of change, technically savvy, environmental issues

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* Car buying profiles taken from The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Demographic Storm by Kenneth W. Gronbach

Wacko Wednesdays: Demographics is a post from: PurpleCar