My previous post focused on a character’s action-objective. Now, I want to expand the discussion and consider action-objective in terms of parity.
In physics, parity may be defined as an intrinsic symmetry. In terms of narrative, parity means equality. It means that you, the writer, know and understand the motivation and objective of the viewpoint character and the important non-viewpoint characters in each scene. You know what they want and why. And if you don’t know what and why yet, you discover it.
For example: Say we are writing a scene from the viewpoint of Jane, a 37-year-old singer, who is engaged to Ray. Jane has been seeing her ex-husband behind her fiance’s back. It’s not an affair. Jane found out her ex has cancer and she still cares for him and he never remarried and she wants to be there for him. That makes sense, right? It does to Jane. But the guilt and secrecy are toxic to her new relationship and she has decided to confess all to Ray because she loves him. Her action-objective: to tell Ray, ease her guilt, and reassure her fiance of her love. If all goes well, after her confession, she and Ray will be even closer! Okay, so we could dive in and write the scene. That’s often what writers do, letting Ray react to Jane.
But wait. We want to make the best use of the scene’s organic tension and conflict without pumping things up. And often, there are deeper layers of conflict we have overlooked because we are focusing so totally on our protagonist. It’s time to check in with the other character(s) in the scene.
Parity demands that we give Ray his equal time. We (as author) need to know that Ray’s been suspecting Jane of an affair. He loves her but he is a man who craves intimacy and for weeks he’s been feeling her “absence”. They haven’t been close. Or, more accurately, where Ray has expected their intimacy to deepen, he’s felt Jane pulling away. He wants the woman he marries–the woman he commits to for life–to be equally committed. He has been tempted to tell Jane he wants to postpone the wedding. Maybe he’s even planned to confront her tonight. Ray was the only child of divorced parents and his bottom line–he wants complete trust with his mate.
Okay, it’s time these two people meet for dinner. Jane leads the dance because she’s our protagonist and she’s made up her mind to confess to her “non-affair.” But now we also know that Ray might ask for a time-out from the engagement. That may be his action-objective: he needs some time to reflect. When Jane confesses, she believes she’s giving Ray exactly what he needs, more intimacy and the reassurance that she is a truthful person. But–because of parity–we discover that Ray thinks he knows something about Jane that she is denying. Ray believes Jane is still in love with her ex-husband. Is she? Maybe! In that case, they both need time to figure things out. Or not! Needless to say, their dinner serves up plenty of conflict. And now the story spins in a new direction because both lovers are fully in action.
P.S. Knowing, as author, where your characters are coming from when they arrive in a scene does not mean that all or even any of those backstory details are spelled out on the page. The scene may consist entirely of action. Or action with only five lines of dialogue. Parity means that action and/or dialogue will arise dynamically from deep character.
