Last time, we discussed the Figure Problem—what it is, and
why it is a problem. We specifically examined situations in which a writer
introduces their first character as a nameless “figure” in the distance. But
the Figure Problem doesn’t only crop up at the beginning of a story or chapter.
Take a look at this example:
Jaimee moved
through the subway station, careful not to jostle anyone or attract attention
to herself in any way. Fortunately, most of the busy commuters were too
distracted to notice some drably-dressed teenager. She moved into the crowd
waiting for the train’s doors to open, and allowed the press of bodies to push
her up against the people nearest the train. Those people pushed her back
absentmindedly, not noticing when her hands slipped into their pockets and
purses. When the doors opened, Jaimee let the crowd carry her onto the train
and then slipped out the doors on the other side. She glanced over her shoulder
with a smirk; no one had noticed a thing.
When she looked
back at the platform, she paused. A figure stood by the stairs that led up to
the street—a tall, lanky woman with bleached-blonde hair and skin so tanned
that it was beginning to look like a crumpled, damp brown paper bag. The woman
wore huge, bug-eyed sunglasses and a black-and-white striped sundress that
seemed a few sizes too small, even for her skinny figure. Her garish red
lipstick matched her shiny red heels, which tapped loudly on the cement of the
platform as she toddled up to Jaimee with a predatory snarl.
“Hello, mother,”
Jaimee said, sighing.
“What do you
think you’re doing?” her mother hissed.
The format of the Figure Problem is here—first, we see a “figure,”
and then we’re given a progressively-increasing amount of detail about its
appearance and behavior before we finally find out who the figure is. The major
difference between this example and last time’s example is the perspective.
Last time, our example started in a vague, third-person
omniscient perspective and then eventually jumped into the point of view of the
“figure.” This time, we’re in the perspective of another character viewing the
figure. Since we’re already in third-person limited from Jaimee’s point of
view, we don’t jump to the mother’s point of view at the end.
This perspective change actually solves many of the problems
from last time. We avoid the slow, drawn-out beginning and the awkwardness of
not being inside the head of the “figure” when there was no reason not to be.
However, the new problem that is introduced is a perspective error.
Perspective Errors with the Figure Problem
Remember how third-person limited perspective works? Everything
the audience sees should come through Jaimee; we should essentially be riding
in her head and seeing what she experiences and thinks. Jaimee wouldn’t look at
her own mother, whom she obviously recognizes, and think, “Huh, there’s a woman
with bleached-blonde hair, etc.” She would look at the woman and think, “There’s
my mother.” Describing the appearance of some “figure” without identifying the
person's relationship to the perspective character implies that the character
doesn’t have a relationship with the
person.
The only reasons
to not give the name of a person your perspective character meets are these:
1. If they don’t know one another and your perspective
character doesn’t have a name to
assign to the person.
2. If the perspective character cannot see, hear, etc., well
enough to identify the other person as someone they know.
However, there’s another perspective error to watch out for
here. Let’s take our example from before and adapt it to fit the second reason
to not give a character’s name:
When she looked
back at the platform, she paused. A figure stood in the shadows by the stairs
that led up to the street, watching her. Jaimee squinted through the darkness
and could just make out a few details—the figure was a tall, lanky woman with
bleached-blonde hair. She wore huge, bug-eyed sunglasses and a black-and-white
striped sundress that seemed a few sizes too small, even for her skinny figure.
Her garish red lipstick matched her shiny red heels, which tapped loudly on the
cement of the platform as she toddled out of the shadows with a predatory snarl.
“Hello, mother,”
Jaimee said, sighing.
“What do you
think you’re doing?” her mother hissed.
With some shadows added to the scene, forcing Jaimee to squint
in order to make out details, it now makes sense that she wouldn’t recognize
her mother right away. This gives us justification to describe other details of
the mother’s appearance before actually identifying her as Jaimee’s mother. So
what’s the problem?
We were told that
Jaimee couldn’t make out who the figure was, and then a moment later, she calls
the woman “mother.” But when did she identify the mysterious woman as her
mother? It wasn’t at the moment she spoke—she’d obviously already discerned the figure’s
identity at that point. At some point, Jaimee realized that this woman was her
mother, and we didn’t see it happen; but we should have, because we’re in her
head.
This usually happens because the author doesn’t want to
spoil the reveal; an author writing this section probably feels like the line “Hello,
mother” has a certain oomph to it
that would be lost if the reader already knew that the figure was Jaimee’s mother,
even if they only found out a moment before. As in yesterday’s example,
however, this is unnecessary. Not every bit of information has to be “revealed.”
There’s no real reason to hide that this is Jaimee’s mother for the sake of
that line.
Or the writer could be trying to cut out superfluous lines
and didn’t feel it was necessary to tell us that Jaimee recognized her mother.
In some situations, that might be permissible, but I wouldn’t recommend it in
this instance (or most instances, for that matter). Jaimee was specifically
trying to figure out who the woman in the shadows was—skipping over the moment
of realization isn’t a good idea.
A perspective-error-free version of our original
example might look like this:
When she looked
back at the platform, she paused. A figure stood in the shadows by the stairs
that led up to the street, watching her. Jaimee squinted through the darkness
and could just make out a few details—the figure was a tall, lanky woman with
bleached-blonde hair. She wore huge, bug-eyed sunglasses and a black-and-white
striped sundress that seemed a few sizes too small, even for her skinny figure.
Jaimee winced. It was her mom.
Her mom toddled
out of the shadows with a predatory snarl. Her garish red lipstick matched her shiny
red heels, which tapped loudly on the cement of the platform.
“Hello, mother,”
Jaimee said, sighing.
“What do you
think you’re doing?” her mom hissed.
A Final Note
The word “figure” is extremely vague and nondescript. It gives the reader almost no useful information. Think about it: how often can you see a “figure” without being able to identify more descriptive characteristics? You could probably tell a figure’s gender from a distance; at the very least, you could tell that it was a human, a person. You might be able to tell their relative age—whether they’re a child or an adult. If you can be more descriptive, then do it! Only resort to something as vague as “figure” if you absolutely must.
