The “Kid Who Waits for the Ice Cream Truck” Rule
I’ve just realized I haven’t posted anything in a dog’s age. Which is fine with me, as I don’t aspire to be the World’s Most Prolific Blogger. Anyway, I have a good reason. I’ve been locked away in hiding with the phones turned off, working on my next project.
It’s always hard to know whether the stuff you’re writing is any good or if it’s drivel. I just take it for granted that the whole way through first draft, my writing is going to be shit. And I try to get on with it.
This time around, I’ve been approaching the work differently from what I did before. It may or may not be evident in my writing that I look towards film a lot of the time for inspiration. (I know I’m not the only writer who does this.) Anyway, awhile back, for some reason, I went through a phase of watching anything that Steve Buscemi was in. I wound up watching a film he wrote and directed in 1996 called Trees Lounge.
This film doesn’t have much of a plot. My husband, if made to watch it, would be bored enough to chew off his own arm. I can’t even say that I particularly enjoyed it myself, at least not in the traditional way. But it certainly made an impression on me. The film is about a guy who’s this total fuck-up, waste-of-life drunk. Everything he touches turns to shit. There’s not much about this protagonist that’s redeeming at all, which is probably why the film appeals to me. Bukowski would feel right at home.
According to the Wikipedia entry about Trees Lounge, David Chase, who created The Sopranos, was also influenced by Buscemi’s flick. So I’m in good company here.
The thing about this film is the way it makes its point. The audience has a hard time caring about any of the main characters because they’re so far from likeable. In other words, they’re more like real people than we normally see in the movies. I’m usually fairly forgiving because of the dark stuff I like to write, but I couldn’t bring myself to root for anyone in that ensemble. Except for this one character with a part so small, he didn’t even have any lines. And that was the kid who waits for the ice cream truck.
That kid made me shed a tear each time I saw him.
The kid appears three times. In his first scene, he’s waiting on the sidewalk with his dollar in hand. He’s there to witness the ice cream truck crashing into a tree when the kindly old driver has a heart attack and dies behind the wheel. Ouch.
In the kid’s next scene, Steve Buscemi’s character, the fuck-up, has taken over the ice cream truck route. He’s so preoccupied with chatting up the underage girl he’s got in the truck with him (Chloe Sevigny) that he can’t do his job right. The kid runs inside to get his ice cream money and comes back out, waving his dollar, just in time to see the truck pull away.
In the kid’s third and last scene, Buscemi is in the midst of a crisis he’s created. He whizzes the ice cream truck right past the waiting kid, and you just know this poor kid is never in life going to get his ice cream. The look on the kid’s face is what does me in. He’s always confused and disappointed, but resigned to his fate.
I think this is an excellent study on how even your most irredeemable characters can be written to strike a chord with your audience. They do this by having an effect on the characters around them – negative though that effect may be. The kid is what my husband would refer to as “furniture” in a story – and yet his presence is completely effective at putting the finishing touches on the protagonist’s sheer abjectness. The kid makes the story complete.
Ever since I saw Trees Lounge, I’ve been using the kid and the ice cream truck as my benchmark. By this I mean, if I make it all the way through a story and there’s no one at all in the story to empathize with, then the story is lacking. (I wish I’d learned this lesson before I wrote Servicing the Pole.)
However. I don’t think it’s necessary to always have the audience empathize with your main character. In fact, I think when you’re writing a certain kind of protagonist, trying to make the audience empathize with the main character all the time can stultify the rest of your story.
A lot of people will disagree with me here. Fuck ‘em. I like main characters who are deeply flawed, and when you show someone who’s that flawed, most readers will not empathize with the character. Even if they do, they won’t want to. Empathy means you can picture yourself in the same situation. Most people don’t like to admit, even to themselves, that they’d ever be capable of being so flawed that they’d be irredeemable. And so even if you can force your reader to empathize, you’re going to incur her hostility. She will not like your story. She will probably not come back for another one.
I say, give yourself permission to write colorful characters who the audience would never in a million years want to be. But complete the picture by showing how those characters have their negative effect on absolutely everyone around them — even, and perhaps especially, on those characters who fall far below the radar and may not even have names.
Doing that, you’ll kill two birds with one stone. You’ll give the audience someone they can empathize with, so that the story matters to them. And you’ll also make your irredeemable main character that much more odious — and therefore, more complete.
Now with that said, I’m off to try to follow my own advice. 
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June 1st, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Emily not an empathic character? I think a lot of people can relate to struggling in a lifestyle that feels like it’s sapping your soul, that’s not how you meant to turn out.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Yeah, I never thought Emily was that far out, either. But I have been told by several industry types that she’s “too angry,” etc.
Aside from the Buscemi flick, other examples are the characters in either of the two Zoë Heller novels I’ve read – Everything You Know or Notes on a Scandal. When it comes to writing complex, well-rounded, and deeply flawed characters, Heller is masterful.
Here’s an article I enjoyed, where Heller speaks a bit about writing these types of characters.
Another one of my all-time favorites is Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin.
You just know writers like this have had to take their fair share of crap for their character choices. Gives me hope.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Your character was more of a kick in the pants to be more grateful for what I’m not. I do feel like I should have more empathy and respect for strippers and drug addicts, but in some impossible sort of way that doesn’t let me feel like I’m better than them. And yet if someone is jealous of me, they might have good reason to be…
Wait, I’m so confused! =P
I actually wanted to post to say good luck with aiming for the ice cream truck kid. I myself can’t picture how such a character would work. I would be afraid of tipping the scale into hatred for my main character. But that’s why you’re the author of course. =) Write on!
August 12th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I think that “There but for the grace of God go I” is a valid response to coming across someone who’s having a rough time. It doesn’t sound to me like you think you’re better than anyone, rather, you seem aware of and grateful for the opportunities you have had. That’s a perfectly respectable attitude as far as I’m concerned.