Dichotomy

I think, for the most compelling fiction, it's important to get some dichotomy in your character. In fact, it's essential. According to Dictionary.com, dichotomy means:

division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.

And that, folks, is how most of us are.

Along my "path," I try to live my thoughts as action. But I fail. In thought, I am a loving mother who wants to be patient and mentally present and in the moment. In action? My toddler can now open the freezer, and he just came to me at 8:30 a.m. eating his second Dora the Explorer popsicle. And I let him, because I have a deadline.

But popsicles aside, I actually mean something more complex. In my new top-secret book project the clan is Russian. And as I am writing, I am reminded of my grandmother on my father's side, who was, briefly, written into The Roofer. And as I am writing about the clan--who are vehemently anti-Communist, I laugh as I remember things about my grandmother. She hated the Communists. And she believed everything you read in Americna newspapers--even this one--was true. Because it was the American press, not the Communist press. If it was printed, it MUST be true. She also trusted pretty much no one--and who could blame her after escaping during the Revolution. Which meant she was FAIRLY certain the minister next door was involved in a scheme to sell crack, and he left BAGS of money in his trash can and the sanitation company took the cash and delivered crack. I can't make this stuff up. And yet . . . she told the most beautiful stories, like one time she said she was down at the river in Russia and she found diamonds--REAL diamonds--in the stones there. But of course, I am sure they were crystals, and yet her naive belief that they were diamonds was very sweet. She told the story of a 14-year-old opera singer, who used to sing for the aristocracy (of which my grandmother was part of) who was taken to the town square and shot during the Revolution because her voice was too expressive. And when my grandmother was alone, she played piano beautifully--gracefully. Yet she could yell at you as soon as look at you--all four feet something of her.

I get irritated sometimes, in fiction, when people write about old people as all spunky--with no depth of sorrow or loss or strange dichotomies. We ALL have them. The clan in my book is tight--but they are ruthless against the enemy. They are brilliant and funny--unless they get talking about the Communists, in which case, if they've had too much vodka, they may cry--or vow to go and take Putin's head.

You get the idea. When I write over to the right on my profile that I am a bundle of contradictions, that's what I mean. And to paint characters with too broad a stroke, without getting into the strangeness in which our beliefs and actions don't match, or the odd little beliefs that make us up yet make no sense to the outside world, does your fiction a disservice. At least that's my perception.

Thoughts? Have a dichotomies of your own?