Posted 05/25/2026

Episode 61: Ego Makes the Character Go

By M. Scott Michael

Note: This work was originally published in the 1945 "Writer's Yearbook". Extensive research uncovered no copyright renewal.

Real people are motivated by hundred different things in every action of their life-whether it be scratching an ankle or stealing a kiss. Real characters that reach out and hold the reader's interest are complex people, too.

By far the greatest service anyone can perform the potential writer (I was going to say tyro writer, but I hate that word to pieces) is to tell him the truth and not spare the darts-and the truth is your success as a writer will depend largely upon your ability to draw characters convincingly and humanly. It is not enough to keep a notebook and record interesting characters you come across, with their idiosyncrasies. The idea is, do you know your character's subconscious mind? Go over that word again. Subconscious. If you don't know what the subconscious mind is, at least instinctively, then you're in the wrong racket, because a writer is an instinctive psychologist, and our great writers of years ago wrote instinctively what was propounded by Sigmund Freud, long before Freud was born. The great value of Freud and the latter-day book-writing psychologists is that they brought home to all of us what only a few had guessed.

The Subconscious Mind & Human Drives

The subconscious mind is the so-called "back" of the mind, wherein is buried all your repressions and complexes along with forgotten memories, hopes and fears, and many reflexes. From the day we're born we have to fit ourselves into the pattern of civilized society, which is in direct contrast to the pattern of living nature intended for man. All our desires are thus, of necessity, pushed (repressed) into the unconscious mind, where they are dormant, but smoldering, trying to get out but held back by the conscious mind. But it is these repressed desires and fears that govern the person. Nature's strongest urge is the sex urge, and society's strongest barriers are set against this sex urge. For the greater part, Man has adapted himself to these barriers by what the psychologist calls "sublimation." That is, man directs his sex urge (and energy) into other fields, such as writing, painting, or building bridges. If you need any convincing proof of what I have said above (aside from the hundreds of books on the subject you can find at the public library) think for a moment of the uncivilized people living today, your African savages and so forth. Here, living in primitive manner, with no barriers erected against the urges Nature endowed them with, you find a people with no desire for modern civilization, with little or no sense of humor, and you will hardly find a neurotic amongst them.

A neurosis is an exaggeration of a normal trait, this normal trait developing into neurosis because of our repressed wishes and fears. A normal trait is fear. An abnormal fear of anything is a phobia, i. e., a neurosis. A neurosis is formed when sensitive minds repress their wishes and fears. Thus, a person feels "blue" one day without knowing the reason-when all the time the reason is there, in his dreams, in his slips-of-the-tongue, in his wit, in his writing, in everything he does, says, or thinks. Usually, the writer is more neurotic than his fellow men, or why in the hell should he be writing, knocking his brains out, when he could be a bank teller with good hours, or a grocery clerk and at least eat- instead of a guy the neighbors point out as "queer" or "lazy" because he hasn't a steady job and goes around minding his kid and washing clothes and diapers and stays up at night pounding out stuff.

I wish it was general practice for every potential writer to be psychoanalyzed (as I am now doing in the hands of Leonard Mandel) because to be psychoanalyzed will give you the clearest grasp of the subject it is possible to obtain. You will see with amazement the proof, so unbelievable when you read it in print.

Basic Lessons from Psychoanalysis

What, then, are some of the basic things that the psychoanalysts can teach us about human beings? Let me think of a few at random; a complete list (if such a thing is possible) would be too long for inclusion here.

Rationalization: I'm thinking of an important motive of human nature rationalization. This means what the term implies, false reasoning for the edification of our egos. We make excuses for many of our actions, which are hardly the true reasons that had prompted the subconscious into the particular action. How do the psychoanalysts know? By analysis. When the patient, in a relaxed state of conscious mind, permits the subconscious to come through, the proof is apparent. And in every case. That's the proof, when a thing constantly occurs, again and again. You have an everyday example of this when people cover an inferiority complex by a superiority complex. That is called complex readiness. If you are terribly fat, you'll be the first to bring up the subject of fat people.
Reactions to Accidents: I'm thinking of how people laugh at accidents. You've seen a party of persons walking on ice, and one will slip. The others laugh heartily. The psychoanalyst's answer to this phenomenon is that the others cannot cope with the situation and so they laugh. Proof? Again analysis. More proof? You've seen it happen hundreds of times, perhaps to you. Have you ever sat around a table and somebody knocks over a glass of milk, or water? Usually the reaction is laughter by all. Think back yourselves and many similar incidents will come to mind.
Self-Preservation: We learn from the psychoanalysts that the basic human drive is self-preservation, or using another term, selfishness. Anybody who denies this is rationalizing, giving a false excuse for this basic drive.
Sexuality & Marital Drives: We learn that each man is partially homosexual, each women partially Lesbian, but that these traits, except in rare cases, are not dominant. This proof comes out in analysis, and has also been proven by Darwin's theory of evolution, where the fact is evident in animal life all the way up the line. We learn that most men marry (or try to marry) women who resemble their mothers. Each man has a repressed mother-love complex (Oedipus, Freud labeled it) and each daughter a father-love complex (Electra). If a man has a strong Oedipus complex, and does not know about it, he will have an unhappy marriage. The proof is in the thousands of unhappy marriages that have come under the scope of the psychoanalysts and psychologists and in almost every case the condition was remedied.
Inferiority Complexes: Have you ever noticed how short men, as a rule, love to drive automobiles and drive them well? A short man, as a rule (there are exceptions to all rules) has an inferiority complex. It is understandable in view of the ridicule they underwent as children, being called "Shorty," remarks like "How's the air down there." In a car, they are the sole master, the superior being. They step on the accelerator and the car shoots ahead; they step on the brake and the car stops. This is gratifying.
The Sex Urge: Nature's second strongest drive is the sex urge. When a married man turns his head to look at a passing blonde, that's psychological infidelity, as the psychologist calls it. Because with that action, although many times the man won't think of it consciously, through his subconscious mind is running desire. When a female sighs in a darkened movie theatre at the countenance of Cary Grant or Clark Gable-let's not fool ourselves; at the bottom of that sigh is desire. The psychoanalyst approaches the sex problem frankly and completely and derives out of it a decent thing, with no stigmas attached, for if Nature provided us with sex intents, it is no more lewd than Nature's provision for our eating, our breathing, our heart movements.
Dreams: And, of course, what we learn as the most important clue to the subconscious thinking, is our dreams. In our dreams are all our desires come to pass, all our repressed fears manifest themselves in nightmares and in the morning our conscious minds force them back into their confinement. That is why we so rarely remember our dreams. The psychologists say you dream every night, that you simply refuse to remember it in the morning. To prove this they say keep a pencil and paper near your bed, look at it at bed time, and after a little practice you will remember your dreams every night and write them down.

Characterization in Writing

This has all been a sketchy review of the subject at best. It has been designed, primarily, to arouse in you an interest; to attempt, in a small way, to convince you how important the subject is to you, as writers or potential writers.

When the YEARBOOK editor was in New York, I had breakfast with him at his hotel and we were discussing this article. I said to him: "May I tell your readers that they can portray convincingly only those characters with whom the writer has rapport? The writer must have an understanding of the character's subconscious mind, must feel or know consciously the subconscious forces that govern that character's actions and thoughts."

We've all seen three-dimensional movies. You remember you were given a pair of colored glasses; you'd watch the screen. Somebody would throw a ball and you'd duck; it seemed to be coming right for your head. You couldn't get that impression from the ordinary two-dimensional movies. But the three-dimensional gave you the feeling of the reality. The same is true of your characterization in writing. Portray a two-dimensional character and the reader has flat reactions. The amount of suspense your story has is governed by the reality of your characters, because the more real they are the more the reader cares about them.

The three dimensions for a character are physical appearance, mental activity, and background. In this connection, you, as a writer, should have a foundation knowledge of physiology, psychology, and sociology. The fact that it is hard is your security, your diploma.

Now to examine each dimension:

Physical Characteristics: This is the easiest dimension to portray. The reader must know what your characters look like, and any tab such as a broken nose, a missing finger, or deafness, et cetera, is helpful. If you give your character a deformity, you must expect his mind to see things differently from other men. In my first book, "The X-Ray Murders," Hal Angus is the assistant chief of homicide. He is a freak of nature, short, with a big head and ugly facial features. As a result he is bitter, sensitive, and jealous of normal men, particularly Wood Jaxon (my hero), who is everything Angus is not. If you give a character a greenish complexion it will be more convincing if you explain at some place that he suffers from liver trouble.
Mental: The reader must know, either from narrative by the author or by dialogue and action (preferably this latter means), how a character's mind works, his temperament, his outlook on life. Characters create conflict because of the difference in mental make-up. If you have two persons, both patient and kind, you'll have no conflict. But if one has a chip on his shoulder all the time, then something is bound to happen.
Background: In creating mental make-up, of the utmost importance is: Background: How did your character come to this peculiar outlook on life? You can't just write it down and say there it is. Your reader won't accept it because it won't be convincing. He will not have a rapport with your character. So we have to know what the character's occupation is, what class of society he belongs to, his education, his home life, and particularly his childhood. If one of your characters is a crook, show that his childhood consisted of petty robberies, that his childhood environment influenced him toward this direction. I don't mean that all crooks come from such backgrounds. You have to judge that for yourself. You have to allow for certain inherited traits. In my second book, "Sweet Murder," Wood Jaxon explains his superiority complex on the grounds that, as a kid, he had an inferiority complex caused by the teasings of the other kids at his "girl's face," his brilliance in school, and the fact that his father was a college professor.

It is best to give to your character one dominant trait, good or bad. A bad trait can be attractive to the reader, probably more so than a good trait. But stick to one major trait, and one or two minor ones, if you will. And always, always have good motivation for a character's action. Nothing falls so flat as a character doing something without reason. That makes farce, in fact that's the definition of it.

The Power of the Ego and the Subconscious

Let's go back again to the subconscious mind. I keep harping on it because it is the most important topic you can master for your writing career. I come back to it again because that is the best way to learn anything; that is the only way to really learn anything. The simple procedure of tying your shoe-lace is, in reality, a very complex action. You tie your shoe-lace with your subconscious mind.

Have you ever listened, with abated breath, to a pianist playing, flawlessly, difficult passages of music? Have you ever thought about that? Did you for one moment think that the pianist was doing that with his conscious mind? Hell, no. He'd be the first to tell you how difficult it was for him to learn when he first started. If it was the conscious mind in action he'd still have difficulty in playing it. But by constant practice, which fed itself into the subsconscious mind, he became a master of his trade.

Are you going to the library tonight for those books on modern psychology? Those of you who are have futures as writers. Those of you who aren't have probably failed at other things you've touched and thought writing was a soft snap for lazy people, and the magazines print such junk that you couldn't do much worse. So your'e going to be interested in modern psychology because you realize that modern psychology, i.e., Freudian psychoanalysis, has, for the first time since the birth of Man (or the evolution of Man, whichever side of the fence you're squatting on), explained human behavior in terms even the most ardent opponents of Freud can't disprove. Matter of fact, no one yet has disproved Freud. They have succeeded (at least they think so) in chipping off pieces of Freudian theories, or modifying them, and they have found followers to back them up. But the basic principles still remain. It is my personal opinion that they will always remain. They tell the truth.

Take my psychoanalyst, Leonard Mandel. He's a short, little man, close to fifty who looks thirty-five. Right here, let me ask you: Are you wondering what the devil my psychoanalyst has to do with an article on characterization? Well, he's a character, isn't he? No kidding, he's human, even if at times it's hard to believe. There's a man with an ego on a par with mine. When I sprawl myself out on his nice, soft couch, commences then the battle of the egos. But we have fun and I learned a hell of a lot from him, besides the good he's done me psychologically and in bettering my writing. But notice I mentioned egos. That's the clue-Man's ego; his desire to be important, to be noticed, to be respected.

How are you going to use that in your characterization? First, you're going to get a hero or heroine with whom a majority of your readers will have a rapport; a character with whom a bank clerk can feel some identity, some verisimilitude to himself. You're going to have this character be a real person because you have already been intimate with this character consciously and subconsciously; you know his physical appearance, his mental attitudes, his social background, particularly his childhood. You're writing about a character you've known all your life, as well as you know your mother or sister.

Did I mention my younger sister, Gertrude? There's a cute trick. She's cuter now she's had her nose reshaped. I remember I was working with my orchestra at a mountain resort and my kid sister came up for the week-end and I put her in the show to do her tap routine. In the middle of it, she fell smack on her fanny, and that was the hit of the show. I don't know why I happened to think of the above incident. I think therein my subconscious mind is trying to tell you something else about characterization.

Dialogue

What else are you going to do for your characters? Well, how about the all-important element of dialogue? No two people speak the same, and no one person speaks perfect English. Have you ever read a story wherein every character talked the same way, the same manner, all of them lighting a cigarette or wrinkling their brows or grimacing? Ain't it awful? You're not going to do that, of course. Each of your characters will have his or her own characteristic speech, never in perfect English. That's what makes dialogue real and convincing.

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