Source: K. Ramsland John B. McLemore, a brilliant “horologist” in rural Alabama with a legendary stock of hidden gold and his own personal maze, is a compelling character. The podcast about him – S-Town – was downloaded a record number of times during its first week and is still going strong. He joins other real people who have similarly grabbed viewers, readers, or listeners due to their quirks and comments. They seem more fictional than real, and yet their qualities also feel strangely familiar (emphasis on strange).
The heart of any narrative nonfiction is character – those people who talk, act, and reveal their oddities, show surprising depth, and essentially move the story. Writers must be able to recognize characters, learn about them, and bring them to life. Yet only certain characters have a broad and memorable impact.
Side note: I try not to include any significant S-Town spoilers.
“John B,” as his friends call him, arrived into our consciousness via journalist Brian Reed on “This American Life.” It follows the success of another podcast, Serial. S-Town is loaded with diverse voices and down-home folks, all of whom weave in and out of John B’s layered tale. Who doesn't love Uncle Jimmy?
But it’s John B’s voice that most compels, along with his wit, his anger, his needs, and his secrets. He has such intense inner demons it’s no wonder he gets lost in a maze of his own design. The charm of his character is not so much what he says as what he shows about being human, along with the emotional punch that these revelations bring. He sees the world in a darkly peculiar way.
John B reminds me of John Laroche in The Orchid Thief (or the movie version, Adaptation). They’re both oddly out of place in the places they embrace, masters of their mental space, minutely obsessed, and likely to say something that will make you snap your head back with a loud, “What?”
Laroche looks for ways to get what he wants while convincing himself that when he does, “everybody wins.” When author Susan Orlean meets him, he’s in a Florida courtroom as he argues for his right to harvest the protected ghost orchid from the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve. She describes him as having “the posture of al dente spaghetti” and missing his front teeth.
You’re inclined to dismiss him as a backwoods hick who lost his teeth from neglect until you learn that it happened in a car accident that killed his mother and uncle. This surprise factor is one reason why we keep reading. Despite his self-important posturing – “I’m probably the smartest person I know” – he does indeed have a remarkable knowledge of orchids. He’s also quite sensitive. And he’s a quirky “serial enthusiast.” Once he develops a passion, he totally immerses, until one day his wholehearted conviction for this endeavor simply evaporates. Time to move on. “Done with fish.”
What is it about these people that makes us pay attention?
First, it requires a solid storyteller who can identify and crystallize the character’s special traits: John B planted a maze with 64 gates so he could switch around the solutions. “It was designed by a madman.” Laroche has a magician's touch for manipulating situations to his advantage. Sort of.
It helps to include supporting characters with unusual quirks, like a bullet in the head that can’t be removed, causing strange outbursts. Or, keeping a fly on a leash attached to a jacket, or taking only a stash of candy bars on a two-week wilderness hike.
This brings us to the rules for what keeps us reading and then talking about these characters:
1. Mystery and intrigue
For Piercing the Darkness, I went to an after-hours party at a vampire club where a unique presentation was the norm (to say the least). Yet one guy stood out. He was naked save for lace-up leather sandals and a black leather thong. Covered head to foot in dramatic piercings and tattoos, his hair was shorn into a Mohawk style. A silver ring through the skin at the base of his throat looked so uncomfortable I patted my own throat protectively. But I wanted to know more about him. Who was he and why was he here?
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How Anyone Can Get More "Rizz" He sat alone on a wooden bench, his shoulders hunched. His body art said, “stay back!” but his eyes were sad. In a soft voice, he admitted he was lonely. He hailed from Germany and he’d come to the club for companionship. It turned out that he was one of about twenty people in the world who understood the mathematical concepts with which he worked at his day job. Who would have guessed?
2. Counterintuitive eccentricity
It’s one thing to be eccentric. Yet the characters who intrigue us also confound us. You will definitely hear people who discuss S-Town ask, “Why did he do that?” for any number of John B's behaviors.
Right away, we learn that John B views people who do certain things as failures. Surprise, surprise, despite his air of superiority, he indulges, too. Then, another surprise: the reason he does. Then there's his reason and the real reason. (I promised no spoilers.) His mystery slowly unfolds. He’s a bigot who hates prejudice and a mix of other contradictory traits that keeps you guessing about what you will discover next. He alienates those he most loves, and organizes his life through a hypergraphic eruption of words even as he leaves the most important things unsaid.
It’s the very strangeness of these characters that make us think in new ways. They provide glimpses into worlds – and souls – that we know little about and inspire us to discuss things that matter. They engage us, even if we don't like them.
3. The element of surprise
The characters who really grab us generally surprise us. For them, there are no rules.
Take Robert Lee Hodge, a “liberal Confederate” capable of “wargasms” in Confederates in the Attic. Author Tony Horwitz enters the world of hardcore Civil War reenacters who scorn dabblers as ''farbs.” Too late to back out, he learns the art of spooning on cold, hard ground and gets tutored by Hodge on the best way to imitate a bloated body on the battlefield. ''His belly swelled grotesquely, his hands curled, his cheeks puffed out, his mouth contorted in a rictus of pain and astonishment.”
Why would anyone want to mimic a bloated corpse, let alone practice to get it right? Hodge is so weird and amusing that we’re glad to see him pop up several times in this narrative. He will likely say or do something we don’t expect. And that’s the fun. (Many years after reading this book, his vocabulary still comes back to me whenever I go to Gettysburg.)
I urge writers to approach such people. Talk to them. Listen to their stories. Who knows? You might be sitting across from the next podcast sensation.