While growing up in the 1960s I, like most boys, read lots of comic books. Batman was my favorite superhero. I never much cared for Superman, however, because he was just…well…not someone I could believe existed. At least Batman, behind his cape and cowl, was an actual person named Bruce Wayne.
Even so, our novel’s protagonist (hero) must be believable and someone with whom readers can identify and care about. In other words, they should be likeable. Also, introduce them in the story’s first scene.
Give the protagonist weaknesses and flaws. They can be major flaws, such as having them be workaholics, or minor flaws. For instance, in the series Columbo, Peter Falk’s character is usually unkempt and almost always wears a raincoat, even when it’s not raining. His sloppy exterior, though minor, is a flaw. Yet, we all love him and pull for him to find the murderer.
Another way to make our protagonists believable is to have them break a stereotype. This also adds more reader interest. One example would be an athletic hero, a former Olympic boxing champion who grew up in the slums and is now a detective. He enjoys reading highbrow novels and can quote Shakespeare. Have him do something likeable in his first scene. For example, let him deliver roses from his garden to one of his elderly neighbors before he deals with a homicide. Then, as the story progresses, bring in other positive traits. Does our champion love children? Does he take care of an autistic son? Such positive traits can create subplots and help deepen our story as well as our protagonist. And they make him likeable.
Once again, don’t make our hero perfect. Imperfect but likeable—that’s the key.
I’m no great intellectual, though I do enjoy reading highbrow literature on occasion. Especially, Russian literature—Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin are my favorites. By highbrow, I mean those literary classics of yesteryear with long paragraphs and sentences, multisyllabic words one seldom reads in modern works, and lots of narrative—a style we twenty-first century writers should shy away from.
I first gained an interest in highbrow literature when I was a youth and read Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo. To this day, it remains one of my favorite novels.
When I studied Russian in college and took a Russian literature class…well…I discovered that I enjoyed Russian authors too.
So, here I am, and I recently finished reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Tolstoy’s last novel before his spiritual conversion. He was married in 1862, to Countess Sonya (Sofia) Behrs, but his conversion created problems which led to their divorce.
Basically, the storyline goes this way: Anna Karenina, a young woman of wealth married to Alexey Karenin, a government official in St. Petersburg who moves in high society, falls in love with a Russian army officer, Count Vronsky. Contrasted with her is a country gentleman, Konstantin Levin. Anna falls into sin and commits adultery with Vronsky whereas Levin, who harbors doubts regarding Christianity, eventually marries devout Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya and comes to faith in the Lord. Levin’s lifestyle is successful, Anna’s is destructive and by the end of the story she throws herself in front of an oncoming train—the consequences of her sin.
What stood out most to me about this book were its spiritual themes: hypocrisy and faith, marriage and family. This novel does not contain sex, nor does it use profanity, and Anna Karenina is considered one of the greatest novels ever written.
Tolstoy proves it, then. He wrote a clean novel that’s one of literature’s greatest works. This shows us that if we write well, we don’t need to include anything off-color. Tolstoy did it. So, perhaps we’ll write a clean, great American novel one day. We’ll never know if we don’t try.
Are you willing to try it?
In the novel, Anna is a brunette, just as we see Keira Knightly is, playing her here.
The steamboat’s paddlewheels revolved and slapped water, propelling her down the Alabama River. Atop her roof, her captain kept alert while a pilot steered her toward a high bluff on the right bank. Beneath this bluff was a landing, one of over three hundred landings on this river, and atop the bluff were warehouses holding bales of cotton and other freight.
His hands on the boat’s enormous wheel, the pilot carefully maneuvered her to the designated wharf. Although the roof captain commanded the vessel, the pilot was also considered a captain and sometimes, in certain conditions and according to law, the roof captain had to obey the pilot’s orders.
White deck hands, under the supervision of a mate, leapt off the boat and secured lines to the wharf. Rolladores—slaves ashore—hastened toward the warehouses. From here, they unloaded freight and rolled it down a long plank, or cotton chute, to the landing where stevedores, most of them Irish, proceeded to load it onto the vessel’s lowest (main) deck. Roustabouts, who were also slaves, assisted them.
Cotton chute on the Alabama River, 1861. Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History
Passengers on the boat’s middle, boiler deck observed this activity from the boat’s gallery. Other passengers socialized in her saloon. While these passengers discussed all manner of things the boat’s crew, free blacks under a steward’s supervision, kept busy— the cook and his assistants prepared supper, the chambermaids cleaned cabins, the barber cut passengers’ hair, the laundress washed clothes, and the bartender served drinks to thirsty travelers. These workers oftentimes helped slaves escape to freedom.
While all this activity continued, other officers engaged in their duties. The engineer inspected the boat’s engine to be sure it remained in good working order. If it needed more wood for its boilers, he sent his firemen ashore to get it from the wood stacked on the landing.
And the clerk, with his ledgers, figured the trip’s expenses. Since he was the vessel’s business manager, he handled all of the vessel’s financial matters.
With her cargo finally loaded, the roof captain gave the order to shove off. The pilot steered the boat back into the middle of the river and continued down it to his next stop, one after the other, until she at last reached Mobile. ‘
A steamboat’s blast rent the starless evening sky; sparks tossed up like confetti. Its passengers spun and turned and glided to the music of an orchestral waltz.
More blasts erupted from the steamboat’s boilers, louder this time. And more sparks flew. Still the dancing and music in the boat’s saloon continued. Why should we be concerned? This is what these passengers thought. We enjoy dancing to Strauss.
Well, in some instances they should be concerned. Steamboat explosions frequently happened in nineteenth century America. But in the case described above, this steamboat wasn’t about to explode. It was “venting” itself on its way to a landing on the Alabama River. Such noises, and the sparks, were expected. So, its passengers danced the night away.
Though no one is sure of the exact date steamboats first plied Alabama’s rivers, the steamboat era began almost at the same time it became a state (1819), and by the 1820s steamboats became a common mode of travel on its fourteen major rivers. In the early years of steam-boating, three Alabama companies built them. Later, by 1861, Cox, Brainerd, & Company pretty much monopolized Alabama’s steamboat trade.
As these boats churned the rivers toward the port of Mobile, they’d stop at numerous landings situated below bluffs to take on cotton, which was then loaded on its lowest deck, called the main deck. Second-class passengers had to tolerate the discomforts of this deck, for on it were the vessel’s engine and kitchen as well as cotton bales, firewood, animals, and similar freight.
The wealthier passengers traveled in more luxury on the boat’s middle deck– the boiler deck, which held its saloon and cabins. British passenger, Sir Charles Lyell, described one Alabama boat’s saloon in his work, Second Visit to the United States (1849): …The upper deck is chiefly occupied with a handsome saloon, about 200-feet long, the ladies’ cabin at one end, opening into it with folding doors. Sofas, rocking chairs, and a stove are placed in this room, which is lighted by windows from above. On each side of it is a row of sleeping apartments, each communicating by one door with the saloon while the other leads out to the guard, as they call it, a long balcony or gallery, covered with a shade or verandah, which passes around the whole boat…
Saloon of Alabama steamboat Grand Republic, 1880. Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History
On the third deck, the hurricane deck (aka Texas deck) the boat’s officers lived. Their quarters, flanked by smokestacks, were called the Texas. Finally, atop this deck was the pilot house. In his classic work, Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain described the pilot house as being as “a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to have a dance in.”
And as mentioned earlier, explosions were a real danger on these boats. Below is an article about a steamboat tragedy in the port of Mobile. The accident was believed to have been caused by its boilers not having enough water.
Griffith, Lucille. Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900, University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1972.
Lyell, Sir Charles, Second Visit to the United States, vol. 2, London: J. Murray, 1849, quoted in Alabama: A Documentary History of the United States to 1900, University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1972.
McMillan, Malcolm C., The Land Called Alabama, Austin, Texas: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1968.
During my thirty-plus years of writing, I never entered a writing contest… until recently. Why not? One word—fear. As a child, I was usually one of the last children who got picked at recess for softball and other competitive activities. Oh, I did win a few board games and such, so I’m only speaking in general terms. But the truth is, I simply wasn’t very good at much.
So, when it came to writing contests, I shied away from them. I feared that losing would cause me to quit writing altogether, which I did not want to do. In recent years, however, I’ve entered a few. Have I won any? Nah! But my novel, Vengeance & Betrayal, was a finalist once. Because I have lots of bylines and publishing credits now, losing doesn’t bother me. Hey, winning wouldn’t be so bad either.
Contests, I’ve learned, are a great motivation for doing our best work. Sometimes, the judges will give us a critique to help us improve. And if we’re a finalist or winner, it encourages us to keep at it. But if we lose, well, don’t get discouraged. Learn from that and work harder at the craft. I’ve discovered that contests are fun!
Having said that, because I’m a Christian as well as a writer, I see my writing as a ministry. If God has called us to be writers, we can enter contests, of course, especially those that involve our published works. However, our motivation and purpose should go beyond winning them. If all we’re concerned about is winning contests, we miss the point of our calling. Though they are great and can be rewarding, eternal rewards are in store for those who write for Christ’s kingdom from a heart that seeks to win others to Him.
So, let’s check our motivations. For whom do we write? For ourselves and earthly rewards or for Christ?
Gideon entered the game room and strode straight to the bar to purchase a beer. Tobacco fogs swirled over tables, and lights from gaslit chandeliers danced in their mist. Murmurs punctuated whirring roulette wheels. Along a far wall, men played games of twenty-one and faro. Billiard balls cracking against each other echoed from an adjoining room.
Gideon never played roulette, though he did sometimes play billiards, and he occasionally engaged in twenty-one and faro. Poker, though, was the pastime he’d come to love. Men who stood beside him at the bar conversed while drinking their liquors of choice. The entire place smelled of beer and tobacco.
In the above scene the protagonist in my WIP, Gideon Deshler, enters a game room in antebellum Mobile’s popular gaming establishment, Shakespeare’s Row. Like New Orleans, Mobile attracted gamblers from a variety of backgrounds—gentlemen, professional gamblers, and the unsavory types.
Shakespeare’s Row, however, only catered to well-mannered and honest gamblers, those who at least appeared to be gentlemen. Troublemakers and dishonest players weren’t allowed on its premises. One writer described it as a string of brick buildings housing numerous businesses along the street, then when a person entered through one of its two arched doorways, he’d find a courtyard. In the middle of this courtyard stood a three-story building, with stairways, that housed twenty-eight game rooms facing it. Gambling activity continued there all night.
Shakespeare’s Row is one of the central settings of my novel-in-progress, tentatively titled Thoroughbreds and the Prodigal.
Sources
Amos, Harriet E. Cotton City: Urban Development in Antebellum Mobile, Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1985.
Chafetz, Henry. Play the Devil: A History of Gambling in the United States from 1492 to 1955, N.p.,Bonanza Books, 1960.
Bay Boat James Carney, 1905, Point Clear, Alabama. Historic Mobile Preservation Society, William E. Wilson Collection
My sister and I burst into laughter, pointing and guffawing at the uniformed men in Mobile, Alabama’s Bankhead Tunnel, constantly waving “come on” at our cars. We sped through it almost bumper-to-bumper as our father, driving, sped out of the city onto a causeway to go “over the Bay.” Why were they always waving at us? No car was pokey, and if one of us happened to break down, well, it was a narrow two-lane tunnel. It would be one huge traffic jam! For my sister and me, watching these men constantly waving their arms was entertaining.
“Over the Bay” is one of those expressions we Mobilians often use. It simply means crossing Mobile Bay for a visit on the Eastern Shore—to a beach, to visit a friend, a restaurant, a town, etc.
Before 1927, the year the bridges and the Causeway opened, people traveled to the Eastern Shore via bay boat. These boats, like the one pictured above, brought goods to those who lived on the Bay’s Eastern Shore as well as passengers. Toll rates ranged from $3.50 to $6.00 per person. One tragic event happened on a Sunday in 1871 when a bay boat, the Ocean Wave, exploded, killing an untold number of people. Later estimates put the number of deaths at close to 100.
Boat person that I am, I enjoyed using a bay boat as a setting in one of my chapters. Mobile Bay is beautiful, especially at sunrise and sunset!
Later, the Bankhead Tunnel was built. Nowadays, the city has two, more heavily-used tunnels.
As for me, whenever I visit my hometown I always drive the Causeway through the old Bankhead. No longer is it bumper-to-bumper, and numerous fond memories flood my mind. I only wish I’d been able to take a bay boat “over the Bay,” at least once in my lifetime.
After Lexington won the Great Post Stakes his owner, Richard Ten Broeck and Lecomte’s owner, Thomas Jefferson Wells, had a rematch. Instead of racing each other, however, they agreed that their horses would race against the clock for four miles.
Riding Lexington: a famous white jockey named Gilbert Kilpatrick
Race Date: April, 1855
Place: Metairie Race Course, New Orleans, Louisiana
Course conditions: dry
Grandstands: about 10,000 spectators
When the timekeepers nodded “ready,” the starter lowered his flag, and Lecomte and Lexington galloped down the track, their hoofs thundering amidst cheers.
Lecomte, sweating hard and breathing hard, surged ahead as Abe, fierce competitor that he was, urged him on. Wider and wider the distance between the horses stretched, Lecomte constantly in the lead till he defeated Lexington by six lengths and set a world record: seven minutes and twenty-five seconds.
Upon hearing this time announced, clapping and hurrahs rocked the grandstands. Everyone, it seemed, had gone wild.
All wasn’t lost for Lexington yet. He had one more heat. But Abe galloped Lecomte into racing history when he won it as well. Though jockeys who were slaves were seldom referred to by name, such wasn’t the case with Abe. Everyone involved in racing in this era now knew him. As for Lecomte, every January at the Fair Grounds Race Track in New Orleans a race is held in his memory—the Lecomte Stakes.
Lecomte and Lexington, half-brothers who shared the same sire, became the greatest Thoroughbreds of their era.
Sources
Mooney, Katherine. Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2014.
Weldon, Nick. “From slavery to sports stardom: Abe Hawkins’ rise from a Louisiana plantation to horse-racing fame,” The Historic New Orleans Collection, January 11, 2019, https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/slavery-sports-stardom-abe-hawkins%E2%80%99s-rise-louisiana-plantation-horse-racing.
I am pleased, and honored, to announce that my Civil War novel, Vengeance & Betrayal, is a finalist in the Notable Book Awards. The winner will be announced on Saturday, February 6, at the Southern Christian Writers Book Expo. This book, and many others, will be available for purchase on the Expo’s public Facebook site on that day.
April, 1854—a delightful spring day. Metairie Race Course conditions—dry. New Orleans’s St. Charles Hotel—thronging with guests. Some 20,000 people had arrived, eager to watch a special horse race, among them former U.S. president Millard Filmore. And why not? America’s two greatest Thoroughbreds, half-brothers, were scheduled to race each other in the Great Post Stakes.
Richard Ten Broeck, the course’s primary shareholder, conceived the idea. For an entry fee of $5,000, a state could send a Thoroughbred to represent it in the competition.
By race day, only four horses participated: Arrow (Louisiana), Highlander (Alabama), Lexington (Kentucky), and Lecomte (Mississippi). Because Louisiana had Arrow, Lecomte’s Louisiana owner, Thomas Wells, entered him to represent Mississippi. Ten Broeck’s horse Lexington, Lecomte’s half-brother, represented the state where he was foaled.
Because the standard Thoroughbred racing track is one mile, these horses would run four laps in two heats with a break for a rub down in between. Lexington won the first heat, clocking just over eight minutes, but Lecomte gave Lexington a run for his money in Heat Two. For three miles, Lecomte galloped ahead of Lexington. Kentuckians attending the race fretted. Their champion, losing! It couldn’t be!
And then, Lexington got “a new set of legs,” gained on Lecomte, passed him, and defeated him by four lengths. The grandstand’s spectators went wild! Roars of approval hit the clouds.
In 1855, LeComte and Lexington would again compete to determine which horse was the fastest.
Sources
Mooney, Katherine. Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2014
Perrault, Matthew Saul. “Jockeying for Position: Horse Racing in New Orleans,1865-1920,” LSU Digital Commons,Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2016. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/3455/
The Author's Cove: John "Jack" Cunningham on Writing & History 