01/10/2008

While reading Paranoia, an intriguing novel by Joseph Finder, I came to an alarming scene where Adam Cassidy, the protagonist, attaches a piece of hardware called a KeyGhost to the back of his supervisor’s computer in order to track her keystrokes, thus gaining access to her security codes so he could hack into her sensitive files. In the book, Adam is engaged in corporate espionage, working in one company as a spy for another company, trying to gain intelligence into a purported “skunkworks” program. However, as a reader I soon started asking the question: Is this real technology? It better be, or Joseph Finder has just lost credibility because his novel is not a futuristic tale.

Doing a quick fact-check on the internet, as well as asking questions of some techno-gurus, I found that not only is the technology very real, it is also easily obtainable. Attaching something like this to a laptop might be more noticeable, but what about a desktop where the box is located under someone's desk and the device wouldn't run as high a risk of discovery? I couldn’t help but go into the office and check my own computer. Whew! Nothing there. Not that I have anything to hide, mind you, but I want to know if someone is trying to spook on me. That way I can give them their money’s worth, give them some really juicy keystrokes.

So another question comes to mind: What are other reasons to attach such a device to someone’s computer?

For the paranoid, delusional boss, he may want to verify whether an employee is devoted to him or is involved in subversive activities. For the leader of Team A, she may want to uncover what Team B is working on so she can either present the idea first or sabotage it. For the IT department, they may be tracking keystrokes to an employee’s “chat room” discussions, building a case to discreetly dismiss the employee--no muss, no fuss. The list goes on, with as many reasons, I suppose, as the world has people.

Reading a lot has its benefits. First off, it helps to develop the mind and improve the focus--especially when you are trying to connect the dots and discover the truth before the author reveals it. Secondly, it educates the reader on what is happening out there in the world. Without reading a book like Paranoia, it might have been years before I would have known about this technology. Also, it helps to gain an understanding of people. I’m not naïve enough to say, “That doesn’t happen in the real world.” Just by the existence of a KeyGhost device, it tells me that what the author reveals in the book is a very real aspect in espionage--corporate or otherwise. Why a person would use the device, though, is worth the exploration … which leads character, which leads to a plot, which leads to a novel.

So, how many of you will be checking the back of your computer now?

Be warned: Companies don’t have to use hardware to track their employees; they can use software, too!

01/03/2008

The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his desires was to be a doctor, but poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village schoolmaster. Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

I remember a comment my pastor made while sitting in a men’s group. If he was to write a book about men, he would write about the quiet anger of frustrated hearts. At the time, I had only a small notion of what he meant; years later, I understand.

It is a fact of life that every child will encounter the same age-old question: What do you want to be when you grow up? There is no getting around it, as they say. While sitting in church years ago, I listened as the pastor’s wife asked a group of children about their plans. Aside from those who had no higher ambition than to be a Power Ranger, you could tell by the answers the jobs their parents held--airplane pilot, lawyer, doctor. Just this last year, my seven-year-old, looking for admiration, said that he wants to be both a nurse and a CPA. Those are noble professions, I told him, though wishing to share that accounting is not an altogether glamorous calling.

As children, we tend to want recognition, to be the hero. We want to be the Sheriff while playing Cowboys and Indians; we want to be Robin Hood; we want to be Babe Ruth, pointing to the bleachers with a determined finger. These days, I’m sure that some boys want to be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. But what happens when, as poor Mr. Dobbins found in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, our social class or environment pigeonholes us into something less than our goals. Not in America, you say? Not in a country where the sky is the limit and anything is possible? Au contraire, mon frère. Take a walk through the poverty stricken neighborhoods, see the generations of people who have been sucked into a vortex of malaise, where parents are so depressed that they can see nothing better for their children. Venture into the middle class, and take a look at capable men and women who, for lack of political skills, have already petered-out, passed over for the darlings who can drink beer and talk a good game. The truth is, it happens all the time.

So, the question for writers is: how does a person respond to quashed desires? Frustration and resentment are two such possibilities. A lineman at a General Motors plant may spend his day planning for ways to foul up the system--just one more way of sticking it to the man, as the commercial says. Another lonely soul may turn to violence, an act of justification and retribution. Or a bottle of whiskey may be the answer for a man who wants to feel better and seeks Jack Daniel’s version of anesthetic to numb the pain in his soul.

Whatever the reaction, the motive behind the action (as mentioned in my last post) is the target that writers need to focus upon. Understanding even the smallest detail of an “unsatisfied ambition” can make for a deeper, well-rounded character.

12/28/2007

“Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The irony and humor of Mark Twain’s passage aside--a world where people covet what they don’t have, and can't easily get, is not hollow?--this passage spotlights a necessary ingredient for character study: motivation.

In her recent article, “We have ways of MAKING YOU TALK” (The Writer, January 2008), Lois J. Peterson says that what a character really wants, his motivation, is “… a plot element as much as a characterization one … If he is pursuing something as specific as a new watch, a job or a trophy, identify the bigger need it represents.”

For example: Once hurt over a snide remark on his intelligence, little George seeks identification and importance. In order to achieve this, he works hard and pushes through college, becoming a lawyer, only to find that the law degree lands him in a firm where he spends the first year writing legal briefs and wading through countless hours of spell checking and the onerous task of searching for the correct placement of every comma and period. His name is not on the company letterhead. His office is a cubicle. Most of the partners don’t even know he exists. He looks for the right car, the perfect house, the snazzy suits, material things that symbolize his intangible goals. Even with all of the possessions, though, he still can’t find the respect of peers who are only interested in themselves. Identification and importance, he discovers, can’t be bought; they are not for sale. But that doesn’t stop him from trying. George will spend his whole life searching for the next thing that will hopefully give him what he truly wants.

Truth be told, there are probably several motivators in our lives, some of which may lie on opposite sides of the fence. A man wants to be seen as a man. Hunting symbolizes that need. But his wife is adamant that she doesn’t want any guns in the house. Think of the children. Growing up with a need to please others, a sad bi-product of intolerant parents, he suppresses his need in order to make peace in the house, which in turn leads to a frustrated life--especially when he listens to a co-worker’s hunting stories, and then wonders why he can’t have the best of both worlds.

We are all striving for something in our lives, and the characters in a novel, or short story, can’t do anything less. One dimensional characters are boring. The reader can’t relate to who they are or what they want. As such, a writer needs to think long and hard about what her character wants. Where did the need start? Why is it so important? To what lengths will the character go to attain the goal? These are questions that must be asked and answered, and then played out over the course of the story. The reader demands it. The story demands it. After all, they have needs too.