Elements of Humphrey

I think my elemental symbol should be Hu.



Anyway: for the elements of fiction, I am always most interested in character, and theme. I am fascinated by people's psychology, especially their hidden depths and secret longings and fears and strengths and motivators that affect them, even (especially) those the person himself is unaware of or does not recognize. I love to analyze people and learn about them; I am less interested in people watching per se, mostly because I think a lot of our external habits are BS, posturing and simply conforming to social norms; this isn't the stuff I care about. But I love to talk to people and listen to them, and my favorite thing is when I find out someone has a trait I never would have suspected -- like learning that someone angry or mean looking loves to rescue baby birds who fall out of the nest on flying day.


True story: my wife's childhood cat, Jinx, learned when in the spring the birds who lived in their backyard would start teaching their chicks to fly, and he would lie in wait until the chicks fell fluttering from the nest. Then he would race out and eat them.


My second fascination is with theme, because I think it relates very closely to character in our social world. I think many of us have an overriding passion or belief or obsession; sometimes more than one. More of our lives revolve around those central ideas than we normally think they do, and though they are never simple or obvious, once you understand the theme, you understand the person. Which is also why I asked about this topic, even though I know it was hard to answer the prompt.

I'm somewhat interested in setting because I think we live in a beautiful and amazing and surprising world, and I think we make some really weird choices when it comes to our own adaptations to the environment and the creation of our living and working spaces as human beings. Like classrooms full of desks. Who thought that was a good idea?

I don't care about plot, because too much of what we do is, in my opinion, unconsciously motivated, and we don't know why we do things -- but the why is all that really matters, not the what that comes from the why. I am usually aware of mood, because I happen to be a fairly empathetic person (though I might have lost that ability somewhat as I have become hardened over the years), but I usually try to ignore it except as it reveals character. In fact, I usually enjoy messing with the mood of the room in surprising ways, as you know from hanging out with me for the last six months.
There you go: the analysis of Hu.