saying this, either.” This is a speech of profound respect for Roark: Keating acknowledges the superiority of Roark’s standards, and he shows sincerity. Roark can reward that with a moment of friendliness, which amounts to saying: “If this is how you feel, I can talk to you.” Observe also the generous form of his friendliness. He says: “You’re not being afraid of me, are you? ” He knows that Keating is afraid of him, and to make the conversation easier for Keating, he acknowledges this openly.
I have seen young writers influenced by me make their hero a monotone. He speaks only in snappy yeses or noes, never shows anything but a tight grimness, and is always on the fighting premise. This is bad characterization; it is incomplete. The reader necessarily thinks: “A man cannot be this way all the time—nor can any man have only one premise.”
Good characterization is not a matter of giving a character a single attribute or making him monotonous. It is a matter of integrating his every particular aspect to the total, the focus of integration being his basic premises. For instance, Roark is not only the man of integrity, fighting everybody. He can be friendly and charming; he can be generous; he even has a few humorous lines (though I think only two in the whole novel). He has all sorts of facets. But he comes across as a monolith because every facet is consistent with his basic premises.
The above example from the original scene is an illustration of this: Roark can be generous and friendly to Keating, but only in the context of Keating’s acknowledging his, Roark’s, premises.
In the rewritten scene, when Keating says, “You won’t think that it’s awful of me to be asking about my business, when you’ve just been expelled?” Roark answers, “No. But it’s nice of you to say that, Peter. I appreciate it.” Here he shows friendliness in exchange, not for Keating’s tribute to his standards, but for Keating’s condolences on the bad state to which those standards have brought him. Instead of being a generous man extending a helping hand when deserved, he becomes a man accepting charity. In this context, Roark’s friendliness acquires an entirely different meaning.
Again, if you approach a scene like this with the abstract intention “I will show my hero being friendly,” but you have not concretized the nature of that friendliness or integrated it with your hero’s other premises, you might commit a contradiction like the above and then wonder why your character does not come across as you intended.
In the rewritten scene, when Keating says, “You know, I’ve often thought that you’re crazy,” Roark asks, “Why?” This shows concern for Keating’s opinion, and even self-doubt. In some other context where he had a reason to put Keating on the spot, Roark could have asked this question defiantly or sarcastically. But in the context of this scene, he accepts a gratuitous insult by saying, in effect: “Oh, you think I’m crazy. Why? Maybe I am.”
In the original scene, Keating says: “You know, I’ve often thought that you’re crazy. But I know that you know many things about it—architecture, I mean—which those fools never knew, And I know that you
love it as they never will.” This shows what a context can do to a single line: accompanied by such an explanation, the statement “you’re crazy” is a great compliment. But if Keating merely says, “I’ve often thought that you’re crazy,” Roark should stop talking to him then and there—if he is the Roark intended originally.
In the original scene, when Keating finally asks his question, Roark takes his problem seriously and gives him advice, not about a concrete, but about the wider principle involved. “If you want my advice, Peter, you’ve made a mistake already. By asking me. By asking anyone. Never ask people. Not about your work.” Roark gives Keating the benefit of his own convictions, telling him that there is a more serious issue involved than merely the choice of the two possibilities. The line “If you want my advice, Peter, you’ve made a mistake already” is unexpected, arresting, and unconventional; and since Roark backs it up by giving his reasons, the reader not only sees the nature of Roark’s premises, but also a boy who is thinking—and thinking in much wider terms than the particular choice of a job.
In the rewritten scene, Roark does the conventional thing: he gives Keating specific advice. This implies that there is nothing wrong in Keating’s asking