Pushed to the Limit

I’ve learned to suffer the slings and arrows of life with a fairly even temper.

With one exception.

Dealing with automated phone support.

Recently, I wanted to speak with my phone provider to make sure we were all set for calls on an international trip. So I’m trying to speak with a real person, but the automated voice needs some kind of code from me, which I don’t know, and so it assigns me a new code (I’m so discombobulated I’m not sure if I gave them a code or they just picked one.) Anyway, I get a new code, but have no earthly idea what it is.

Then, after much wasted time, I manage to get a real person on the line, but they say they can’t help me unless I give them the code, which I don’t know. At the end of my rope now, I scream, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS!”

(BTW, this will never happen at Gotham. If you call or write us, you’ll be talking to a real live person, with little or no delay.)

Push your characters to the limits. It makes for great storytelling, and we’ll get to see how they handle the heat of their personal crucible. Will they stay true to form or find something new inside themselves? Will they break (like I did) or rise to the occasion? Will they somehow turn the story in a new direction?

I’m a fan of old movies and Jimmy Stewart is a favorite. He got pushed to the limit a lot—with obsessive lust in Vertigo, with despair at unfulfilled dreams in It’s a Wonderful Life. But I’m thinking now about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Jimmy plays Jefferson Smith, the head of the Boy Rangers, who is appointed as a replacement in the U.S. Senate. He’s a wide-eyed optimist expected to vote in lockstep with his state’s senior senator, who is mired in all kinds of corruption.

When Smith refuses to go along with the corruption, the political machine besmirches Smith’s name with fabricated letters and news items, and the Senate is set to vote on his expulsion. Smith is almost broken—too good for cruel politics—but his aide, Clarissa, convinces him to stage a filibuster to delay his expulsion and prove his innocence.

For 24 hours, Smith holds the Senate floor, talking nonstop, barely able to stand near the end, when he proclaims hoarsely:

You all think I’m licked. Well, I’m not licked. And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause.

Fantasy? Maybe. But I might look to Mr. Smith next time I’m pushed to the limit.