How do you write Connor so well? Could you share some writing tips?
That’s really sweet of you to say. Honestly, it’s just me trying to pick up on every little thing we actually know about Connor and filling in my own interpretations of what they mean. We really don’t know that much about Connor. He’s only in the beginning of the play then throughout you get little snippets of his life from other characters…but it’s not that much to go off of. Even then, it’s how they saw him which can we a warped version of what he actually was. When I’m writing him, I try not to focus on Evan’s Connor because he’s only a projection of Evan’s own self. It’s important to remember that he’s not Connor. He’s Evan. That’s Evan’s mind talking to him using Connor’s face but it’s not Connor himself. He’s not a ghost coming back to talk to this random kid he’s interacted with once or twice. He’s 100% Evan’s mind projecting.
So then you have to focus on what you actually know about him. I’m gonna dissect it because I literally love analyzing characters it’s my favorite thing in the entire world. You didn’t ask for this but I’m doing it anyway yolo (im sorry).
The first time we meet Connor is at the breakfast scene. What do we know about that scene?:
Connor doesn’t want to go to school.
It is the very first day of his senior year. Not many people skip the very first day of school. It’s supposed to be a fairly easy, chill, exciting day to most people. Getting to know your teachers, seeing friends, catching up with people, not much work etc. I’m going off of my own school experience to analyze this bit: Skipping/Not wanting to go/Having anxiety over going doesn’t mean you’re lazy and don’t like work. It generally means that you feel uncomfortable, anxious, lonely, scared about having to navigate the world of school and your peers. Connor doesn’t have friends. Going to school, sitting in class, doing group projects, eating lunch, doing anything in school alone and without friends is fucking hard. It’s awful. It’s not a surprise he doesn’t want to go.
Judging from typical school days, it’s probably somewhere between 6 - 7 in the morning. That’s early. That’s someone who wakes up and immediate gets high. AND it’s the first day of school. That’s someone who needs something to help them cope just to get through the day. He needs something to help him take the edge off of life because doing it without anything is a daunting thought.
Cynthia also says “I don’t want you going to school high Connor. We’ve talked about this.” Which implies that this a fairly regular thing for him.
Connor reacts negatively when Zoe speaks but ignores Larry.
Okay so I love this bit because my psychology loving self adores this kind of shit. It’s amazing and beautifully done and asdlhfal;ksd
After Cynthia tries to get Larry involved with making sure Connor goes to school. Larry says, “What do you want me to do? He doesn’t listen. Look at him. He’s probably high.” Connor stays quiet. Then Zoe confirms Larry’s statement and says, “He’s definitely high.” And Connor responds with a “Fuck you!”
Every time Larry speaks Connor stays quiet. His body language in the scene involves Connor resting his arm on the side of his head and, by doing so, is putting some sort of physical barrier between his facial expressions and his dad sitting next to him.
If I recall correctly, I don’t think Connor ever once actually speaks to his dad??? Larry talks at him but Connor never responds. No words are ever spoken from him to Larry. (I think, I could be wrong)
SO the point here is that Connor doesn’t say shit when Larry is nagging at him but the second Zoe opens her mouth to do the same he immediately responds with a big “fuck you” and puts his head down on the table.
The way I analyze that scene is that the fuck you was really meant for Larry, that he was pissed off at his father, but he took it out on Zoe. He redirected his anger onto his sister because it’s a lot easier to take advantage of a younger sibling then the head of your household.
Judging from how Zoe speaks about him later in the play, he probably redirected a lot of his anger onto her and it really messed her up.
Him not speaking up to Larry could also mean that Connor is potentially afraid of him?
The second time we see Connor is at school with Jared and Evan:
Connor cares what people think about him and he’s bullied.
Jared says, “Hey Connor. Loving the new hair length. Very school shooter chic.” Connor responds by staring at him with this perplexed look of wtf dude seriously. He was just nagged at home, forced to go to school when he’s clearly uncomfortable about doing that, and then he gets there only to be antagonized by Jared who pretty much refers to him as someone who slaughters innocent people.
His ‘wtf dude’ look is totally justified in my opinion.
Jared then says that he was just kidding and that it was a joke. To which Connor replies with “Yeah no it was funny. I’m laughing can’t you tell.” His tone starts out light and sarcastic. When Jared doesn’t respond, he steps closer to him and voice raises. “Am I not laughing hard enough for you?” He’s clearly offended by what Jared said.
Jared calls him a freak and walks away.
He gets bullied by Jared so he turns around and becomes the bully to Evan.
Like he did with Zoe, Connor redirects his pain onto people he know won’t fight back or who he views as weaker than him.
Evan nervous laughs when he’s left alone with Connor. Connor can probably see that Evan is scared of him and uses that to his advantage. He says the whole, “What the fuck are you laughing at? Stop fucking laughing at me?”” Stop laughing at me. Not laughing at what Jared said. But specifically laughing at Connor himself. Connor doesn’t want people laughing at him because he cares what they think about him. “You think I’m the freak? I’m not the freak. You’re the fucking freak.” He yells at Evan and pushes him to the ground.
People have all obviously analyzed all these scenes before. I’m not close to the first one to say it, but obviously, these are words he wishes he could say to Jared and Evan is the surrogate for his rage.
And finally we have the very last scene that Connor is in which is the computer lab scene:
Connor is apologetic after he loses his temper.
He sees Evan, who has clearly been crying. I think it’s unknown how long Connor was actually in the room with him/if he overheard the phone call with Evan’s mom. I’m assuming that Evan wasn’t actually speaking out loud when he was writing his letter, that it was more for the audience to know what he was writing. So if Connor had been in the room and listening, he could have heard Evan’s side of the phone call and seen him quietly crying on his laptop while writing something then print it out. Since he was near the printer, he took the paper to give to him. He didn’t have to do that. He wanted to.
I think he wanted an excuse to talk to Evan again after he pushed him. He probably felt bad. I feel like he views Evan as someone who’s harmless and unintimidating, which is why it was easy for him to channel his anger onto, but then he started to regret that choice, so he tried to reach out.
He never actually apologizes with words and instead tries to do it through actions. I bet you that Larry does the exact same thing too but Connor probably never realized or picked up on it. (I could do a full character study on Larry too omg he’s a great specimen to take apart and a fantastically flawed character like everyone else in the show its beautiful fuck)
He’s got a dark sense of humor.
When finding out Evan broke his arm from falling out of a tree, he replies with a “That’s the saddest fucking thing I ever heard.” But he doesn’t say it in a mean way. He smiles and laughs under his breath.
HE WAS TELLING A JOKE. He was trying his best to be nice to Evan and lightly joke around with him but I doubt they have similar styles of humor. I think it’s the only time Connor actually genuinely smiles too??
And Evan doesn’t really laugh. It’s more of a nervous “plz don’t hurt me again ur a lil scary” kinda laugh. So Connor backs off and changes the subject.
He notices that no one signed Evan’s cast.
He noticed that Evan has no friends hence the “now we can both pretend we have friends” line.
He noticed Evan’s sad and alone so he’s making an effort to be nice to him.
He noticed that he printed a piece of paper and that it would be a good ice breaker.
He’s quiet and he notices things. It’s subtle but it’s there. I bet you Connor secretly knows everything about everyone.
The boy just wants a damn friend.
He’s lonely. Evan’s clearly lonely. Why not try to befriend him?
He’s signs his cast super big so it takes up the whole arm. For one, it gets a laugh out of the audience. But two, he kinda knows that no one else will sign it so he makes his name extra big so everyone will see and know that both of them aren’t alone/friendless.
This is also interesting to me because I wonder if Connor knew he was going to kill himself then. Often times suicide is something people plan out ahead of time. I wonder if he knew what he was going to do and I wonder if writing that on Evan’s arm was a secret way for him to leave something semi permanent behind. A way to be sure that someone would remember him when he’s gone. If that’s the case then that was some powerful shit to slip in and it hurts my soul.
He’s angry and paranoid and suicidal.
So obviously Connor reads Evan note to himself, thinks it’s about him, freaks out and leaves. That’s the last time we see Connor.
I’ve looked at this scene in a few different ways. The first way I see it is that Connor could of had symptoms of paranoia. He sees his sister’s name and his first thought is that Evan did this in a malicious manor. He views people as out to get him. It doesn’t take much to set him off. He’s got a lot of anger inside of him that he doesn’t know how to release in a healthy way so it ends up with him blowing up over the slightest little bumps in the road.
The second way I view it is a little different. If I’m thinking about my point before (about him already having plans to kill himself) then I wonder if he was just using the paper as an excuse to get angry and leave. He had already made his mark using Evan’s cast. His name was there. He technically didn’t need Evan anymore. Thus he “freaks out” over this paper and it helps fuel his desires to end his own life. As someone who has been suicidal in the past, I understand wanting to find every excuse you can to help end things, to justify what you’re doing, and to push people away. It’s a super fucked up way of thinking but, when you put yourself into that mindset, I don’t think it’s that crazy of an idea.
“Is this about my sister? You wrote this because you knew I’d find it.” (Hinting at the paranoia point) “Yeah you, uh, saw that I was the only other person in the computer lab.” (Mentally trying to convince himself to believe that Evan did this on purpose, even though it goes against everything he already knows about Evan) “So I could read some creepy shit you wrote about my sister and freak out, right?” (here comes the anger) “Then you could tell everybody that I’m crazy! Right?! Fuck you!” (cue the storm off)
And then we hear from Evan that Connor hasn’t been in school for three days.
And eventually we find out why.
From everything that Connor, himself, has told us he’s deeply hurting. He’s quiet. Observant. He’s got many unchecked mental health issues. He doesn’t feel heard. He’s lonely. He uses coping methods to get by. He has little to no self worth. He carries around a lot of guilt. He acts out on people he know won’t fight him back. Probably because he needs to feel superior because everywhere else in his life he feels stepped on. He is both a bully and bullied. He had little regard for strong authority aka Larry. He craves personal connections but doesn’t know how to obtain them or keep them. He’s broken. So that’s how I try my best to write him.
THEN we have what everyone else tells us about Connor. This should all be taken with a grain of salt because everyone views people differently but their words shouldn’t be totally disregarded either. (Yes I’m going to go on longer even though you never asked for this I’M SORRY I CAN’T STOP NOW) So let’s see what little Connor character traits we can find out from other people that could be potentially used for writing him in the future.
The scene during For Forever tells a lot of about Connor through his family:
Zoe: Connor wasn’t very nice so that makes sense.
Cynthia: Connor was…a complicated person.
Zoe: No. Connor was a bad person. There’s a difference.
In response to finding out Connor pushed Evan. Zoe is shown to have no sympathy for her brother’s actions while Cynthia continues to make excuses for him. I see that as Connor having no mercy on his sister but probably playing his mom to his advantage with what he knew he could get away with.
Cynthia: Did Connor tell you about the Harris’? We used to go skiing together, our families.
Zoe: Connor hated skiing.
Not a sports, activity kinda guy. Doesn’t like things involving social gatherings. Not friendly.
Larry: Somebody had to be the bad guy.
In response to reading Connor’s emails. This one is a little iffy in regards to Connor’s character. It’s more a Larry thing. Because I don’t know if Connor was actually aware that his emails were read or not but either way it shows that he was completely not trusted by his family. Also that pointing out again that Cynthia was probably a push over when it came to Connor and he knew that.
Cynthia: We used to go to the orchard all the time. We;d do picnics there. Remember that Zoe?
Cynthia: You and Connor had that little toy plane that you would fly. [to Larry, with sad laughter] Until you flew it into the creek.
Larry: No that was an emergency landing.
This is big. Things weren’t always hell in the Murphy house. There were good memories. Sadly though good memories are often overshadowed by the bad ones. Connor seemed to cast a huge shadow over this family. But it is important to note that Connor and Zoe used to play together as children. Things. Aren’t. Always. Awful. Connor wasn’t a reckless beast. He can be written to be playful and funny and sarcastic and sweet. Just balance it out with the angst. People are complicated and have tons of depth so try to write them that way if you can.
Other things said at random points throughout the play…
“Connor Murphy is batshit out of his mind. Remember when he threw a printer at Mrs. G in second grade because he didn’t get to be the line leader that day?
Connor has had anger issues since he was a child too.
“Still can’t believe the terrible news about @ connormurphy. I wouldn’t say that we were friends exactly. More like acquaintances. We were in chemistry together. I’m pretty sure. Also he was in my English class in 10th grade. Almost positive. Yeah he was definitely in my English class. Three days ago Connor Murphy was here and now hes gone. If Connor meant something to you please retweet or private message me if you just wanna talk. At time like thees we could all use a friend.”
Honestly, this says way more about Alana’s character but it still mentions Connor so I’m adding it.
But what I do get from this was the Connor has/had a twitter (or some form of social media, but I’m assuming twitter since the “retweet” bit) and Alana followed him on it?
“He was one of my closest acquaintances. He was my lab partner in Chemistry and we presented on Huck Fin together in 10th grade. He was so funny. Instead of calling it, well, Huck Fin…[fades off]. Nobody else in our class thought of that.”
Again, speaks more to Alana’s character than Connors. But I also wonder if this is actually true or if she made this up in a similar fashion to Evan in order to put herself in the story…since she didn’t even recall if he was in those classes or not earlier.
BUT assuming that this was true, Connor doesn’t seem to care much for school. Or he could have been trying to make jokes in order to gain friends. If he worked with Alana on projects, her personality would have steam rolled over his. I think she would be the type of person he would sit back and let take control and tell him what to do then just go along with it.
“Just because Connor isn’t here, trying to punch through my door, screaming that he’s going to kill me for no reason, that doesn’t mean that all of a sudden we’re the fucking Brady Bunch.”
“After all you put me through. Don’t say it wasn’t true. That you were not the monster that I knew”
This shit just breaks my damn heart. You are not the monster that I knew is one of my favorite lines in the entire play. In Zoe’s story, Connor is the villain. He hurt her. He abused her. And no one did anything about it to protect her or stop him. I haven’t really had a chance to write too much of Zoe into my writings yet but I know that if/when I do, Connor is not going to be a kind character to her.
“We didn’t think Connor had any friends.”
All they found with Connor was Evan’s letter. I wonder how many times he reread it, if at all, before he died. Do you think he calmed down and looked at it again through a different light? This time maybe seeing how depressed and unhappy Evan was too? I wonder if he found comfort in that at all and that’s why it was still in his pocket. Of course that’s purely speculation on my part. He could have just shoved it in there and forgot it was there. That’s the beautiful thing about this play, there’s a lot that the viewer can piece together and take away on their own. Things are never fed to you. They present them simply and let you take what you need from it.
Anyway, yeah, Connor had no friends. That point was already kinda clear though.
“I gave you the world. You threw it away.”
Connor grew up in a well off family. They were rich. He literally could of had anything he wanted but he didn’t. I take that as Connor not giving a shit about material items. He probably has little regard for things. You could write that as him throwing and breaking near by items if he’s mad or simply tossing things around and not caring abobut them. Whereas someone who grew up poor, would be more likely to take care of their things because they know they can’t just get more.
“I didn’t realize Connor meant this much to people.”
In his father’s eyes, Connor didn’t mean very much. He was probably able to pick up on that and it would affect his attitude and behavior to other people. If he felt he didn’t mean much to his own father, then why would he ever be special to anyone else?
“He left it in the bag with the tags still on.”
Larry’s weak attempt at reaching out to his son with a baseball glove. It was probably obvious to everyone that Connor was not a sports person. He probably hated baseball. But Larry likes it so he tried to force his hobbies onto Connor. It was received by Connor not even opening the gift. From Connor’s perspective, he could have taken that as a ‘wow my father knows literally nothing about me wtf’ where as Larry would have viewed that differently but this is not about Larry asd;kfja
“Your dad must feel pretty lucky to have a son like you.”
Another great line in this play! It hurts my soul. Connor is a disappointment to his father. Larry wished Connor could have been something more than he was. Once again, this shit would weigh on Connor’s mind and fuck him up.
“I don’t remember the last time I heard him laugh.”
That shit is dark yo. Connor doesn’t laugh around his family. He’s unhappy there.
“Connor didn’t get invited to any bar mitzvahs” [paraphrasing that quote]
Cynthia always had hope for Connor. I like to imagine Connor not being as nasty to his mother than everyone in the family. She really loved him and I hope he could feel that deep down.
“Over the summer I found this yearbook thing that our class made in 8th grade. Most people did collages of their friends. But Connor’s was a list of his ten favorite books.”
One of my favorite bits I like to write into stories is that Connor liked to read. For a middle school kid to have ten favorite books, and care enough about them to put them into a yearbook, is kinda of special. Books are methods of escapism to many people and I like to think Connor is included in that group.
OKAY IM GOING TO STOP THIS IS SO LONG I AM SO SORRY THIS WAS NOT THE RESPONSE YOU WERE LOOKING FOR I WROTE YOU A DUMB CHARACTER STUDY INSTEAD. THIS IS ALL HOW I SEE CONNOR SO IT’S HOW I TRY TO WRITE HIM YOU COULD SEE HIM SUPER DIFFERENTLY AND WRITE HIM DIFFERENTLY THATS WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT WRITING
