Skip to main content

Getting Into Character - Final Session of Summer School for Writers

by Rose Ciccarelli, Editor
She wanders in and out of your thoughts. You can see her in intimate detail, down to the freckle on the base of her palm. You want to know her life story. You can’t keep your mind off her. You’re either in love … or preparing to write about a character. So, how to bring her from your mind to the page?

Who is this person? Find out all you can by using questions to dig deep and jot down what you discover. You probably already have an image in mind, so physical details such as race and ethnicity, age, height, weight, and hair color should all be easy. Delve deeper. Does your character have any physical or mental defects? How about complexes? What about inherited attributes?
You may have thought about occupation and education, but what‘s she like with family and friends? How about her place in the community? Does she do volunteer work? Is she affiliated with a religion or a political party?

How does she go through life? Optimist or pessimist? Frustrated or determined? Is she in a static place or evolving? If she’s the protagonist, she’ll need to grow or change (but even minor characters don’t have to remain static). What’s the arc of her particular story? A famous playwriting adage is:  “In Act One, get the protagonist up a tree. In Act Two, throw rocks at him. In Act Three, get him down.” Plot out your character’s story arc on index cards, a flow chart, whatever works for you.
These exercises will help you think your way into your character. However, successful storytelling means that you don’t tell readers all you know. You show them who she is so they make discoveries on their own. Readers come to know characters by interpreting what they do and say. Here’s an exercise that lets you show rather than tell something about a character. Describe your character’s favorite space. What does she do in that space?

How does your character act when she’s under stress? Is she tired, afraid, or angry? How does she move? What does she eat? (Does she binge on pomegranate seeds or ignore food altogether?) What does she do to get what she wants? Is she direct or manipulative? Does she use distraction or humor?
As you write, you’ll discover new things about your character. She may act in ways that you never would have expected. And once you’ve written, evaluate. Is she acting consistently or in response to the demands of the plot?

Bringing a character to life is an ongoing process of learning all you can, discovering more on the way, and reassessing as you go … maybe it is like being in love after all.
 
Thanks to Rose, my most excellent editor for contributing to SimplyLife this summer.  If you'd like to contact Rose, you can find her on FaceBook.
 

Labels

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Castile Knapper

It's always fun to have family members who have a bit of notoriety because of interesting pursuits. My husband's cousin, Ken Wallace is one of those.  Ken is an artist who works in stone as a flintknapper. Flintknapping is the ancient art of shaping tools and weapons from pieces of stone. Knapping was part of the survival skill set of Native Americans. Arrowheads, knives, hatchets, and more were shaped from raw pieces of flint or chert.  Ken knapping at the Wallace Reunion Ken became interested in this process back in 1985. One of his favorite pastimes was searching fields for arrowheads, both of which are pretty plentiful in Western New York. Freshly plowed ground in rural areas often yields many different types of arrowheads since the Iroquois were the original residents of what are now corn fields and cow pastures. Fascinated with how the Iroquois made their weapons and tools, Ken started to try and recreate them. He says a lot of trial and error were involved in the...
1 comment
Read more

Victim of Circumstances?

 The article below has been getting a lot of hits lately, and I thought it may be time to repost it. A couple of weeks ago, I took the picture below. I thought it pretty much sums up our life journey. We never know what's around the corner for us.  Circumstances change in seconds some days. Whether the circumstances of life are good or bad, we're fond of blaming them for how we behave and think. Here are a few of the well-used excuses:  "I'm a victim of circumstances.""The situation is impossible." "The circumstances are beyond my control." "Under the circumstances"...fill in the blank. Funny how principles, self-control, and  positive thinking can go out the window when we're "under the circumstances."  And lest you think the author is above blaming circumstances, she is not. I've used most of the excuses above, whether spoken or unspoken.  An imprisoned and wrongly accused Jewish C...
1 comment
Read more

Smores Anyone?

We lived in the same house for 25 years just outside of our small hometown of Castile. It was a good little neighborhood and was mostly quiet except for the traffic on Route 39. When the signs of spring arrived, it was also time to pile up tree branches, and clean out the garage or the shed of burnable miscellany. Each year there seemed to be a contest between my husband and the next door neighbor to assemble a burn pile of enormous proportions.  Day after day I watched their piles grow until tepee-shaped woodpiles were just right to be torched. There was an art to the arrangement so that it would be totally consumed in a short amount of time. It was sort of like a bonfire on steroids. Now the neighbor enjoyed the element of surprise on the neighborhood and waited for quiet Saturday afternoons to begin his incendiary activity. KABOOM! You would have thought we were under attack by enemy forces. Then there was a rush of wind and the crackling of the k...
2 comments
Read more