Tuesday, February 1, 2011
characters
Anne says in "Bird By Bird" that her mind spends much of the time having conversations with people who aren't there. She also says when developing a character, you really need to get to know each individual. Find out how they stand, what they carry in their pockets, what happens to their face and their posture when they're thinking, or sad, or angry. Why should we care about them anyway, what would be the first thing they stopped doing if they found out they had six months to live? She says you are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you and you are going to hate some of you characters for the same reason, but no matter what you are probably going to have to let bad things happen to some of the characters that you love or you won't have much of a story. Bad things happen to characters because they are human and do not behave perfectly all the time, and there are consiquence to all of our actions. What she says about developing a character is improtant. I never thought of looking at every character that deeply, but i know now that once you develop the charaters your story will come.
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That really made me look at characters in a different way. But in every way all that what she said was true though. In order for your story to be good, the characters you create have to sound real and possess characteristics that are likely to be that of a human. I tend to look at myself in different ways like how would I act if I was in various situations that aren't normal for me? It's kind of fun actually to see what you can think of for to make your character interesting whether to be hated or loved by the people who read your story.
ReplyDeleteCharacters are the essential part to any writing. If the characters don't grab the readers attention then nothing will.
ReplyDeleteSo true. The characters aren't knights in shining armor, they are sometimes battered, labored and in the end these human things, as Annie Dillard stated, make them interesting. They become people that we can relate to.
ReplyDeleteAgree to all the comments above. I just wanted to add, especially after our class on drama that not only is the character important, but the name can be a tool in defining the character, almost giving it, the character, a kind of profile within the name. Some names have the ability to evoke much emotion or preconceived notion from your readers just by the name of the character.
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