Tenners Tell-All: Getting into Character
I have a bad tendency to dress like my characters. There. I said it.
Because I am obsessed with clothes, I see this as a natural progression, even when it means wearing dresses every day for two months because the character I'm revising only wears dresses, or tracking down a charm bracelet jangling with the seven deadly sins. Sometimes what I'm looking for just doesn't exist, or the cost is insanely prohibitive, or the concept is good but the execution is not quite right, and then I attempt to make the thing myself. With varying degrees of success. I'll say it again: with varying degrees of success. (This means it almost never works.)
But my character-involvement doesn't stop there. I also misappropriate hobbies and interests. If a character does it, then I have to try it too.
Scrap-booking? Check. Origami and DIY clothing and long-distance running? You got it.
They grow orchids? Then so do I. Wait, they grow orchids in a proprietary blend of bark and moss, using secondhand easter baskets as planters? Hello, Mom? Do we have any . . . ?
Play the bass? Oh, husband-guy, can you teach me . . . ?
Yes, some of this (a lot, maybe) definitely falls under the heading of procrastination-through-research, but even being fully cognizant of that, I still feel like I need this extra little connection, the close study that goes into learning someone, knowing their passions, knowing their whole lives. It lets me in on secrets I would never know otherwise.
What about you? How do you get to know these made-up people who live in your head?
Because I am obsessed with clothes, I see this as a natural progression, even when it means wearing dresses every day for two months because the character I'm revising only wears dresses, or tracking down a charm bracelet jangling with the seven deadly sins. Sometimes what I'm looking for just doesn't exist, or the cost is insanely prohibitive, or the concept is good but the execution is not quite right, and then I attempt to make the thing myself. With varying degrees of success. I'll say it again: with varying degrees of success. (This means it almost never works.)
But my character-involvement doesn't stop there. I also misappropriate hobbies and interests. If a character does it, then I have to try it too.
Scrap-booking? Check. Origami and DIY clothing and long-distance running? You got it.
They grow orchids? Then so do I. Wait, they grow orchids in a proprietary blend of bark and moss, using secondhand easter baskets as planters? Hello, Mom? Do we have any . . . ?
Play the bass? Oh, husband-guy, can you teach me . . . ?
Yes, some of this (a lot, maybe) definitely falls under the heading of procrastination-through-research, but even being fully cognizant of that, I still feel like I need this extra little connection, the close study that goes into learning someone, knowing their passions, knowing their whole lives. It lets me in on secrets I would never know otherwise.
What about you? How do you get to know these made-up people who live in your head?