Writing Meta: free-for-all
I was reading this workshop on characterisation by
synecdochic (and essentially all the on-writing stuff she's ever written which is listed here; there's a lot of it, and it's all really intelligent) earlier today.
Essentially, she's like me - characterisation = fun and usually quite manageable, plot = a Four Letter Word. Then I had a conversation with
strigoia (aka
mplindsay ; this was over at the latter novel-journal) about how she's an awesome plotter, but can't seem to find the character voices the way she'd like. So - and I didn't tell her this bit - I thought we could do an exchange program: I'll write about finding characters and voices, you write about plot structure.
Then I thought: what if everyone wrote something about a particular skill in writing they have? Spread it around: I'd love to have lots of people contributing some of their expertise.
These, of course, are just my thoughts. Feel free to read and laugh at my different sanity, then go and meditate/write lists/whatever you like doing. This is what I like doing, and it's seemed to work better than either meditating or writing lists (or anything else that I've tried). I'm using Jamie a lot of the time as an example: if you want to read more about him, and my original work, it's over at my other journal,
lavieenflame .
Character Basics
My personal preference is to pretend that characters are people - though of course this can go too far (see SGA, S2 ep 14. The one with Rodney in the Jumper). This is important in several respects:
a) They probably disagree with you a fair amount. Jamie thinks I'm annoying and kindof daft most of the time, and he isn't much of a foodie (in direct contradiction to my philosophy of life).
b) Their past shapes their future - this means that details of their life, likes and dislikes and random weird abilities which might not make sense now are still a part of them. Your big tough guy might remember the days when he was bullied, and have an irrational fear of spiders because of it. Your businesswoman might love the colour pink, and secretly wear angora sweaters at home because her gran used to knit them, and so on. People are weird, and have all sorts of odd, contradictory bits and pieces. They might be rational in some situations, and explosive and random in others. They might be someone who values honesty, but is just a touch manipulative, or who hates conflict but won't stand to see her friends take a beating.
c) People do similar things for wildly different reasons. Jamie drinks to excess, mostly to avert boredom, while his peers drink to get drunk and look cool and his dad drinks because he can't help it. Your character's motivations for their actions are at least as if not more importan that what they actually do. Character quirks, like using the word 'seriously' far too much (ahem *turns to glare at left shoulder*) don't mean anything by themselves, but if you have reasons behind them or use them to be revealing, they work (because Jamie takes everything far too seriously. Really, hon, it's a good thing you met Mal and Adam, who actually have functioning senses of humour).
So, sure, the devil is in the detail. But don't take this to mean a character is *made up* of detail, and thus go off and make lists about what kinds of food and movies they like, without taking into accound that the important things are: Ambitions, Motivations, and Reactions. AMR. I'm sure that stands for something else, too, but anyway, when creating characters, details should be a natural extension and expression of personality - not the other way around.
Now. How do you go about figuring out what your character is essentially *like*? You've probably got a few adjectives already, but words on a page don't make a person. And what, anyway, does it mean to say someone is 'reserved'? How does that cause them to behave around friends, enemies, strangers, authority figures? Why, anyway, do they have problems with openness? and so on. What I've found to be best is to invite them in for a party.
Characterisation: How to start off on good terms
For me, I start any story with some sort of vague idea - usually of the mood, or a theme, or the central idea of a particular scene, or something. Characters come next, and again, there's a vague impression of what they're like in the back of my head. Usually this solidifies into something a bit more substantial - I call this a 'hook', and it usually gives you something to yank at so you can get more access to your characters.
This first bit is usually reasonably manageable for me (since I instinctually work this way), but for those of you whose characters are elusive names and descriptions on a piece of paper, this is how to start getting them from paper into your head, and that's important. So they can, er, get back from your head onto paper, but in a way that's full and rounded and makes sense. I, personally, can't build characters on paper with those questionnaire things - though once they're in your head it's fun to ask your characters and laugh at the answers.
So sit down. Close your eyes. Think about the idea that's clearest in your head as far as your novel goes. You might have a line of dialogue, or perhaps a place, or an interesting bit of backstory buzzing around. Think about it as it relates to your main character, or the character you want to focus on. TLH started off as dark, dirty room lit weakly by moonlight, and started going places when I imagined Jamie sitting in a corner. Try and get an impression of how they're feeling, what their attitude and mood is. Find some point of connection, so you can understand where they're coming from.
Once I have this general impression, I wander about with it in my head for a while. This is an important bit - imagine that your character is a real person, and you're trying to get close to them. Slowly, an impression leads me to some bit of solid knowledge - maybe you've formed an image of them in your head as tall and lanky. Perhaps you've realised that they're a bit irritable, or maybe you can sense an underlying feeling of fear. Think about this - it's your 'hook', as I mentioned. Think about anything you know for certain about your character, either because the plot says so, or canon says so, and hold it in your head along with this impression.
The object of the exercise being, rather than to transfer yourself into the character's head, you transfer the character into your head. It works better that way for me, anyway, though occasionally it becomes a bit crowded.
There's lots of ways to work from here. At this point, I'd suggest either making up or finding some sort of photographic reference for your character's appearance - it helps make the impression into an actual person. You can wander around with this presence in your head, happily plotting away and picking up facts to solidify the imaginary character in your mind. Or, if you're feeling a bit more confident, or aren't sure whether you're doing this right, you can metaphorically march up to this new imaginary friend, and introduce yourself.
Don't be discouraged if they only look you up and down, then walk off, because that's a response as much as any other and tells you as much as it would if they replied 'hi! Oh, thank goodness you're around, I was getting sooo booored...' and starts chattering madly. Jamie glared at me sullenly, and didn't say anything till I told someone else that, at which point he protested "I don't glare sullenly!"
From this point, it's a question of trying to get a reaction. Talk to them. Ask them what they want for dinner, what they'd do if they were stuck in this particular traffic jam, whether or not they like the music you're playing. And bear in mind they're people - depending on the character, they may or may not tell you the truth, or they might ignore more personal questions, or just wander off when things get boring. That's okay, because everything they do lets you build up an impression inside your head of who they are.
So when you come to write them, their voice will already be in your head, and they might even hijack a scene you're trying to write because they are *not* going to wear a suit, goddammit. And while they don't drink pink champagne under any circumstance, they're not pretentious enough to ask for any particular whisky (I'm looking at you, Jamie).
Here's where, if you're a maker of lists or answerer of questionnaires, this gets fun. Instead of wracking your brains, thinking, 'what would this character prefer - chocolate or strawberry icecream'? You can just ask them. Jamie likes Baileys, though he's not much of an ice cream fan in general, and hates the idea that people think Bailey's ice cream might be just a touch pretentious.
A few words of caution: your characters will lie to you, avoid answering, or babble at you with a load of nothing. They might stubbornly declare that, no, they're totally over their stupid Junior High best friend who got them busted, because that was years ago, but actually be harbouring a secret desire to kill them slowly. Or jump them. You never know.
You might also find yourself doing things like almost talking out loud. This is to be avoided, unless you have an understanding family/cat. They might get the people in white coats to come round, who might not be too impressed by the assertion that 'I'm differently sane: there are people inside my head.'
But I've found that the rewards of being slightly insane outweight the disadvantages. I don't know how else I would have gotten through enforced geography back in school.
So. Thoughts? Replies? I'll be interested to hear what you think.
ETA:
strigoia wrote a fabulous (and rather amusing) essay on plotting techniques called What do you mean, there's a dragon in my bathtub? in response to this. Go give her love, okay?
synecdochic (and essentially all the on-writing stuff she's ever written which is listed here; there's a lot of it, and it's all really intelligent) earlier today.
Essentially, she's like me - characterisation = fun and usually quite manageable, plot = a Four Letter Word. Then I had a conversation with
strigoia (aka
mplindsay ; this was over at the latter novel-journal) about how she's an awesome plotter, but can't seem to find the character voices the way she'd like. So - and I didn't tell her this bit - I thought we could do an exchange program: I'll write about finding characters and voices, you write about plot structure.
Then I thought: what if everyone wrote something about a particular skill in writing they have? Spread it around: I'd love to have lots of people contributing some of their expertise.
These, of course, are just my thoughts. Feel free to read and laugh at my different sanity, then go and meditate/write lists/whatever you like doing. This is what I like doing, and it's seemed to work better than either meditating or writing lists (or anything else that I've tried). I'm using Jamie a lot of the time as an example: if you want to read more about him, and my original work, it's over at my other journal,
lavieenflame .
Character Basics
My personal preference is to pretend that characters are people - though of course this can go too far (see SGA, S2 ep 14. The one with Rodney in the Jumper). This is important in several respects:
a) They probably disagree with you a fair amount. Jamie thinks I'm annoying and kindof daft most of the time, and he isn't much of a foodie (in direct contradiction to my philosophy of life).
b) Their past shapes their future - this means that details of their life, likes and dislikes and random weird abilities which might not make sense now are still a part of them. Your big tough guy might remember the days when he was bullied, and have an irrational fear of spiders because of it. Your businesswoman might love the colour pink, and secretly wear angora sweaters at home because her gran used to knit them, and so on. People are weird, and have all sorts of odd, contradictory bits and pieces. They might be rational in some situations, and explosive and random in others. They might be someone who values honesty, but is just a touch manipulative, or who hates conflict but won't stand to see her friends take a beating.
c) People do similar things for wildly different reasons. Jamie drinks to excess, mostly to avert boredom, while his peers drink to get drunk and look cool and his dad drinks because he can't help it. Your character's motivations for their actions are at least as if not more importan that what they actually do. Character quirks, like using the word 'seriously' far too much (ahem *turns to glare at left shoulder*) don't mean anything by themselves, but if you have reasons behind them or use them to be revealing, they work (because Jamie takes everything far too seriously. Really, hon, it's a good thing you met Mal and Adam, who actually have functioning senses of humour).
So, sure, the devil is in the detail. But don't take this to mean a character is *made up* of detail, and thus go off and make lists about what kinds of food and movies they like, without taking into accound that the important things are: Ambitions, Motivations, and Reactions. AMR. I'm sure that stands for something else, too, but anyway, when creating characters, details should be a natural extension and expression of personality - not the other way around.
Now. How do you go about figuring out what your character is essentially *like*? You've probably got a few adjectives already, but words on a page don't make a person. And what, anyway, does it mean to say someone is 'reserved'? How does that cause them to behave around friends, enemies, strangers, authority figures? Why, anyway, do they have problems with openness? and so on. What I've found to be best is to invite them in for a party.
Characterisation: How to start off on good terms
For me, I start any story with some sort of vague idea - usually of the mood, or a theme, or the central idea of a particular scene, or something. Characters come next, and again, there's a vague impression of what they're like in the back of my head. Usually this solidifies into something a bit more substantial - I call this a 'hook', and it usually gives you something to yank at so you can get more access to your characters.
This first bit is usually reasonably manageable for me (since I instinctually work this way), but for those of you whose characters are elusive names and descriptions on a piece of paper, this is how to start getting them from paper into your head, and that's important. So they can, er, get back from your head onto paper, but in a way that's full and rounded and makes sense. I, personally, can't build characters on paper with those questionnaire things - though once they're in your head it's fun to ask your characters and laugh at the answers.
So sit down. Close your eyes. Think about the idea that's clearest in your head as far as your novel goes. You might have a line of dialogue, or perhaps a place, or an interesting bit of backstory buzzing around. Think about it as it relates to your main character, or the character you want to focus on. TLH started off as dark, dirty room lit weakly by moonlight, and started going places when I imagined Jamie sitting in a corner. Try and get an impression of how they're feeling, what their attitude and mood is. Find some point of connection, so you can understand where they're coming from.
Once I have this general impression, I wander about with it in my head for a while. This is an important bit - imagine that your character is a real person, and you're trying to get close to them. Slowly, an impression leads me to some bit of solid knowledge - maybe you've formed an image of them in your head as tall and lanky. Perhaps you've realised that they're a bit irritable, or maybe you can sense an underlying feeling of fear. Think about this - it's your 'hook', as I mentioned. Think about anything you know for certain about your character, either because the plot says so, or canon says so, and hold it in your head along with this impression.
The object of the exercise being, rather than to transfer yourself into the character's head, you transfer the character into your head. It works better that way for me, anyway, though occasionally it becomes a bit crowded.
There's lots of ways to work from here. At this point, I'd suggest either making up or finding some sort of photographic reference for your character's appearance - it helps make the impression into an actual person. You can wander around with this presence in your head, happily plotting away and picking up facts to solidify the imaginary character in your mind. Or, if you're feeling a bit more confident, or aren't sure whether you're doing this right, you can metaphorically march up to this new imaginary friend, and introduce yourself.
Don't be discouraged if they only look you up and down, then walk off, because that's a response as much as any other and tells you as much as it would if they replied 'hi! Oh, thank goodness you're around, I was getting sooo booored...' and starts chattering madly. Jamie glared at me sullenly, and didn't say anything till I told someone else that, at which point he protested "I don't glare sullenly!"
From this point, it's a question of trying to get a reaction. Talk to them. Ask them what they want for dinner, what they'd do if they were stuck in this particular traffic jam, whether or not they like the music you're playing. And bear in mind they're people - depending on the character, they may or may not tell you the truth, or they might ignore more personal questions, or just wander off when things get boring. That's okay, because everything they do lets you build up an impression inside your head of who they are.
So when you come to write them, their voice will already be in your head, and they might even hijack a scene you're trying to write because they are *not* going to wear a suit, goddammit. And while they don't drink pink champagne under any circumstance, they're not pretentious enough to ask for any particular whisky (I'm looking at you, Jamie).
Here's where, if you're a maker of lists or answerer of questionnaires, this gets fun. Instead of wracking your brains, thinking, 'what would this character prefer - chocolate or strawberry icecream'? You can just ask them. Jamie likes Baileys, though he's not much of an ice cream fan in general, and hates the idea that people think Bailey's ice cream might be just a touch pretentious.
A few words of caution: your characters will lie to you, avoid answering, or babble at you with a load of nothing. They might stubbornly declare that, no, they're totally over their stupid Junior High best friend who got them busted, because that was years ago, but actually be harbouring a secret desire to kill them slowly. Or jump them. You never know.
You might also find yourself doing things like almost talking out loud. This is to be avoided, unless you have an understanding family/cat. They might get the people in white coats to come round, who might not be too impressed by the assertion that 'I'm differently sane: there are people inside my head.'
But I've found that the rewards of being slightly insane outweight the disadvantages. I don't know how else I would have gotten through enforced geography back in school.
So. Thoughts? Replies? I'll be interested to hear what you think.
ETA:
strigoia wrote a fabulous (and rather amusing) essay on plotting techniques called What do you mean, there's a dragon in my bathtub? in response to this. Go give her love, okay?