Tannis Has Some Serious Family Issues...
I have a ton of books on writing sitting on my shelf, a ton of books that I never touch. So today, in order to make myself feel better about spending money on them, I decided to bust one out and give it a go. The book contains quizzes that help you gain insight into your characters.
What Would Your Character Do?
Authors: Eric Maisel, Ph.D. and Ann Maisel
Scenario No. 1 - Family Picnic
Your character is attending an extended-family picnic. This may be the first time you meet any of your character’s relatives, so give yourself adequate time to populate the picnic. Think through what sort of mother and father “made” your character, whether or not your character has siblings, and what the sibling order might be. Are there children, grandparents, important aunts and uncles, and/or important cousins, nephews and nieces? Take your time and begin to understand your character’s extended family.
With your book in mind, dream up the right family picnic for your character to attend, one that will help you learn what you need to know. If you discover that your character’s parents are deceased, will you place the picnic in the past or act as if they are still alive? Will you include the in-laws, if your character is married? Will you narrow the cast down to just your character’s immediate family or will you include distant cousins? Take your time and develop your cast of characters and setting for your picnic.
Character: Tannis Cash
Question One: What is the first thing your character does upon receiving an invitation to this extended family picnic?
A) Think about how he can get out of it?
B) Hope that a certain family member won’t be there?
C) Look forward to seeing a certain family member?
D) Feel unaccountably depressed?
E) Call a family member to get the latest gossip?
A) Wanting to get out of the picnic is consistent with a character that is part of an extended family with real tension present and who has decided that avoidance is the better part of valor.
B) Hoping that a certain family member isn’t in attendance directs us to a specific dynamic between your character and another family member and sets the stage for an explosive or muted picnic conflict.
C) Looking forward to seeing a certain family member is consistent with a character who has the capacity to feel love and affection and who is likely in a successful long-term relationship.
D) Feeling unaccountably depressed alerts us to the possibility that your character sees himself as an outsider even in his own family.
E) Calling a family member to get the latest gossip brings to mind a chatty, enmeshed family where everybody know-and is into-everybody else’s business.
How does your character react upon receiving an invitation to an extended family picnic?
Tannis trashes it. He hates his mother’s side of the family (it has to be his mother’s side, his father doesn’t have any family) so there’s no way in hell he’d want to go. He wouldn’t bother telling his father about it either. The only way he’s end up going is if his father finds out about it somehow and decides to go. Tannis is very dependent and protective, so he’d definitely go with to keep an eye on everyone and make sure his father doesn’t end up hurt somehow.
Question Two: On the day of the picnic, does your character:
A) Dress carefully?
B) Dress eccentrically?
C) Wear comfortable clothes?
D) Dress sexily? (Does it count if it’s accidental? LOL)
E) Dress shabbily?
A) Dressing carefully is consistent with a character that expects to be scrutinized and is feeling anxious and under pressure to perform.
B) Is consistent with a character that has developed into a free spirit and feels free of his family and their dynamics-or at least would like to believe that about himself.
C) Consistent with a character that may really be free of family dynamics and doesn’t perceive that picnic as a trial.
D) Consistent with a character that is generally inappropriate, manifests addictive behaviors, and is likely on the grandiose, narcissistic-and depressed-side.
E) Consistent with a character that may be making a statement about his unworthiness or, alternatively, defiantly showing contempt and animosity for his family.
What will you character wear to the picnic?
This is an interesting one because I can see Tannis doing a few of these. He likes to dress a bit oddly from time to time; he tends to wear stuff in his hair-ribbons, odd bits and bobs that he finds (he likes shiny objects the best), and he also likes to wear vet wrap around his wrists and forearms. Though he doesn’t go overboard with it, he does enjoy mixing it up. His father encourages many forms of self-expression. XD
He also would want to be comfortable, it’s been trained into him to dress for physical exertion, and so he’d be wearing well-worn jeans and his favorite shin-high lace up boots.
His shirt may go into the realm of sexy though. He favors shirts with V-necks (he hates the choking feeling that tight collars give, the only thing that should choke him is his father’s dog tags :D), or just wider collars that end up showing off his collar-bones and the muscle in his shoulders and upper chest. He’s lean but fit.
Question Three: How does your character greet his mother?
A) With false love and enthusiasm?
B) With genuine love and enthusiasm?
C) Coolly?
D) Carefully?
E) Perfunctorily?
A) In many rule-bound families, it is the custom to put on a display of love and good cheer with the family matriarch, so such a display suggests a hidden nest of family rules and secrets.
B) Genuine love and enthusiasm are consistent with a strong, mentally healthy character that has received love in childhood.
C) Greeting coolly suggests a significant level of hostility and unexpressed issues between mother and child.
D) Greeting carefully is consistent with a defensive posture caused by receiving regular and repeated criticism and insults.
E) Greeting the mother perfunctorily is consistent with a distant relationship characterized by a lack of interest as much as a lack of love.
How does your character greet his mother?
If he can get away with it, he wouldn’t greet her at all. However, his mother’s family is of rich, Old Italian stock, and is strict when it comes to certain social graces. Not greeting his mother wouldn’t really be an option. However, he would proceed carefully, watching her closely out of a mix of fear and hate, and would keep it brief, simply going through the motions in order to keep the peace.
Question Four: How does your character greet his father?
A) Gruffly?
B) Coldly?
C) Hotly?
D) Defensively?
E) Indifferently?
(LOL, what is with these options?)
A) A gruff greeting, especially between son and father but also between daughter and father, is consistent with a family dynamic of machismo, conventional gender roles, and working-class ethos.
B) A cold greeting suggests significant hostility and long-held grudges between child and parent.
C) A hot greeting, especially between daughter and father, suggests sexual dynamics and sexual secrets.
D) A defensive greeting suggests a history of criticism, rejections, bullying, and perhaps the severest forms of abuse.
E) An indifferent greeting suggests emotional distancing and a relationship that rises only to the level of civility.
How does your character greet his father?
If he were greeting his father after having been apart for a long time, then there’d be one hell of a full-body hug. Tannis doesn’t hug a lot, but when he does, his father doesn’t let go until Tannis is ready. Tannis would be practically crawling into his father’s skin.
If it’s just a greeting during the picnic, and they haven’t been apart for long, he’d still be thrilled to see him again, and would invade his father’s personal space (not that either of them have much personal space when it comes to each other) and would probably want some sort of physical contact since his mother’s family really stresses him out.
Question Five: How does your character spend his time at the picnic?
A) Watching?
B) Catching up?
C) Getting high?
D) Conversing with one other family member?
E) Fulfilling a role?
A) If your character watches, that is consistent with a character who has an intense inner life and who may be a rebel, thinker, and/or artist.
B) If he spends time catching up with family members, that is consistent with a character that possesses social graces and who knows how to act in social situations-irrespective of what he is actually feeling or thinking.
C) If your character gets high, that is consistent with a character that is uncomfortable in social situations and may also point to a substance abuse problem.
D) If your character spends most of his time with one other family member, that suggests that these two characters are confidantes, intimates, or like-minded.
E) If your character fulfills a role-as hostess, peacekeeper, troublemaker, etc.-that suggests he has trouble with autonomy and independent action.
How does you character spend his time at the picnic?
Tannis would avoid talking as much as possible. He would also stick to his father like glue. The only people from his mother’s family that he can stand to be around to any extent are his Grandfather, and the hired help. Both the butler and his Grandfather’s…bodyguard type man (really need to find out the appropriate Italian word for it), actually like Tannis (the rest of the family don’t like him because of his father, and the fact that his mother really lost her cookies after having him, so they basically blame him and his father for her condition. It’s a messed up family.), and he can tolerate them without a lot of trouble. But even so, he wouldn’t leave his father’s side if he could help it.
Question Six: How would you describe the picnic?
A) Cordial?
B) Intense?
C) Boring?
D) Loving?
E) Simmering?
A) A cordial picnic suggests the family at least know how to look like it gets along, whether or not family members really love or like each other.
B) An intense picnic suggests high drama between at least two family members, perhaps a visiting son and his father or a pregnant daughter and her mother.
C) A boring picnic suggests a certain kind of family history from which your character may be escaping, for example, a history of conventionality, superficiality, and low aspirations.
D) A loving picnic suggests a warm, tolerant, good-humored extended family whose ups and downs, difficulties, and disagreements do not prevent them from remaining close-knit.
E) A simmering picnic suggests enduring and shifting family conflicts and high drama in the lives of the family members.
How would you describe your picnic?
Tension, tension, tension. They know how to make the family look cordial, how to fake good relationships, but the underlying buzz would be of feuds, conflicts, and rumors. Fun, huh?
I kind of want to write this scene. Maybe later...
What Would Your Character Do?
Authors: Eric Maisel, Ph.D. and Ann Maisel
Scenario No. 1 - Family Picnic
Your character is attending an extended-family picnic. This may be the first time you meet any of your character’s relatives, so give yourself adequate time to populate the picnic. Think through what sort of mother and father “made” your character, whether or not your character has siblings, and what the sibling order might be. Are there children, grandparents, important aunts and uncles, and/or important cousins, nephews and nieces? Take your time and begin to understand your character’s extended family.
With your book in mind, dream up the right family picnic for your character to attend, one that will help you learn what you need to know. If you discover that your character’s parents are deceased, will you place the picnic in the past or act as if they are still alive? Will you include the in-laws, if your character is married? Will you narrow the cast down to just your character’s immediate family or will you include distant cousins? Take your time and develop your cast of characters and setting for your picnic.
Character: Tannis Cash
Question One: What is the first thing your character does upon receiving an invitation to this extended family picnic?
A) Think about how he can get out of it?
B) Hope that a certain family member won’t be there?
C) Look forward to seeing a certain family member?
D) Feel unaccountably depressed?
E) Call a family member to get the latest gossip?
A) Wanting to get out of the picnic is consistent with a character that is part of an extended family with real tension present and who has decided that avoidance is the better part of valor.
B) Hoping that a certain family member isn’t in attendance directs us to a specific dynamic between your character and another family member and sets the stage for an explosive or muted picnic conflict.
C) Looking forward to seeing a certain family member is consistent with a character who has the capacity to feel love and affection and who is likely in a successful long-term relationship.
D) Feeling unaccountably depressed alerts us to the possibility that your character sees himself as an outsider even in his own family.
E) Calling a family member to get the latest gossip brings to mind a chatty, enmeshed family where everybody know-and is into-everybody else’s business.
How does your character react upon receiving an invitation to an extended family picnic?
Tannis trashes it. He hates his mother’s side of the family (it has to be his mother’s side, his father doesn’t have any family) so there’s no way in hell he’d want to go. He wouldn’t bother telling his father about it either. The only way he’s end up going is if his father finds out about it somehow and decides to go. Tannis is very dependent and protective, so he’d definitely go with to keep an eye on everyone and make sure his father doesn’t end up hurt somehow.
Question Two: On the day of the picnic, does your character:
A) Dress carefully?
B) Dress eccentrically?
C) Wear comfortable clothes?
D) Dress sexily? (Does it count if it’s accidental? LOL)
E) Dress shabbily?
A) Dressing carefully is consistent with a character that expects to be scrutinized and is feeling anxious and under pressure to perform.
B) Is consistent with a character that has developed into a free spirit and feels free of his family and their dynamics-or at least would like to believe that about himself.
C) Consistent with a character that may really be free of family dynamics and doesn’t perceive that picnic as a trial.
D) Consistent with a character that is generally inappropriate, manifests addictive behaviors, and is likely on the grandiose, narcissistic-and depressed-side.
E) Consistent with a character that may be making a statement about his unworthiness or, alternatively, defiantly showing contempt and animosity for his family.
What will you character wear to the picnic?
This is an interesting one because I can see Tannis doing a few of these. He likes to dress a bit oddly from time to time; he tends to wear stuff in his hair-ribbons, odd bits and bobs that he finds (he likes shiny objects the best), and he also likes to wear vet wrap around his wrists and forearms. Though he doesn’t go overboard with it, he does enjoy mixing it up. His father encourages many forms of self-expression. XD
He also would want to be comfortable, it’s been trained into him to dress for physical exertion, and so he’d be wearing well-worn jeans and his favorite shin-high lace up boots.
His shirt may go into the realm of sexy though. He favors shirts with V-necks (he hates the choking feeling that tight collars give, the only thing that should choke him is his father’s dog tags :D), or just wider collars that end up showing off his collar-bones and the muscle in his shoulders and upper chest. He’s lean but fit.
Question Three: How does your character greet his mother?
A) With false love and enthusiasm?
B) With genuine love and enthusiasm?
C) Coolly?
D) Carefully?
E) Perfunctorily?
A) In many rule-bound families, it is the custom to put on a display of love and good cheer with the family matriarch, so such a display suggests a hidden nest of family rules and secrets.
B) Genuine love and enthusiasm are consistent with a strong, mentally healthy character that has received love in childhood.
C) Greeting coolly suggests a significant level of hostility and unexpressed issues between mother and child.
D) Greeting carefully is consistent with a defensive posture caused by receiving regular and repeated criticism and insults.
E) Greeting the mother perfunctorily is consistent with a distant relationship characterized by a lack of interest as much as a lack of love.
How does your character greet his mother?
If he can get away with it, he wouldn’t greet her at all. However, his mother’s family is of rich, Old Italian stock, and is strict when it comes to certain social graces. Not greeting his mother wouldn’t really be an option. However, he would proceed carefully, watching her closely out of a mix of fear and hate, and would keep it brief, simply going through the motions in order to keep the peace.
Question Four: How does your character greet his father?
A) Gruffly?
B) Coldly?
C) Hotly?
D) Defensively?
E) Indifferently?
(LOL, what is with these options?)
A) A gruff greeting, especially between son and father but also between daughter and father, is consistent with a family dynamic of machismo, conventional gender roles, and working-class ethos.
B) A cold greeting suggests significant hostility and long-held grudges between child and parent.
C) A hot greeting, especially between daughter and father, suggests sexual dynamics and sexual secrets.
D) A defensive greeting suggests a history of criticism, rejections, bullying, and perhaps the severest forms of abuse.
E) An indifferent greeting suggests emotional distancing and a relationship that rises only to the level of civility.
How does your character greet his father?
If he were greeting his father after having been apart for a long time, then there’d be one hell of a full-body hug. Tannis doesn’t hug a lot, but when he does, his father doesn’t let go until Tannis is ready. Tannis would be practically crawling into his father’s skin.
If it’s just a greeting during the picnic, and they haven’t been apart for long, he’d still be thrilled to see him again, and would invade his father’s personal space (not that either of them have much personal space when it comes to each other) and would probably want some sort of physical contact since his mother’s family really stresses him out.
Question Five: How does your character spend his time at the picnic?
A) Watching?
B) Catching up?
C) Getting high?
D) Conversing with one other family member?
E) Fulfilling a role?
A) If your character watches, that is consistent with a character who has an intense inner life and who may be a rebel, thinker, and/or artist.
B) If he spends time catching up with family members, that is consistent with a character that possesses social graces and who knows how to act in social situations-irrespective of what he is actually feeling or thinking.
C) If your character gets high, that is consistent with a character that is uncomfortable in social situations and may also point to a substance abuse problem.
D) If your character spends most of his time with one other family member, that suggests that these two characters are confidantes, intimates, or like-minded.
E) If your character fulfills a role-as hostess, peacekeeper, troublemaker, etc.-that suggests he has trouble with autonomy and independent action.
How does you character spend his time at the picnic?
Tannis would avoid talking as much as possible. He would also stick to his father like glue. The only people from his mother’s family that he can stand to be around to any extent are his Grandfather, and the hired help. Both the butler and his Grandfather’s…bodyguard type man (really need to find out the appropriate Italian word for it), actually like Tannis (the rest of the family don’t like him because of his father, and the fact that his mother really lost her cookies after having him, so they basically blame him and his father for her condition. It’s a messed up family.), and he can tolerate them without a lot of trouble. But even so, he wouldn’t leave his father’s side if he could help it.
Question Six: How would you describe the picnic?
A) Cordial?
B) Intense?
C) Boring?
D) Loving?
E) Simmering?
A) A cordial picnic suggests the family at least know how to look like it gets along, whether or not family members really love or like each other.
B) An intense picnic suggests high drama between at least two family members, perhaps a visiting son and his father or a pregnant daughter and her mother.
C) A boring picnic suggests a certain kind of family history from which your character may be escaping, for example, a history of conventionality, superficiality, and low aspirations.
D) A loving picnic suggests a warm, tolerant, good-humored extended family whose ups and downs, difficulties, and disagreements do not prevent them from remaining close-knit.
E) A simmering picnic suggests enduring and shifting family conflicts and high drama in the lives of the family members.
How would you describe your picnic?
Tension, tension, tension. They know how to make the family look cordial, how to fake good relationships, but the underlying buzz would be of feuds, conflicts, and rumors. Fun, huh?
I kind of want to write this scene. Maybe later...