I know, I've been away for a while. I've been adjusting to a new schedule, teaching at Richmond Adult and Community College as well as coaching and getting back into my current novel.
But it's good to be back here. I've taught a workshop this week on Creating Convincing Characters at the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival; I worked with a wonderful group of individuals and enjoyed two great art lectures in the afternoon, on Francis Bacon and Matisse.
I'm looking forward to blogging again, but it's late, so for now I'll simply post my teaching notes from the festival and hope you them useful:
WRITING CONVINCING CHARACTERS
When we write fiction in an organic way, fiction grows from character, plot grows from character.
We can differentiate between Characterisation and Character. Characterisation includes aspects of character we may consider when first building characters, including:
Physical appearance
Dialogue & narrative voice
Self-perception of character and perceptions of others
Character’s history
His/her conflicts and desires
Thoughts and actions of the character
Yet Character emerges through the difficult choices a person makes. In other words, it is discovered only in the PROCESS of writing.
So we can begin with a visual image, we can do exercises to begin filling in the gaps (for example using lists like those below – a common method). But real character goes deeper. It emerges when you put characters in situations and conflict with other characters, when you begin to dream about them and build on the characterisation. Characters DEVELOP and grow.
They may at first emerge from a fragment:
A phrase that intrigues you
Visual images – paintings, photographs
Composites of people we know
A face on a bus or a fragment of conversation
We then build them – by journaling, writing, dreaming. Maybe we’ll pin pictures above our desks – Deborah Moggach likes to use Michael Gambon’s face as an inspiration because she feels it is so open to interpretation. Or else set ourselves an exercise – for example – ‘write your character’s Obituary’ Or we may write a scene of a central childhood experience to begin to understand their past.
As our characters play a role in our narrative, so they begin to build in our minds. Only through regular writing do they begin to live and act in unexpected ways…
When we keep notebooks, where we scribble ideas about our characters, we are giving them room to grow. They must never be static.
Character is about more than a set piece description. It is dynamic; a vital life force within a work of fiction.
And characters do develop through CONFLICT.
Robert McKee talks about the following situations:
Man against Man Man against Self Man against Nature
Man against Society Man against Machine Man against God
So how DO our characters DEVELOP?
My experience is: it comes partly through writing partly through dreaming. Like getting to know a person. First you simply see them, then you see them in a certain situation, then they start to tell you their life-history, you notice their habits, you start understanding their habits, their turn of phrase becomes familiar, you start to be able to anticipate how they will behave. You may wish to experiment: utilise different narrative methods to explore them - first person, dialogue, internal monologue, third person etc
You can PLAY with it.
Try putting a character in a situation that is likely to cause some distress or difficulty, and writing the scene, using close observation. Think about what that person wants. What spurs them on – DESIRE AND CONFLICT are vital.
Iris Murdoch has observed that we must like our characters – even those who appear on the surface to be abhorrent. If we do not ‘like’ them (for which you can substitute ‘understand’) then your reader is unlikely to want to be drawn into their story. Every character has their own justifications for acting as they do.
Aim not merely to describe, but rather to ILLUSTRATE character through ACTION and DIALOGUE. Don’t TELL rather SHOW. Let that character be REVEALED to us. Showing involves putting your character in a situation and seeing how he/she reacts. Describing the action in some detail, using dialogue. Taking it slowly
Your own curiosity is vital too. If you have a genuine desire to understand how a particular character works, you are half way there.
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