One of the things that authors love about writing fiction is that it's all made up. We can create really crazy people doing wacky things.
Yet recently I realized some of my characters are more sedate on the page than the "characters" I know in real life. Time to 'up the anty' on my fictional characters, I said to myself.
In fact, when I teach students about Character Development, I ask them to imagine their character from the inside out. Not just how the character looks and dresses and walks, but how they act in any given situation. How smart are they? Yet what are they stupid about? How blind they are to their own flaws? Or how aware and trying to hide them? What are their ticks and tells? When do they show off versus stay quiet.
From now on I'll also ask: what's the craziest thing your hero or heroine has ever done?
Go ahead and ask this question of your characters.
No, not just between the pages of the manuscript when the character's under pressure, but on a normal day. Maybe in the character's past, like when they were in college (we all did wacky things then, right?). Maybe in public or at a family get together. Maybe when they were alone and thought nobody was looking.
Then feel free to post your answers so we can all enjoy the "real characters" you're writing!
Ohhhh, let's see...Tina stole a car when she was 15, Liz let a movie star throw her bra off the penthouse balcony during a kiss and Georgie used to tobaggan in the middle of the night with her brothers when her mom was drunk in the house.
ReplyDeleteWhen Antionette was four she packed her My Little Pony Backpack and stamp out the front door (because her sister was such a mean-head). She walked two blocks to a storm drain she had seen some bigger kids playing around the week before.
ReplyDeleteShe climbed down where the cement sides were smooth. Sunlight from the opening made a bright spot on the cement floor. She decided she would live there and unpacked the ponies. They all ate the the whole wheat toaster pastry and raisins she'd packed for supper. Then maybe she fell asleep. Anyway it was dark, and the ponies didn't like it. They wanted to go home--even Apple Jack--so she zipped them into the pack and started up the utiltiy ladder.
But when she came out, the street looked different. It was dark except for splashes of silver where the streetlights shone. She didn't like the lonely sidewalks, so she picked up a fat, smooth stone. Walking very fast in what she thought was the right direction (and she was NOT crying, no matter what Carlotta said), she went a really, really long way before she turned onto a brighter street. There was music coming from some of the buildings, which had signs on them made of colored lights.
She was thinking of climbing under a dusty hedge when way at the end of the street she saw a police car parked under a streetlight. This was good. Police always knew the way home.
She straightened her shoulders and started toward it just as the policeman come out of one of the buildings.
"Hey!" she shouted, picking up speed.
But the policeman just climbed into his car and shut the door.
"Hey," she yelled a second time, her legs pumping as hard as they ever did on a swing. The black-and-white eased out into traffic, picking up speed as it came toward her.
"You stop RIGHT NOW!" she yelled, raising her hand. And with an aim that in eight years would make her the darling of her softball team, Antoinette watched as a long crack grew in the windshield.
The police car came to a stop half a block past her.
The policeman was as big a mean-head as her sister.
Then again, he did know the way home.
Andy once wrote a mushy poem about Liz then burned it. Nick peeks into people's houses after dark. Sometimes Andy goes out with him. Liz cries to sleep every holiday and anniversary of her mom's death.
ReplyDeleteThese are all wow entries. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGeri, love how he burned the poem, as opposed to simply tearing it up.
Laurie, the rock in the cop windshield? Now really, that makes me wonder what your childhood was like. You hoodlum, you :)
Kim, the tobaggoning at night is funny, but strangely dangerous. Cool!
This is why I could never write a novel. I'm always more interested in reinventing myself than doing the work of inventing an imaginary person.
ReplyDeletethat's funny, Jen! And honest. I like it.
ReplyDelete