Thursday, April 10, 2008
Writing is fun again!
I've been doing the hard work of outlining and characterizing for three weeks now. I've made great progress and interesting discoveries. I really really need to do some research though. Today I rewrote a scene in first-person that I had originally written in third-person. It was a lot of fun, and helped me find my main character's voice. She is no longer a chore to deal with.
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3 comments:
What do you mean by characterizing? Is it like writing a bio for each character, or an outline of key motivations or personality points?
I'm curious because I've been having a hard time writing actual characters instead of people who are just occupying space in the plot. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm trying to think of ways I can flesh out my characters to give myself more to work with.
Yeah, like I work backwards on the character. I figure out what they're going to need to do in my story (I keep it basic, setting it in stone is stifling). Then I make up where they got their beliefs. What happened in their life to cause them to believe such a thing?
For instance, my main character, Julia, is 21 years old and as a teenager watched her mother succumb to early-onset Alzheimer's. Watching her mother so out of control and unpredictable taught her that it's scary to be out of control, so now she is developing different obsessively-compulsive habits.
Basically I ask, what are the motivating EXPERIENCES that drive her current motivating BELIEFS.
This is disgustingly hard, because usually it involves looking into those moments in my life that have shaped my motivating beliefs. And sometimes those are places I don't want to go.
That makes sense. I'm trying to start thinking of what my characters do -- and what's in my plot -- in those terms. Not necessarily easy to do, though. But I think it is helping my writing.
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