Week 1: Thoughts in Characterization
Chapter 9, pages 83-89
Revealing Your Character Through Their Attitude and Thoughts
As a writer there are times when you’ll have a roomful of people who
appear similar. It may be a classroom, possibly a family reunion, or
maybe a party. How will you distinguish the differences in your
characters? How can you make your main characters stand out? Is there a
subtle way to set some characters apart from others?
One very good way is to show the reader your character’s thoughts. This
shows how they feel, react and think. You may have twins in your story.
They may look very much alike, but does that mean they think and feel
the same way? This is probably not the case. By letting the character’s
thoughts show, your reader gets to know them on a deeper level. This
will reveal the character’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, longings,
neuroses, and compulsions.
Examples
All characters and people for that matter, have attitudes. These
attitudes make them more interesting and sometimes more irritating.
Attitudes make our characters more entertaining for the reader and the
writer. We have more fun writing a well defined character.
This doesn’t mean you want to show ALL the characters attitudes and
reactions, pick the ones which are the most productive.
- How long will you let the character think about things?
- Are these thoughts serving a purpose?
- Are the attitudes fresh and interesting?
- Do they show something important about the character?
Think about what your character is using that paper to think about. Is
it important to the story? Even if the thoughts seem a little out there,
use them, IF they serve a purpose or are part of a plot device that will
be used later. So, you need to think them through. Also, if you change
the plot device later, you need to delete the irrelevant segment(s).
The reason we show the inner thoughts is to directly affect the plot.
Your character may have an attitude problem which is directly related to
the plot, if so, use it. If you plan to resolve an attitude problem,
make sure it’s existence is clear to the reader. Why resolve something
that was never obvious or noticeable in the first place.
Some writers use the characters thoughts to end a story. Beware that
this doesn’t feel like a lecture to the reader. No one wants to read a
book only to find a lecture at the end. The events can be summarized,
but not in the form of a sermon. Classmates and study group members
would be a great way to get honest feedback on how your thoughts come
across.
Tension can be created by letting the character’s inner thoughts be at
odds with their exterior situation. Is the character behaving in a
certain way, but the thoughts are reacting another way? By all means,
show the inner or outer conflict being caused.
Always be sure the thoughts are moving the story ahead. If not, edit
them or cut them all together. Don’t let too many thought drag your
story down, or possibly kill it.
We won’t be considering chapter 10 in class, but it has useful
information which will help you put this into practice. It includes the
grammatical side of making thoughts work on paper and in your story.
Exercise
Write a short segment which illustrates any one of the summary points.
You can use an existing story or a new one. Help us to see more about
your character by revealing their inner thoughts and fears, etc. Most
important, have fun.
Assignment Options:
- Show your character has attitudes about her surroundings and/or
current events.
- Character's thoughts can be in a story purely to characterize,
but they should be brief.
- You can insert your character's thoughts, but don't let them bog
down the story. Are they original, quirky, thoughtful, important,
well-written and interesting?
- Character thoughts should be there to drive the plot. And, they
should be clearly shown at the beginning of the story so we can see
what will change.
- Character thoughts which are used to validate a point at the end
of the story should be stated naturally and in personal terms. This
should not be preachy, but should show what they learned, what price
they paid, etc.
Hope these ideas help. The idea is to pick a point and
illustrate it. Good luck and we look forward to reading your lessons.
COPYRIGHT 2002 WRITOPIA INC. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
|