Thoughttree Workshop
FRIDAY 21/10/2016
Village Paintpot Café, 55 Main Street, Elloughton, HU15 1JP
How to Create Convincing Characters
A recap of the last session was quickly done. The individual workshops do link together BUT it was stressed you did not have to be at the previous workshop to be able to take part fully in the current one.
Recap:-
WE studied the same plot BUT taken form three very diffent works. It became very evident that the words described The Story and the story followed a PLOT.
Stories and Plots in this case were very similar so where did the differences in the works come from? All the potential differences had nothing to do with either Story or Plot.
Creating Convincing Characters
FLAT
ROUNDED
Stereo Types
1) Less predictable
2) Convincing
3) Memorable
4) Surprising
A session full of questions.
When introducing a character into one of your works what is it that you describe first?
[Group Brain Storming Session]
Physical Apearance
Way of speaking or language
A trustworthy or an unreliable narrator
Gender
Age
Background / history
Agenda [their world view]
Culture
Era / context
Thoughts / actions
Each of these items can be revealed at any time and each one added builds to the believability of your character. Likewise the truth may not be revealed [ever], but a lie deliberately told, which is slowly uncovered during the course of your writing. Characters need careful building.
More Questions
Think of a character that you are qwriting about at the moment and ask yourself these questions.
Question
My Answer
What is their gender and age?
Female
18 years of age
Provide two random facts about the character
Died Christmas Eve 1900
Middle of three sisters – Charlotte, Alice, Annie
What is their most important life event?
Death of her little sister Annie when Alice was 9 years old
What would they change about themselves if they could?
Their fear and uncertainty about life
What is their favourite possision?
Three braight shiny beads that her little sister had given her
Challenging Situations
[Group Brain Storming Session]
Environmental
Emotional
Personal
1. Traffic Jam
2. Earthquake
3. Gas smell
4. House fire
5. Electricity fail
6. Flood
7. Fallen tree
1. Unusually empty house
2. Conflict at work/with a neighbour/with a friend
3. Finding a body
4. Having to move job/house/marriage
1. Inner conflict – desire
2. Destruction of others property or person
3. Suden illness
4. Impending birthday
5. Failure of any sort
6. Winning the lottery or ernie
7. Loss of a child / parent or pet
8. Loss of sanity
CONFLICT is the biggy
Temperament [mild – highly strung – meek – bullying etc]
SHOCKING – a hand written letter in this day and age is particularly shocking, because it s seldom happens so must be special / have great significance.
Baring all we have spoken about so far white a short paragraph about the character that you had in mind during this session.
Alice had a new set of clothes on. She stood next to her big sister Charlotte. ‘Be Strong’ mother had told both of them. A tear ran down Charlottes left cheek. Alice wanted a hug, she was only nine for heaven’s sake. Annie would understand. She looked at her Father and knew he would as usual not approve. A tear ran down Alices left cheek and she quivered, which woud not go away. ‘Try to be still stupid child’ she shouted at herself, in strangely her Fathers voice.
More Questions
Before we started doing this we were given the ‘heads up’ that the answers must be used in the continuation next paragraph of your story.
Question
Answer
What is their favourite item of clothing?
A spotless pure white crinoline dress
What is their flaw?
Very fearful, unable to think or solve anything for themselves
What do they think life will be like ten years from now?
Meeting Mr Right who will sort out all her trials and problems for her
What is their earliest childhood memory?
Father shouting at her for daring to feed their cat
What is it that frightens them
Being Alone!!
Bare in mind the thoughts of Authors Iris Murdoch and Patricia Highsmith ‘WE need to like / understand our characters’
People are not perfect they much up. “if your characters never do anything they will never do any thing wrong.”
Sometimes people make huge mistakes and do not realise what they have done.
Example the parents Mr & Mrs Bull who named their three children
• Scott Bull
• Troy Bull
• Tara Bull
Sudenly the quivering in her legs stopped. Father;s stare froze her body. She thought ‘I should be grateful to Papa.’ She looked at her new very white crinoline dress and thought ‘how plain and ordinary you look.’ And wasn’t is just splendid how nothing about her attracted attention form anybody. She wished now that she ahd asked Charlotte how she should fold her new dress for stowing in her favorites drawer. To cheer herself up form her present plight and to escape from today’s horrible reality she thought of a kind faced man who would marry her and take care of her. She smiled a very brief smile.Decided that any cheerful thought was very wrong under the present circumstances and was brought back to reality by an image in her mind of her father shouting and smacking her for being kind to Thomas her cat. Suddenly she felt very alone in the world and vried unconsolably.
Develop for Homework [not comleted yet]
How to explore further?
Chose a diffent narrative method. Swap first and third person styles.
Ask the following questions about your character.
Question
Answer
1. Do they lie?
• To others
• To themselves
• And by what sort of degree
What is your character caperble of seeing or experiencing?
What would a new character think about the character you just wrote about?
What makes your original character angry?
What frightend them?
What is the texture of their skin and hair?
Think about their first sexual encounter. Be observational, what were they thinking / feeling?
How does your character speak?
Slang / swearing
Wallflower / overpowering
Loud / soft
Stutter / lisp / accent / lazy / dictionary swallowed
Childish or Adult
Review all the paragraphs that you have written.
Note that narrative written in the third person always takes your story further.
Read some short stories.
Deb Henderson read us a piece of a Dorothy Parker short story included in a volume called Points of View – An anthology of short stories
Repetitions of the word GOD and reference to Three Days
Page Number 1 Sunday, 23 October 2016 document1
