Characterization

Ps 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (NIV)
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Wow, we’re on the fifth lesson at F2K (the free writing course at WVU.) These seven weeks go by so fast, we’re almost ready to start a new one. That’s a good thing because we get more and more people learning the craft of writing, whether for a living or for a hobby, writing and learning is what life is all about. Okay, not really but that’s what it seems like to me. :)

This week we’re hopping into Characterization and this is where we learn our characters minds. We dig deep within, pull out our best, and place it on the boards. Through dialog with someone, say a job interview, or doctor, or whoever you choose to interview your character, you will ask questions that will bring up emotions in your character, have it all bubble at the surface, and you will spray your reader with insight.

Now some people have many characters in their story, of course, and this is a good exercise to practice on all your characters. Take John and feed him to the psych ward, or maybe Jane, is trying out for the police Academy, or maybe, a mother is scolding her child and is questioning where the said child has been.

Through this dialog phase, our characters will take on new meaning for us. We’ll see them as living entity’s. These characters will then haunt our every step in our day until we write and get everything down on paper and we can see where they have come from and where they are going.

Sometimes, the interviewee becomes more a part of the story because he/she is more interesting. That is okay if this happens, we just just squeeze them in there but always remember the main character is going to need depth. With depth, you character will add living color to your palette of words.

While you’re molding and shaping your character, many different elements will surface and you’ll find yourself on a treadmill of writing. Words will come faster and faster, paragraphs will leap off the page and in the end you’ll have a story with a rainbow of colorful people on your page.

Through this lesson, you will surely have lightning flashing all over the place as you give your characters the sizzle that they need. What better way to get a story constructed than to have in depth, unique characters bouncing off your page?

The choice is yours. Cardboard cutouts of what other authors have already done, or a magical reprieve into the land of mystical destiny? I choose Mystical Destiny any old time. :)

Writing~A Living Breathing Entity

Gen. 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
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This week in F2k I’ve read a lot of sentences by many writer’s who are at different levels in their writing. I’ve seen beginners structure words, the novice create sentences, the artists, paint a picture.

The artist paint, you ask? Well this is what I call a writer who not only writes words, but they paint pictures with words. I’ve had to exercise my knowledge cap because this is one colorful bunch of people who likes exercising their keystrokes.

They can take a sentence like:
“The man walked down the street.” and turn it into
“The little chubby man walked down the street.” then even more...
“The little chubby fellow bounced and jiggled as he walked happily down the street.”

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Shaping a sentence is a lot like molding clay. You have a form of nothingness, then you shape it to make it your own creation. I didn’t over exemplify the above sentence (yes it is mine.) I added shape to it. In your mind you have now conjured an image of a little chubby guy bouncing down the street happily.

Now there is a possibility to over-do a sentence and not create the image you want or one that bores your reader as they swim in the pool of words.

Take a look:
“The portly round little chubby guy,wearing green and red plaid pants and a yellow and orange striped jacket, had a pipe in his mouth, tooting smoke rings in the air as he bounced up and down, walking the the street overly happy.”

I like this sentence but I think I over-did it. Sure you get an image in your mind even clearer, but all you really wanted to say was he was walking happily. Give him some meat and you have a complete sentence. But add to many adjectives and you possibly lose your reader. You might even lose your sanity because you think that no sentence is good enough to call actual writing.

The above sentence works for me but had it been in a story of 2500 words, and the story is filled with these types of sentences, you may bore your reader to tears.

Quote by June: “Writing, like life, is not stagnant, but is a living, breathing entity.”

I once read a Native American parable about a grandfather who says, “I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one.” When asked which wolf will win the fight in his heart, the old man replies, “The one I feed.”

Feed your writing. Let it flow as a natural form of consciousness. Don’t over-word your sentences so that it looks and sounds right; feel that it is right. We can’t be perfect writers, we can only learn so much via a textbook; there comes a time when we must trust ourselves enough to say, “I am a writer! I am a darned good writer!”

Breathe life into your writing.