Workshops and Assignments,

This workshop is appropriate for all levels of writers with the belief that ‘characterization’ can be taught, practiced, and learned.

The teaching part, I have garnered from classes I have taken, as well as classes I have read about. I’m very fond of the ideas put forth by David Poyer at Writing by the Sea.

We will study the ubiquitous four sources that he refers to in modeling characters.
1) People the author knew or knows
2) Newspapers, histories, or word of mouth
3) Adapting characters from previous characters.
4) Made up or ORIGINAL characters

We will discuss the four categories he uses to develop information about his characters.
1) General-from environment and heredity
2) Physical-what we refer to as “description”
3) Personal-social or moral aspects
4) Emotional-mental or psychological features or qualities

We will also talk about his theory of developing characters from the inside out and from the outside in. (When we proceed from the inside out, we don’t need a lot of external details is his claim.) We will discuss which approach is more appropriate for the Protagonist and which can be used for the Antagonist or walk-ons.

Let’s take a look at other sources. On our site there is an excellent ‘Character Development Work Form’ developed by Wannabe that can be very useful. We will try some exercises that can be used to develop characters. For example: Your main characters write letters to a friend describing each other. Or you write a job requirement ad for an actor to play the part of your Protagonist. Don’t worry 500 words or less will do it.

We will also discuss in the forum the importance of names for characters, the difficulties in portraying race, religion, gender, and nationality, and the insincerity of creating wholly good or evil characters.

Some people use the Zodiac signs to create characters. If you’re a believer, why not? I’d prefer to put my marbles on the Four Patterns of Temperament, or the sixteen personality types designed by Myers-Briggs. I use both to make certain the emotional aspects of my characters are believable. Lawrence Durrell said that all strong characters revolve around a central flaw. What do you think?

The practice part of the equation will be the writing. You will have a chance to use previous work to show how you developed your character. As a group, we will critique it. Then we will write new short synopsis utilizing other methods to see if we can improve our characterization. This will be a chance to make certain we develop characters by ‘showing’ instead of ‘telling’.

Whatever methods you choose to use, remember what Albert Einstein said. “Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts. It’s a learning process to find your individual style.

So let’s get started. I look forward to an interesting week.
Puravida