Breathing life into characters
Leave all the pretending to the page, but when you pretend, pretend earnestly.
If your character is an outlaw motorcyclist, don’t affect a different voice and take on some bravado.
As you are writing try to understand the character's life, what they feel, why they feel the way they do, and why it comes across the way it does.
Experience things with the character. Don’t judge them; let their living inform your story.
You are God to their Adam; form them of mere words and by your will, breathe life into their actions.
Your breath of life to character is the words on the page; the words must be living things not a deathly dissection.
You will be surprised how it changes your character’s behavior.
2 comments:
I like this one BT!
I think the key to a breath of life in a character is at least a gram of truth - not too much or it's in danger of becomeing biographical - bit a little pinch.
And if it stings a little to pull out your truth and put it in your character, so much the better.
Heya Ken. Thanks, I quite like that post too. I like to keep truth and life in the story because, at least for me, writing is about describing people, but as they really are; sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes weak, sometimes strong, but always doing the best they can, their world warped by an internal monologue.
If it hurts a little as you pull it from within, it’s usually a good sign, it means you’re writing what you feel is true.
Ken has a great blog on writing called, “Ken Armstrong’s writing stuff” he covers a great deal of material, but is happy to reference other bloggers, (such as Jim Murdoch, from “The Truth about Lies” in his most recent post) Ken’s work is an act of expanding and growing knowledge bases, and should be made part of your daily reading intake. You can find a link for “Ken Armstrong’s writing stuff” to the left of this page.
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