My Eye Twitches

Photograph by Istolethetv.

Putting a character together, for me, is one of the best and most trying aspects of writing. Layering personality, quirks, mannerisms, and finally description can be both fascinating and frustrating. Part of the fun for me is the people watching.

For example...my neighbor always, ALWAYS, puts his briefcase on his car hood and checks it before leaving for work. My friend still covers her brilliant smile when she laughs because somehow, the horror of braces still skirts around in her psyche from time to time. Especially when talking to men.

I'm no different. My deaf friends almost never look at my eyes when we're talking...they lip read and watch my hands exclusively.  They can tell if I'm sad before the tears get to my eyes because they say its in the way my shoulders slump, or my hands shake, and mouth looks tight. My eye twitches when I'm stressed. My laugh can be heard upstairs through music...at least my kids say so.

People are more than their descriptions. They are energy and sound and movement. They wear their hair long or short for a reason. They stand close to or far from people by design. The image they project to others and the way they move can tell a lot about their internal workings whether intentional or not. 

The book I am working on now, at least in the outline phase, has a main character who is deeply flawed. She's not your typical heroine...she's not really all that sympathetic in the beginning of my story. She's suffered a lot at the hands of others and therefore has a 'watching out for number one' type of attitude. She's not nice.

The thing is, I know what her voice sounds like when its laced with sarcasm. I know that she rubs her elbow when she's scared because an angry adult once broke it when she was little.  I know she hates that her lip trembles when she cries because she thinks it makes her look weak. She is striking, but not beautiful, and therefore doesn't like women who trade on their looks...not because she finds it demeaning, but because she doesn't have that luxury.  She guffaws, instead of laughs.

These are all things that do not describe what she looks like. That always comes last for me when I develop a character. The looks, the mannerisms, the personality...they all give birth to the appearance.

My question to you is this...how do you conjure your characters? Are they based on people you know? Do you use pictures of actors for inspiration? What makes them come alive for you?

Until next time...Go write!

V is for I'm a Veronica.

If you were a teenager in the late eighties...you had to have heard of the movie Heathers. If you haven't, then let me explain.  The movie takes place in a fictional high schoool and plays on the stereotypes of cliques. Theres the jocks, the stoners, the band geeks...and the gorgeous girls that everyone both loathes and envies. In the movie Heathers, the queen bees are all named Heather.  Except for one...whose name is "V" is for Veronica.  She, as it turns out, is not a vapid mean person. It just turned out that she is beautiful and rich and therefore thrust into existence with others of her kind.

Well the movie gets interesting when a new guy comes to school and starts wreaking havoc among the student body. The dark comedy demostrates, in exaggerated fashion, the destructiveness of simply following along with the herd  and blindly copying the popular kids. Plus...they blow stuff up, which in my opinion, is really great film making. Thing is that although he is obviously dangerous and turns her life upside down, Veronica can't help herself...she's totally gone for this guy.

The reason I love this film is that the main character's love interest is played by Christian Slater and he does the most awesome job of capturing the dangerous allure of a bad boy. Granted he eventually tries to blow up the school, he is what I used to swoon over...cavalier, risk-taking, smooth talking...a bad influence if my mother ever warned me about one. But the charater Slater created was more than a rebel without a cause, or a misunderstood youth. He was funny and sarcastic, wicked-smart, and had a dark sense of humor.  He was not an cliche, or an archetype...he rang true.

In fiction there are several archetypal personalities to build on for a love interest. Theres The Playboy - a ladies man, loves women, charming You have the Alpha Personality - think spy or fighter pilot, an adrenaline junkie.  Then we have my personal favorite, The Bad Boy - he's all fast cars, swagger, and wrong side of town. Finally we have Wounded Dude - he's the guy whose family died, or lost a partner in a shoot out or something sufficiently torturous for him to brood over.

There are other archetypes; The Nice Guy who ends up being an Alpha, etc. But thats all they are, a framework. Its up to the writer to layer in the personality quirks, mannerisms, and a voice that makes it clear why the heroine is attracted to and flustered by the love interest you've provided. 

What are some of the things you use to layer a character? Do you base them on people you've met? I'd love to hear what you do to make a character real to you as a writer and by extension, your readers. Until next time...Go Write!

Photograph by divemasterking2000, Uploaded on January 5, 2009. Photograph by Someone Somewheres Life, Uploaded on March 5, 2008.

Getting in Their Heads

Inside the Acting for Film & Television campus
Originally uploaded by vancouverfilmschool

My friend once asked me how I got into the heads of the characters I write. I usually use the first person, so the character is as close and personal as possible. I told her about my drama class in high school. We used to do these exercises that involved using props that we thought our characters might have. I fiddled with fake pipes and fedora hats pretending to be a noir detective for class. It was great fun.

What I didn’t realize was that these skills would help me to be a better writer. I find that some of the methods actors use to really understand the character they want to inhabit -- help me with the characters that inhabit my mind. I keep little pieces of detritus that might come from a desk, or a special music box. I had a character in a novel that travels the world stealing back high-technology. She kept coins and seashells from her travels in the book. In real life, I have some of those things from my own travels on the shelf next to my notes for that book.

I try to notice quirks, mannerisms, and personal habits of people and write them down. I have a friend that no matter where he is, he finds paper and folds it into origami animals. You can tell if he’s been in the room because there are tiny frogs on the table or staring at you from coffee mugs. A cop that I knew used to go through a couple of packs a gum a day. I remember him chewing, thinking, chewing, unwrapping…chewing some more. His speech patterns were punctuated with snaps of the gum in his mouth.

All of these methods that actors use are helpful in layering the characters in your own stories. A quirk can make a character memorable, endearing, or even intolerable. Although I only took the drama class for an easy ‘A’, and have no interest in acting, I believe I took away some useful tools from that class. I wonder what insights I might find in the other arts. Come to think of it, I’ve been eyeing a welding and metal art class at my local community college…