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Do curso por Wesleyan University

Escrita Criativa: a técnica de criação do personagem

782 ratings

Wesleyan University

Escrita Criativa: a técnica de criação do personagem

782 ratings

Curso 2 de 5 em Specialization Escrita criativa

No centro de uma boa história são os personagens. Este curso de escritores aspirantes vai descobrir como construir e dar vida complexos, vívidos e inesquecíveis personagens. Nós vamos estudar as escolhas que um escritor faz para dar vida aos personagens no papel e fazer exercícios escritos com o intuito de desenvolver uma variedade técnicas de escrita e de pré-escrita para criar uma variedade de personagens. Iremos aprender como usar nossas próprias experiências de vida e as pessoas que conhecemos (e como não usar!). Em seguida, desenvolver a vida interior (pensamentos e sentimentos) e o exterior (aparência, hábitos, comportamento) para nossos personagens e ver como isso pode nos levar a histórias ricas e mais interessantes. Vamos dar um sopro de vida dentro dos nossos personagens e deixa que eles nos surpreendam.

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Creating Characters on the Page

Here, we delve deeper into the characters. What is their physical description, and how can we describe them through action? How do they speak? What makes me want to read about them? When your characters need help or understanding, or even rescuing, this draws the reader in, far more than likability. Finally, we discuss how the plot reveals the inner life of characters through what they do as well as say.

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Amy Bloom
Distinguished University Writer in Residence and Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing

Today we're going to talk some more about creating characters on the page.

How to make the character that you have observed and empathized with come to life.

What tricks you can use to help your imagination.

And what kind of craft you can use, to help the reader appreciate the character.

I'm going to read a little bit and comment on Chapter 16,

which is called Quirks, Tics, and Bad Habits, from the book,

The Art of Character, something I think everybody would find very helpful.

Much of what we've been discussing helps us understand a character's inner life.

How you think about what the character worries about.

What the characters thinks about.

What her values are.

What she hopes for.

What he fears.

Remembering how important desire is in a character,

what they want, what they are going for.

All of us have goals and desires, and our characters do too.

But now let's talk a little bit about how they speak to us.

Whether it's a physical expression, checking one's hair,

one's makeup, teeth in the rearview mirror.

A nervous tick or a quirk.

Does your character jiggle his foot when he's nervous?

Does she twirl her hair around her finger when she's worried?

Does she wag her hands during discussion?

Does she like me, use her reading glasses as a prop while having a conversation?

They close their eyes when they're laughing or when they're daydreaming.

Do they tuck a cigarette behind the ear?

While it's important to have a strong sense of what kind of physical tics or

oddities or quirks your character has, you don't want to overuse them.

You don't want to make the character seem ridiculous, and

like nothing more than a collection of quirks.

Even in secondary characters, these effects needn't be merely superficial.

You want to have your people watching, and your eavesdropping pay off.

You want to begin to say to yourself, what irritates my character?

What food or drink or activity can he or she not resist?

Is it an addiction, is it an obsession, is it a disorder, or

is it just that they love donuts?

And that's up to you to decide.

Is there a childhood pleasure in which your character still indulges as an adult?

Whether it's a favorite cereal or going off to fly a kite?

What is the oldest thing in your character's refrigerator?

Do they have a refrigerator?

Do they store things that need to be chilled in the ice bank?

In the snow?

In the river?

And if they do, what do they store there?

What is the first thing to disappear from their pile of food?

What's underneath the bed?

Do they have a bed?

Is it a sleeping bag, is it a cot, is it a bunk bed?

You want to be able to see your character day and night.

On the page and off the page.

In the grocery store, in the community square and also in private.

What is her favorite joke?

What is his favorite story?

Can you hear them telling it, because that's important.

Do they have a pet?

A pet that they love, a pet that they are obligated to,

a pet that they've inherited?

What kind of pet?

People who own a fluffy little kitten might be a little different,

than someone who owns an iguana, or a cockatoo, or a llama.

And you have the opportunity to decide and choose, pet or no pet, and

what is the relationship between the owner and the pet?

What's the worst thing your character has ever done?

And it can't be a general thing, it has to be a particular thing.

What curse word or odd phrase does he or

she utter, when they are frustrated or upset?

Does he have any other verbal ticks?

One of the characters in, Do They Know I'm Running, a Palestinian Iraqi with

a serviceable command of English, announces his insecurity by

beginning many of his sentences with the phrase, let me tell you something.

This is a verbal tic.

We all have them.

If you want us to learn more about your character,

you can give them this kind of habitual phrase.

But you also have to know why they talk that way, and what it means to them.

What is his or her favorite article of clothing?

Is there some elegant old school tie, or a knotty bow tie, or

a baseball cap, or a fedora, or a bonnet, or a favorite pair of socks?

You can only know these things when you begin to use your imagination, or

if you see these things on a character in real life.

You then have to begin to think about what meaning you find in that detail.

What's the last movie he saw?

What's the last movie she saw that she loved or she hated?

How about a book?

Is your character a reader, like you?

Or not much of a reader?

The deeper you connect all of these details to the character,

the more this character comes to life for your reader.

It's not because you have to answer all of these questions on the page, but it's so

important for you to have them, in some sense, in your back pocket.

So as you begin to look at ways to develop and expand upon your character,

when you begin to look at the world that you wish to send your character into,

you have all this information.

This information allows you to make a series of decisions about a character,

and also to expand your character.

Every piece of information helps build a human being.

And human beings are what we're going for.

Not ideas of people, but actual people who come alive on the page, on your page.

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