Irene Smith

I went to a free course at the Gotham Writers Workshop on Wednesday night. It was worth the extra effort that I had to make to attend. It really was a bit of a hardship because the class ended at 8pm so I had to take the 9:58pm train home. That meant that I didn’t get home until 12:30am. How easy is it to get home and go to sleep right away? I can’t do it. By the time I was in bed and falling asleep, it was nearly 2am. Needless to say I was a bit tired the next day, although it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe the high I got from going to the class is what kept me going the next day.

It was a high. The funny thing is that I didn’t really hear anything I didn’t already know, but hearing it made me anxious to apply the information myself. What we talked about was character. We talked about how you go about creating characters that have depth. Really? Everybody knows that.

Then we were given ten minutes to describe a character. It could be someone you know or someone with whom you are barely acquainted. I thought I had this one down pat. I started off and (I thought) was going along great.

After a second little exercise where we were to show the character eating breakfast, the teacher asked some of us to volunteer to read what we had written. That was when I realized what a poor job I was doing. The two students who ready their breakfast scenes had basically written what could have been the beginning of excellent stories. I almost had the feeling that they were ringers, professional writers invited to the class to make the rest of us realize how much we needed to take the full, paid-for 10-week course.

I tried to put my failure down to the fact that I don’t think quickly, that if I had more time I would have done a better job. I even blamed the fact that I was writing with a pen instead of a keyboard.The truth is that most of my characters are about as three-dimensional as paper dolls. I have known for some time that my fiction was missing something and i think this is it. I don’t think I really understood what it meant to create three-dimensional characters.

My characters often have desires, quirks, I try to make their speech patterns enough different so that you can recognize them from their words. But, when it comes right down to it, they’re still boring, often nothing more than a collection of quirks.

Since I was eliminated early (for the second month in a row!) from the monthly writing competition at Bridget’s Flame so I’ve got time to work on my characterization skills before the next competition begins. So this is what I am going to do:

1. I am going to create a character by giving a physical description.
2. Then I will write about the person’s past.
3. I will look at his or her hopes and desires.
4. Finally I will describe the person’s deepest, darkest secrets.
5. Once all of that has been done, I will place the character in a situation and see if all that preparation will give me a better story and a more interesting protagonist.

It’s worth a try. If you want to try it too, go ahead. If you end up with something you want to share, put a snippet or two in your comments to this entry. I’d be interested to see what you come up with. My results? See you next Saturday.