characters

A few days ago, I dropped my phone in the bath, and discovered that what I say under such circumstances is “shit a brick”. This got me thinking about the characters I write, and how they might react in a pinch. There’s a tale that during the war a spy managed to retain her cover for years, but was outed when she swore in Russian during childbirth – wouldn’t it be fun to use something similar with a character? 

What I always do with characters is work out not only who they really are, but who they pretend to be in different circumstances, and how this manifests in their language – we all do it, we don’t swear at work, perhaps, or we fall into slang with our friends, or take on a “younger” style with our parents. Some people take it further, and assume entirely new accents in order to be accepted in different contexts: look at Charlize Theron and Hollywood, for example. We’ve all seen people lose their cool – the first time your parents swore in front of you, the moment your teacher got sad news – or good news. These moments when we are most ourselves can be positive too.

So, can we, as writers, catch our characters at those moments when they become truest? Perhaps, as I did, they swear. Perhaps they have been loud and extroverted all along and suddenly become quiet, and retreat into themselves. Which of your characters will be heroes under stress, and which will crumble? If you got the best news of your life, or bumped into one of your childhood icons, would you be cool calm and collected, or would you scream? Are you one of those radio callers who shrieks with delight when they win something, even if it’s just movie tickets? Or do you take the news calmly, and maybe only show your elation when you’re alone, or with your most beloved people? Try to find these moments for your characters, and if they feel truly authentic, the chances are your character will feel authentic to your audience.

And, as much as exploring these issues can be character-building, it can also help you find pivotal moments in your plot. Because if there aren’t any of these moments where characters are under stress and have to show their true colours, then I’d suggest you possibly need a little more good old fashioned drama.

Week 3 Bake-Off

Here are 5 more ingredients you can add to our Bake-off recipe. Use these prompts in any way that strikes you. Go with your first impulse. Again, it's not required that you particpate, these are intended as way to help or inspire you.

1. An abundance of food.

2. A ritual.

3. Moment of silence between two people that leads to a confrontation.

4. A slap or other form of violence.

5. This image:

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3 From Marisela

Poet and Playwright, Marisela Trevino Orta kindly contributed these exercises and hopes they help take you deeper into your writing & your characters.

Dream Monologue: The purpose of this prompt is to get to know your character better. Our dreams often reveal our fears, our hopes, our desires-the same goes for our characters. Write a monologue as your character that begins with the phrase, "Last night I had the strangest dream…" and have the character describe the dream. Let the dream be as weird, crazy, absurd, imaginative as you like. When you finish, look at what you've written. What have you learned about your character?

Job Interview: Sometimes we need the characters to tell us exactly why they've shown up in a play and in some cases, they need to justify their existence before they're cut out completely in a re-write. Write a dialog exchange between you and your character. Ask your character various questions about themselves, their past, and most importantly why they deserve to be in your play or what they're doing in the play. Be pointed. Ask them why you shouldn't cut them from the play. Ask them about their relationships with other characters. Ask them about their regrets, their hopes, their dreams. When you finish, look at what you've written. What have you learned about your character?

Work of Art Monologue: This exercise requires you find an art book or a bank of imagines online. Imagine your character is looking at a specific piece of art. Write a character monologue where the character explains why they are drawn to/or repulsed by the work of art. When you finish, look at what you've written. What have you learned about your character?

Feel free to let us know how these exercises worked for you and you can even share a little of your work that's inpired by them.

Write, Rhinos! Write!

I'm sure by now you've gotten stuck a time or two in your writing. That's okay. That's normal. It's part of the process. Saying that doesn't make it feel any better or any less terrifying. But. Trust your process and keep breathing. When you run aground, take that as a sign that it's time to step back from your work and see what it's trying to reveal to you.

This is not an invitation to let your Editor go crazy and tell you how terrible things are. It's time to put that Editor to work doing the job it's meant to do - critically assessing your work and trouble shooting for you. You are in charge of the Editor, not the other way around. So give it a simple task.

1. What's the central conflict of the scene? This seems basic. But often when we find ourselves stuck or off the mark, it's because we've lost sight of what's at stake for our characters in the scene. What is it your main character wants? What or who is the obstacle in the way of them reaching their goal? This works even for the most escoteric of plays - in fact, it helps ground your characters in a reality - not our general shared reality, but the reality of the world the characters inhabit.
2. Write past the point where you think the scene is done. Okay. But you're stuck, how are you going to do that? See #1. Or think of one thing your character hasn't said that they desperately need to say in this moment and then write it. Write until you feel like you're finished and then push past what you think is the end of the scene again. See what your characters reveal to you.
3. Controlled procrastination. Isn't funny how when you're writing suddenly cleaning the kitchen sink becomes the most attractive, imperative thing you could do in that very moment? Or cleaning off your desk or taking out the trash? I think when we get these urges, it's not always about trying to get away from the work, it's about the desire to let the next thing in but not knowing exactly how to make way for it. It manifests as stuckness. So you get the urge to clean. To move things around in your environment.  Try this: Set a timer for 10 minutes. And clean the sink or clear off the kitchen table or declutter your desk. Do it for the allotted time only. Focus on the task at hand. Embrace it. What you're doing is creating a clearing, a physical white space in your enviroment that invites the next thing, whatever it is, to come in.  When the timer goes off, go back to your scene and write.

What about you? What works for you when you're stuck?