1. Developing Imaginative Characters

2. Fiction is about me, the reader. I want to meet myself in disguise. Out of character, plot grows, but if you start with an idea, a plot, the character does not easily follow.

3. The character has to change and stay the same—think of Saul’s conversion In some stories, everything else changes and the character stays the same. Conflict makes the story. Write about someone at the end of her rope E.g., “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant Mme. Loisel is unreconciled to her lower class

4. Fatal flaw may lead not to disaster but to enlightenment (Saul – Paul) Character inspiration: mythology, psychology, astrology, Bible, imagination. But they need real passions.

5. Methods of Development Autobiographical –Project yourself into character from your own experience. –Mel Brooks said, “Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities, and have them relate to other characters living with him.”

6. Biographical method. –Use people you’ve observed or researched as starters (most popular) –E. M. Forester: we pretend we don’t use real people, but one does. Says these “users”get by best they can. –Biographers use traits of several people and fuse them together—ideal method.

7. Out of imagination –Full of passion –A mask lets you draw on all parts of yourself and others

8. Mixed method –Biographical and ideal: people are hard to know, so make up missing parts. –Graham Green: “One gets started and then, suddenly, one cannot remember what toothpaste they use…” Your character may surprise you—let it go on.

9. Mixed method (cont.) –Let character answer to the necessities of the plot. –Ideal lets character come to life on his own. Let them tell their own story. Try all types of character development

10. Summary of Character Portrayal Tell who the character is: Tobias Wolff: “My father in his forty-eighth year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, flushed with certainty. He was a great driver. All persuasion, no coercion. Such subtlety at the wheel, such tactful pedalwork.”

11. Repeated action or habit –This is the most common notion of character: expectation of how a person will behave in a given situation since she behaved like this many times. “She was fifteen and she had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right.”

12. Self Portrait – see “Night Women” by Edwidge Danticat Appearance –Through how a person looks you may infer what a person is like –Use body parts for appearance (p. 60 of Fiction Writer’s Workshop

13. Scene Get character in motion with dialogue and objects Dialogue should be the most interesting lines on the page; moves story along. Supplement with summary sometimes but preferred is to show the character in action that reveals his nature.

14. Combining Techniques Most authors use several techniques, e.g., habit, summary, appearance. Example is on p. 63-64 in Workbook Exercise: Describe somebody’s character by the shape, posture and gait of his body. Don’t describe her head and don’t tell us that the character is lazy or happy. Show these traits through body language.