I had my creative writing group round last night. I've been teaching them informally for about ten years now -- we've grown and grieved and changed together during that time and the pieces people read out yesterday were moving and amusing, as they always are.
We had an interesting conversation about exploiting the differences between what characters say or do and what they think. When you are writing and you want to delve deeper into the psyche of your hero or heroine, exploring this kind of gap can be incredibly fruitful and productive. Why would someone say one thing and do another? Are they trying to be kind or to protect someone? Are they trying to manipulate or set somebody up? Are they concealing bad news? Are they professing love, but acting differently, and if so -- why?
As you can see, not only can this provoke some useful questions, but it can also create an interesting tension between the interior world of your character and their exterior world, which is a great way to spark a reader's curiosity. Ultimately, it is a helpful way to examine motive, which is that fascinating place where character and plot intersect.
So when you want to explore a character further or enhance the story, it can sometimes be a good thing to tease out the ambiguities or contradictions between what people think to themselves and say or do to others.
No comments:
Post a Comment