Monday, January 16, 2006
Creating Wonderful CharactersOk - so my husband and I just took my kids to see the Chronicles of Narnia. I've been looking forward to it for months - since I first saw the preview for it - and I wasn't disappointed. It was a good movie. But - like in any movie I see since I've started writing, I always look for a way to use it for my own writing. As funny as it may seem - one of the things that I found about this movie that I could really learn from was the wonderful way that they created the characters.
The kids were wonderful of course, but I really liked Mr. Tumnus. Not every day I think wow, what a cute Faun. :-) Ok, so I never think that. But he was a great character. It wasn't just his lines and what he had to say - but sometimes it was all in a movement or a facial expression. Part of that could be contributed to the acting, and part to the directing, BUT - I think that it's something we can remember as we write as well.
Every character we think up - we create a world for. We are not only the writers of our stories, but the directors as well, and at times, yes, even the actors. It is our calling (if you want to call it that) to make these characters come to life on the pages of our story. By words, actions and even the way that they just sit in a room all by themselves, but show the character that they are just by being there. I love the challenge this gives me to write even better, more interesting characters.
I love the way a good movie inspires me to write better. Guess that's why I love movies and television so much. Speaking of - anybody catch 24 tonight? :-)
