Convincing the Audience, From the Klutzy to the Cheerless
I am excited to share this week with you. We are going to be talking about characters! Horray! I love characters!
When you think about a play, you always think about the characters. And so it makes lots of sense that you need to put lots of work into your characters. Remember, a play is not like a story where you can put in feelings and private thoughts into the reader's head. In a play, you have to SHOW the audience everything that you want them to know. Any ideas have to be vocalized. This is one reason that I like to have very dramatized characters. A workaholic has to show their devotion to work, and an optimist will have to show and vocalize his happiness and optimistic ideals. Dramatize your characters, magnifying their characteristics for the audience in a memorable way.
By now, you probably have a good idea of what you want your characters to be like. I really enjoy having the comical and crazy when I have a character. I usually have at least my main character very distinctive in some way-I've had a workaholic with an obsession for being time, an extremely klutzy secretary who is always late, shepherds who are pessimistic and optimistic, and police officers who either exist on or hate coffee (note: these are not all main characters. Some of them are secondary characters.). Some ideas may be to use gossips, nerds, playwrights (you can be creative here), optimists, pessimists, extremely energetic/clumsy/klutzy people, and plenty of other odd characteristics.
I like to act out my characters as I make them. This is helpful as I get to delve into the characteristics of each character. Sometimes a certain outfit helps me act out that character. If you have an outfit that would help you act out your character, than dress up, go to a private place (trust me, you will have a better chance figuring out what you want to write about by spending time alone than by acting your character in front of laughing family), and get into character. After listening to a sermon at our church, I decided to write a story about a gypsy's salvation. (This play is mentioned on my "Shopping" page) The outfit that I was wearing (a large, long, full, black skirt) worked great for putting a picture into my head. Adding bangles, large clip-on earrings, a red shawl, and that skirt together gave me a good idea on how my character Esmeralda would look. One thing to remember is that the actors may not look your idea of the character. However, that idea of visualizing those characters may help.
Get a good name for your characters. For my villains and odd characters, I like to get unusual names. For my police play, I named the forgery artist Vashti Rabarsco. Her sidekicks are named Desdemona and Alejandra. My art expert is actually named Orchid-Alicia Snow. Unusual name, yes, but I like the unusual when it comes to names! After all, I love to read baby name books. Also, I really enjoy using the website nameberry.com for finding unusual names (I needed unusual names for my villains, not the common Emily, Emma, Alyssa, Victoria, or and other popular names). I highly recommend nameberry.com for unusual names. Believe me, they have got a stunning assortment of names!
Lastly, fall in love with your character. Make sure that you really enjoy your main character, then work on the secondary characters.
Can you guess the challenge for this week? Develop your character, and write a little sketch up about them. Are they a certain nationality? A certain profession? A certain mood? Dream up a good character, and get ready, because...NEXT WEEK WE BEGIN TO REALLY WRITE THE REAL PLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YIPPEE!!!!!!!
My characters are all pretty developed, so I will be waiting for any news that you all have for me about your lovely characters and ideas! If you need any extra help, just leave a comment or send me a note from the forms scattered all around this website.
Come back next week to learn more about writing your masterpiece!!!
God bless!
Indi Raine