Creative writing: 1. character

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Creative writing: 

Character

Testweek: creative writing

Upcoming weeks:

1. character development
2. dialogue
3. showing versus telling
4. powerful descriptions
5. setting
6. short short stories

Today's goal:Create an interesting fictional character.

• who could be the main character in the story you will write in your testweek test. 
• who will talk to your classmate's character in the next lesson.

You need your laptop and notebook. 

Next: video "how to develop characters"

While you watch: make notes

1. someone we have never seen before (in a story).

2. the character must have goals (Why internally/ why externally)

3. conflict

4. character arc = change (static versus dynamic). Consciously/unconsciously

5. backstory (flashback of past)

6. external characteristics (can show internal traits). Dress, body language, mannerism. 

Join the LessonUp lesson!

Think of a name for the following characters and add what kind of person he/she is? 

(social, intelligent, impatient, mysterious etc)

Kaitlin Armstrong Found Guilty in Murder of the Cyclist Moriah Wilson. 

What do we learn about these 3 men?

Mr Ross

Mr. Vandemar

Mr. Croup

swagger: opscheppen

www.storybuzz.com

• Mr. Ross: huge, grubby, quite hairless, a filthy T-shirt, crusted blue jeans. He liked to kill things and he was good at it. (but Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar are amused by this, implying that they are much worse)
  
• Mr Croup: small, blue eyes, likes words, wears an elegant black suit
• Mr Vandemar: tall, brown eyes, rings (made of raven skulls), always hungry, wears an elegant black suit

grubby = dirty

In "Beloved", Toni Morrison gives us a haunted house as a character: "124" (full name: "124 Bluestone Road") who later in the novel will incarnate as the ghostly "Beloved".

We get a little bit of external description of the house (it's "gray and white"), but mostly it's the "soul" of the house we get to know: "spiteful", "full of a baby's venom", "the lively spite the house felt for them". 

The description of "Dill" (full name "Charles Baker Harris") from Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" is done completely through dialogue.

In the back and forth between Dill and Jem, we get just enough physical description. Dill is very small, seven years old, but small enough to be four-and-a-half years old. Mostly we get Dill's precocious spirit.

Fun fact: Dill was based on Truman Capote who was a childhood friend of Harper Lee.

How to find ideas?

Now create your own character!

www.storybuzz.com

Can't think of a name?

Need inspiration?

Use the website on the next slide... 

blog.reedsy.com

Let's dive a little deeper

Another example:

Luke Skywalker’s Want is to escape his lonely orphaned adolescence and find a life of meaning and purpose in the larger galaxy. 

Luke Skywalker’s Need is to overcome the fear and anger that tempt him into darkness.

What is Katniss Everdeen's want?
And what is her need?

What is your character's want?
What is your character's need?

Happy end? 

A powerful way to end your story is to confront your protagonist with their flaw, by giving them a choice between their ‘want’ and their ‘need’.

• If your character sacrifices their want and chooses their need, then they will ultimately be fulfilled.
• However, if they shun their need and seize their want, then they will be doomed to continue in misery.
• Either ending is fine, depending on whether you want a happy ending or a sad one.