Character analysing and
reacting to the problem
Once the problem has been
introduced you have to make your character react to it. Some sort of decision has to be made.
How they
react and what they decide to do will be partly a matter of character.
You also have to decide how to
show them deciding. Do you simply make
them act without any explanation, or do you make them sit down and think about
things? Talk to a friend? Who’s point of
view do you take: detached author, victim,
trouble maker, someone telling
the story to a friend?
Oh no, no, not the ‘little talk…!
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Christina, I - well, I. . .
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In the
possible story sketched last week where a mother is agonising how to tell her
daughter about the facts of life you could just show her making an embarrassed attempt. Here the way she talks might show her
awkwardness, self-confidence, wrong assumptions, and so on. If she talked about it with a friend you could get the back-story in easily,
through the friends questions). Or she
could be sitting in the park alone maybe rehearsing what to say. Or be looking
in a bookshop.
Using concrete imagery to express ideas
For each of
the points below, write one sentence giving one example which must be
‘concrete’ – that is something you can touch, or see, or hear. Or you could describe people’s physical
reactions. The examples below give just
the general idea. What you have to do is bring them to life by
focusing attention on the things..
If you get
exactly the right detail, that saves you having to describe in detail, because
from that detail the reader can imagine everything else. But more important, it gives a much strong
impact.
·
Julia is standing outside the cinema waiting for James. She’s getting anxious.
·
Debbie stands on the red carpet of the film premier looking
gorgeous.
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The party next door was very noisy
·
A van was backing laboriously up their back drive
·
The amount of alcohol had begun to affect her vision
·
When the teacher told her off little Anne was very
rebellious
·
You could see that Linda had go off into one of her dreams
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