Monday workshop

(I realize I am much behind and also that I haven't written any reaction to Ana Maria's talk. You see, most of my day is booked, and of that which is not, much of that time is spent doing homework.)

Oh. My. Gosh.

This is exactly what I needed. All my peers can give me ‘you missed a word here’. They can even give me ‘this doesn’t make sense for your character’ and ‘you’re missing a scene’. But it’s the writers here who can make me realize what it was that my plot was missing and why my character doesn’t seem quite a protagonist yet.

We started out by brainstorming what makes a memorable character. Our answers: complexity, eccentricity, love of adventure, surprisingness, conflict with others, breeding tension, having moral issues, having demons, being larger than life. Then we got down to character wants. Patricia had us fill in a sentence. “[name] lives in [place] and longs for [object].” First we had to fill it in for a character in A Change of Climate. Mine: “Kit lives in Norwich and longs for a sense of identity.”

Then we had to do it for our own character.

Boom.

Longs for. That’s plot. I can read through plot books, work out steps toward goals all I want. ‘Longs for’ is the plot. Plain and simple.

What does Leandra want? I didn’t know.

I thought about it. Leandra’s trans, so s/he needs to figure out what that is, come to terms with it, and start to live in a manner that’s authentic to him/her. So, identity. But Leandra wants to hold onto Jimena’s friendship and their language, which is one of its definers. I ended up with: “Leandra lives in Philadelphia and longs for the coalescence of identity and friendship.”

Still not very strong plot all by itself. This is what made me almost decide to go ahead with the relationship I can see brewing between Leandra and Nadie. I had known it was possible, didn’t like it because it’s cliché, and now I’m thinking it might be what I need. Yes, Leandra’s learning about his/her gender. Yes, Leandra’s doing research on Spanish gender-neutral pronouns. Doing some soul-searching. Trying to talk bestie around to accepting a nonbinary view of gender, in both people and language. But it’s missing something. Risk. Sure, there’s always risk in coming out, but those are risks that are necessary to keep living, in a way, and it will either go well or it won’t. And in the situation I’ve got set up, it doesn’t necessarily work as climax-worthy tension. It can’t all lead up to coming out to Jimena, because they need to be working it out through most of the book. It shouldn’t all lead up to coming out to parents—Leandra’s at school, so they won’t be playing a huge role. But Nadie’s a secretive sort of person, not really open about thoughts and feelings, so jumping into a relationship there—especially if it’s got more to do with lust and Leandra figuring out identity than love—is both unnecessary for living and has the potential to royally #@!& things up, which is the kind of tension I need. And it’s less expected.

Patricia continued to talk about characterization. She talked about a book I might look into, Measure in Madness by Leon Surmelian.

When I divorced my first husband, she said, I went through his books, thought, hey, this looks good, I might want to write fiction someday. (no quotes because it’s not verbatim)

Ways of practicing character development:

• Keep a journal
• Cultivate a keen awareness of own psychology
• Meditation/therapy/prayer/staring out the window
• Be the kind of person people tell their secrets to
• All of these will help you make real characters, apparently.
• Main characterization tells:
• Thought
• Speech/dialogue
• Action/behavior
• Appearance

Contents of the medicine cabinet/purse/underneath of bed/junk drawer/backpack/basement

Consider keeping a talisman, she told us, a small object that’ll remind you of your character. I could use Leandra’s rock!

Another point: You need to be curious about your character, because if you aren’t, no one else will be, and you won’t be able to stand working with them for as long as it takes to write your novel. I’ve not been curious about Leandra. What could I do to make him/her interesting? Or, since I’m writing in first person, could I up the curiosity on Nadie and Jimena? I’m really interested in what Nadie will do.

She mentioned someone who does a tarot reading of her characters, a heart reading to be specific. Ask your characters the questions, she said, you don’t need a tarot deck for that part.

• “How does your character express bliss?”
• “How does your character stay emotionally independent—or not?”
• “How does your character give love and receive love?”
• “How does your character express anger?”
• “How does your character manage disappointment?”
• “How does your character handle sorrow?”
• “How does your character deal with fear?”
• “How does your character deal with stagnation? If he or she has ever experienced stagnation?”
• “How does your character express sexuality? Or repress sexuality?”
• “How does your character keep a relationship alive?”

She mentioned someone who said, if you want to know who your characters are, put them in bed together. (I did. Results were mixed and shall not be posted here.) She went on to describe doing a Celtic cross tarot for the plot. You ask a question, and then you have the following cards:

• Issue card.
• Something that obscures the issue.
• Unconscious influences.
• Conscious influences.
• The old patterns your character lives out in regard to the question or issue.
• And new patterns your character may adopt over time.
• Character’s feelings and attitudes about the issue.
• What is the character attracting from the outside?
• Desires and denial of desires.
• Outcome.

She talked about someone who said, write down the ten most important people in your life. Then write down the six creepiest people you’ve encountered over the course of your life. These sixteen people will form all your characters.

Then we moved onto place.

“Landscape shapes mindscape.”

Place indicators:

• Flora/fauna
• Architecture
• Landscape
• Geography
• Clothing
• Food
• Climate
• Scent
• Idioms, accents
• Religion
• Socioeconomic strata
• Population density
• Demographics
• Resources (commercial, is there a wal-mart or a corner store)
• History
• Industry
• What’s there for fun? Vices?
• Is there tourism?
• Politics
• Superstitions
• Names, of people, of places
• Gender roles
• What’s taboo
• Sports

She had us draw a concept map type thing of our place. Mine is, of course, the Bi-Co.

Finally, we were assigned to write a page of a characterization of our main character and a page describing the place.