The other night...well, technically, a few weeks ago (I've been meaning to write this post for a while hah) my husband and I were talking about personal flaws and how sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we just can't change certain things about ourselves. For instance, me . . . I'm a very egocentric, idealistic person (with a lot of other ingredients to go with). Though I work very hard at keeping in touch with my friends and making sure our conversations are not always about me, sometimes I do tend to fall back in old habits. I've read books about being able to change habits in 21 days or being able to change if you really want to, and while I agree to a certain extent (habits can be changed, personalities can not) there's a fine line between habits and personality.
This got me thinking about character development. We write down habits and small blips of personality, and with me, the personality of my character generally takes it's own form once I'm in the process of already writing the story. But sometimes I look and see that I only have a surface personality. I haven't created actual ingredients of the character. Certain things that go into making the character that will always be in that character no matter how much they try and change or what they end up going through, it will be there to some extent in the end. So I started listing a few of my character ingredients for one of my characters:
How to Make a Jessa:
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups of pride
- 1 3/4 cups of loyalty
- 1 1/2 cups of stubbornness
- 1 cup of open-mindedness
- 1 cup of mental strength
- 3/4 cup of fear (heights, water, going crazy...)
- 1/2 cup of toughness
- 1/4 cup of nervous habits
- 1/4 cup of ingenuity & positive attitude
- 2 Tbsp of spitefulness
- 1 Tbsp of jealousy
- a dash of mistrust
- a pinch of romanticism
As for my personal ingredient list? Well, it would be much longer and way more complicated. But just as certain dishes go well together, so do certain characters when they are "cooked" right. My husband compliments me: he's the opposite in most physiological things compared to me. He's a safety freak, I'm pretty much a free spirit. He's cynical, I'm positive about everything. He's sensitive, I have a tough wall protecting me. He obsesses about the future, I reminisce about the past. He's logical, I'm idealistic. We're both creative and as for hobbies and the like, we share similarities there. So really, we fit together perfectly! This is a great way to analyze characters in your story to make sure they really do compliment each other (or not if that's what you're going for) and it isn't coming out forced.
Happy holidays and SHINE ON!
Love the family pic. Congrats on the bun in the oven, too. Cute list.
ReplyDeleteLynnette Labelle
www.labelleseditorialservices.com
http://lynnettelabelle.blogspot.com
Don't know how you're keeping all the balls in the air with those hours, woman, but good for you. And what a gorgeous family photo! I love it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comps on the pic! And as for how, I think a little insanity is involved....
ReplyDelete