Introducing characters - Writers Forum

Gauda · 10-31-2005, 01:32 PM

Though I am currently writing <u>Alice, Alice, Queen of Malice</u>, it has become very difficult for me to introduce characters without making it too obvious. For example, Alice has an extremely annoying goody-goody "friend" who always shoves her good grades down her throat and doesn't care about their friendship. Alice has another friend who can't stop smoking weed...and she has yet another friend who only talks about herself. I want the reader to get a feeling of hatred towards the characters that deserve it. For example, in <u>Memoirs of a Geisha</u>, I hated Hatsumomo because of the way she treated Chiyo. I want to accomplish the same sense of emotion from the reader...

Do I just need to read more? Any suggestions>

SeattleGhostWriter · 10-31-2005, 01:52 PM

Read more? Yes. Write out various ways? Yes.

Have fun with it, play around with words. Picture them in your mind, allow the visual of them on the stage playing out (dialouge and everything). Better yet, think of someone you don't like and how you feel then write in that perspective then switch it around. Think of someone who doesn't like you and how it makes you feel and write about it. Keep a journal of random thoughts.

That would be the best advice I could give you.

Timothy

Stewart · 11-01-2005, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gauda

I want the reader to get a feeling of hatred towards the characters that deserve it.

Don't ever say anything like:

Quote:

Betty was the school swot and was arrogant. Every chance she got she would corner Alice in the corridor and boast about how much better her grades were. If Alice had achieved a B in English then Betty always had an A; and so it went.

That's a horrible piece of showing and doesn't make us like or dislike either Betty or Alice. The trick is to have scenes where Betty makes it known to Alice that her grades are better. The more conflict added to these scenes the more possible it becomes to make the reader dislike the Betty character.

suzakugaiden · 11-01-2005, 03:50 PM

The basic descriptions of your characters sound rather banal. I doubt I could feel emotion for them unless you really handled them well anyway, at which point I'd probably like them, because Alice sounds like a spineless whiner. I mean, smoking weed? Being a bit of a braggart? Being sort of self-centered? That's pretty docile. I'd save my hatred for something that really needed it.

Shawn · 11-01-2005, 07:24 PM

I agree with suza, maybe your character traits need to be more in depth... depends on who your audience is.

A tip for introducing them though is to not push it. Think about your friends and how you met them... was it sudden, or were you shy and had to warm up to them?