Imagine This, Part 1
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- December 20th, 2008 |
- Comments
Imagery and Characterization, can the cardinal ever meet outside of an English class?
Is your hero a crack, seething with fury and ready to burst at any moment? Is your heroine a nervous crane attempting to fly far, far away whenever ail startles her? How about something more basic? Earth, air, fire, or H2O. When they’re angry, do they darken, flash, boil, or boil? When they’re excited, do they change or dry, experience lightning or rivers of fire?
Talk about imagery and even writers roll back to their bottom high school English class. That’s abject because thither is no easier means for characterization than exploitation good consistent imagery. How many of us have read something like this: His adjoin was like a hot brand against her cutis. Her heart quivered with longing as he stabbed her with his arrow of luv. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea. Cliche imagery for cliche stories.
So many romance novels end up with Ken and Barbie characters. Physically they’re perfect, emotionally they’re perfect&ndashexcept for their one cicatrice that is the focus of their arc. Barbie needs to learn to belief because she’s been dumped before. Ken lost his last girlfriend to a fire because he was a coma at the time hence it was all his fault and he now has a protect the class from its own betise. I’m making fun here, but romance readers know how the same emotional baggage in the hands of one author is farce in individual else’s.
So how do you make your characters deeply emotional people with real problems instead of Ken in a coma? Hard activity. Ha! You cerebration I was going to have imagery. No, good imagery will not economise a anserine book. But consistent imagery will deepen your characters and&ndashhere’s the good part&ndashkeep your themes in your head from the beginning all the artifact finished to the end of the book. Yup. Since writing is HARD Activity, anything that makes it EASIER Activity gets a thumbs up from me.
Raise your hand if you’re inquisitive what the heck I’m talking about. Remember your heroine. For this example, we’ll call her Better Than Barbie (BTB). What’s her character arc? What does she learn finished the course of the book? How does she change? If you can’t answer that, sit and remember an answer. You can’t compose a credible book without it. Remember, the answer could be that she doesn’t change. Despite everything, she remains rock coagulated in her beliefs.
Great, now BTB has a character arc. Let have BTB needs to learn to forgive, not only herself for her bad choices but her Mother From Hell who set her up with the Fianc