Characters
http://www.ci.maryville.tn.us/mhs/studyskills/compguide/LitAnaChar.htm
Characters Lifelikeness
Characters Lifelikeness
- Fictional characters do not have to be just like real human beings. There is a difference. However, they should be believable.
- Characters are not free to act as they please; the author creates an illusion of freedom.
- "Lifelikeness" must sometimes be sacrificed for the plot, theme, or unity of the work as a whole
- Is the character someone you can understand and relate to on some level
- Characters can represent some universal quality (archetypal), or be eccentric individuals.
- Characters may resemble ourselves and people we know or may represent a universal quality that exists in all of us.
- How is this character relevant to the reader?
- How does he/she contribute to the story as a whole?
- May be stereotypes, or embodiments of a single characteristic; usually play major roles only in bad fiction.
- May be one-sided characters who do not represent universal types; predictable characters.
- Simple characters are often used to fulfill minor roles in the novel.
- These are more difficult to achieve.
- More lifelike than simple characters.
- Capable of surprising us.
- Gradations of complexity may exist
- Character should be unified; i.e., should not act "out of character": consistency and believability are important.
- Discursive method: narrator tells their qualities
- Dramatic method: author allows characters to reveal themselves by how they act and speak.
- Characters talk about other characters; information is not necessarily reliable.
- Mixing methods: most common and most effective
Articles on Conflict
http://www.writermag.com/en/Articles/2011/12/Target%20character%20and%20conflict%20with%20a%20handy%20checklist.aspx
Target character and conflict with a handy checklist To write a compelling story, you must thwart your character's desire. These questions will keep you on the right track.
By Gregory Martin Published: December 29, 2011 Your character wants something badly. Your reader wants your character to get what he wants. Your job is to disappoint both of them.
Ironic? Sure. Narratives are driven by desire: 1) the character’s desire, 2) the reader’s desire that the character succeeds, or at least, the reader’s desire to see what happens to all this yearning, and 3) the author’s desire to thwart both the character and the reader.
It’s this thwarting of desire that beginning writers need to cultivate. It doesn’t come naturally. Far too often, writers are unwilling to let their characters make mistakes and get themselves into trouble that has both cost and consequence for which the story holds them accountable. In stories with this kind of trouble, the protagonists are too passive, too coddled by their author, to make the kind of graceless mistakes born of the yearning and desperation that create good fiction.
You, the writer, can be as poised as you want, act with aplomb, reserve, tact, polish. But your characters can’t. Your task is to put your characters in true dilemmas, where they make hard choices and don’t always make good decisions. These situations, and these choices, ought to be open to the reader’s moral imagination, allowing the reader to participate in the life of the story—so that the reader has to ask: What would I do?
The following checklist is a craft guide to characterization and conflict. It’s not a crutch or simple remedy. It’s asking a lot of you and your story. It should make you feel slightly despairing. It’s designed to help your draft become more of a story, less a rough assemblage of unsuspenseful, incoherent narrative-ish moments.
The checklist is also a form of triage. It helps you to focus on necessary elements, without which your draft is not a story. The movement from an early draft to a middle draft is predicated entirely on focusing on major flaws. Your job is to stop the bleeding where the bleeding is most profuse. Don’t worry about hangnails. Too many beginning writers think that tinkering around with syntax and punctuation constitutes revision. Not at the early stages it doesn’t. Steven Koch, in his great book The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, says, “Don’t polish a mess.”
Some students find applying a rubric like this “constraining”; they feel less intuitive and spontaneous. It’s supposed to feel constraining. Form is a container, a constrainer; it gives shape to what was amorphous and lacking. You need it because your intuition and spontaneity are not enough to render meaning to readers.
1. What is your character’s ground situation? The ground situation, according to John Barth, is the unstable but static (tense but unchanging) situation prior to whatever comes along and kicks the story into gear.
2. What does your character want?
3. Why? What are your characters’ motivations? Why do they want what they want? Often this is related in some meaningful way to the answer to question No. 4.
4. What is your character’s problem—rooted not in the situation but in the character? Put another way: What is your character’s existential dilemma? Dumbo’s problem is not his big ears. His problem is how he feels about his ears.
5. What’s in the way of your character getting what he or she wants?
6. What happens to make this static situation dynamic? I sometimes call this the story’s trigger. Things were like this and this, and then one day ... a wig turned up in the garbage ... a blind man came to spend the night.
7. How does this trigger change the nature of the ground situation? How does this trigger present new obstacles that weren’t there before?
8. Are these obstacles formidable? How? (Each one needs to be formidable.)
9. Is there complication or rising action? Are these obstacles of a different kind? (They can’t just be, in essence, the same obstacle but in a sequence.)
10. How is the story a record of choices? Are these choices true dilemmas, open to the reader’s moral imagination?
11. Describe your character’s reversal. In order for your story to be a story, your character must, in some way, change. No one grabs your collar and says, “You’ve got to listen to what happened to me. After this happened, I was the same as I was before.” That’s not a story.
12. How is this reversal both related to a) action—to something that happens in the story—and b) a choice the character made, and how is it related to some kind of c) recognition on her part?
13. Do your characters get what they want? They shouldn’t, at least not in some meaningful way.
Are these questions hard to answer without first having a draft finished—without a beginning, middle and ending? Yes, so write your draft first. How do you write something that has a beginning, middle and end, without first knowing all the subtle, profound complexities? Here’s how. Write down the basic sequence of events. This happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. Until you’re done.
Then, apply the checklist. Revise accordingly. Then, go back and make it subtle and profound.
Gregory Martin is the author of the memoir Mountain City, which was named a New York Times Notable Book. He teaches at the University of New Mexico.
This article first appeared in The New Writer’s Handbook 2007: A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft and Career, edited by Philip Martin, from Scarletta Press.
Target character and conflict with a handy checklist To write a compelling story, you must thwart your character's desire. These questions will keep you on the right track.
By Gregory Martin Published: December 29, 2011 Your character wants something badly. Your reader wants your character to get what he wants. Your job is to disappoint both of them.
Ironic? Sure. Narratives are driven by desire: 1) the character’s desire, 2) the reader’s desire that the character succeeds, or at least, the reader’s desire to see what happens to all this yearning, and 3) the author’s desire to thwart both the character and the reader.
It’s this thwarting of desire that beginning writers need to cultivate. It doesn’t come naturally. Far too often, writers are unwilling to let their characters make mistakes and get themselves into trouble that has both cost and consequence for which the story holds them accountable. In stories with this kind of trouble, the protagonists are too passive, too coddled by their author, to make the kind of graceless mistakes born of the yearning and desperation that create good fiction.
You, the writer, can be as poised as you want, act with aplomb, reserve, tact, polish. But your characters can’t. Your task is to put your characters in true dilemmas, where they make hard choices and don’t always make good decisions. These situations, and these choices, ought to be open to the reader’s moral imagination, allowing the reader to participate in the life of the story—so that the reader has to ask: What would I do?
The following checklist is a craft guide to characterization and conflict. It’s not a crutch or simple remedy. It’s asking a lot of you and your story. It should make you feel slightly despairing. It’s designed to help your draft become more of a story, less a rough assemblage of unsuspenseful, incoherent narrative-ish moments.
The checklist is also a form of triage. It helps you to focus on necessary elements, without which your draft is not a story. The movement from an early draft to a middle draft is predicated entirely on focusing on major flaws. Your job is to stop the bleeding where the bleeding is most profuse. Don’t worry about hangnails. Too many beginning writers think that tinkering around with syntax and punctuation constitutes revision. Not at the early stages it doesn’t. Steven Koch, in his great book The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, says, “Don’t polish a mess.”
Some students find applying a rubric like this “constraining”; they feel less intuitive and spontaneous. It’s supposed to feel constraining. Form is a container, a constrainer; it gives shape to what was amorphous and lacking. You need it because your intuition and spontaneity are not enough to render meaning to readers.
1. What is your character’s ground situation? The ground situation, according to John Barth, is the unstable but static (tense but unchanging) situation prior to whatever comes along and kicks the story into gear.
2. What does your character want?
3. Why? What are your characters’ motivations? Why do they want what they want? Often this is related in some meaningful way to the answer to question No. 4.
4. What is your character’s problem—rooted not in the situation but in the character? Put another way: What is your character’s existential dilemma? Dumbo’s problem is not his big ears. His problem is how he feels about his ears.
5. What’s in the way of your character getting what he or she wants?
6. What happens to make this static situation dynamic? I sometimes call this the story’s trigger. Things were like this and this, and then one day ... a wig turned up in the garbage ... a blind man came to spend the night.
7. How does this trigger change the nature of the ground situation? How does this trigger present new obstacles that weren’t there before?
8. Are these obstacles formidable? How? (Each one needs to be formidable.)
9. Is there complication or rising action? Are these obstacles of a different kind? (They can’t just be, in essence, the same obstacle but in a sequence.)
10. How is the story a record of choices? Are these choices true dilemmas, open to the reader’s moral imagination?
11. Describe your character’s reversal. In order for your story to be a story, your character must, in some way, change. No one grabs your collar and says, “You’ve got to listen to what happened to me. After this happened, I was the same as I was before.” That’s not a story.
12. How is this reversal both related to a) action—to something that happens in the story—and b) a choice the character made, and how is it related to some kind of c) recognition on her part?
13. Do your characters get what they want? They shouldn’t, at least not in some meaningful way.
Are these questions hard to answer without first having a draft finished—without a beginning, middle and ending? Yes, so write your draft first. How do you write something that has a beginning, middle and end, without first knowing all the subtle, profound complexities? Here’s how. Write down the basic sequence of events. This happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. Until you’re done.
Then, apply the checklist. Revise accordingly. Then, go back and make it subtle and profound.
Gregory Martin is the author of the memoir Mountain City, which was named a New York Times Notable Book. He teaches at the University of New Mexico.
This article first appeared in The New Writer’s Handbook 2007: A Practical Anthology of Best Advice for Your Craft and Career, edited by Philip Martin, from Scarletta Press.
Epic of Gilgamesh
Anticipatory set / video review of story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZg5DTW7Hw&playnext=1&list=PL76A439DAD34729BA&feature=results_video
Character Analysis
https://sites.google.com/site/classiclitgilgamesh/character-analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSZg5DTW7Hw&playnext=1&list=PL76A439DAD34729BA&feature=results_video
Character Analysis
https://sites.google.com/site/classiclitgilgamesh/character-analysis
Gilgamesh: Powerpoint Creation
After selecting and reading a Tablet, you are to do the following:
1. Be sure to state which tablet you'll be focusing upon.
2. Read for understanding (using notetaking skills discussed in class, etc)
3. When reading consider items regarding character, as discussed in articles, etc above.
4. For assistance in understanding the website above has links regarding the Text, Tablet Abstract, Character Analysis, etc. is available.
5. For assistance in collaborating, students are encouraged to use the class wikispace.
6. Powerpoint should include the following
a. Title slide/ name, block, date, Tablet Number, name of literature
b. Slide(s) listing characters and "who they are"
c. 5 slide(s) regarding 5 separate elements of character for Gilgamesh
d. 5 slide(s) regarding 5 separate elements of "minor" characters featured in Tablet
e. Slide(s) regarding DETAILS that prove the points made in the above slides
7. All powerpoints relate to Character....although plot, theme, vocab, or setting can be mentioned, it is not the focus.
1. Be sure to state which tablet you'll be focusing upon.
2. Read for understanding (using notetaking skills discussed in class, etc)
3. When reading consider items regarding character, as discussed in articles, etc above.
4. For assistance in understanding the website above has links regarding the Text, Tablet Abstract, Character Analysis, etc. is available.
5. For assistance in collaborating, students are encouraged to use the class wikispace.
6. Powerpoint should include the following
a. Title slide/ name, block, date, Tablet Number, name of literature
b. Slide(s) listing characters and "who they are"
c. 5 slide(s) regarding 5 separate elements of character for Gilgamesh
d. 5 slide(s) regarding 5 separate elements of "minor" characters featured in Tablet
e. Slide(s) regarding DETAILS that prove the points made in the above slides
7. All powerpoints relate to Character....although plot, theme, vocab, or setting can be mentioned, it is not the focus.
Character Analysis Part 2
http://www.enotes.com/topics/how-write-character-analysis
IntroductionHow to Write a Character Analysis in 10 Easy Steps
As you were reading your assigned work, you had probably been engaging in an informal character analysis without even knowing it, whether from your own opinions, text you selected to highlight, or notes that you wrote. With a little guidance on what to do with those various notations, writing a character analysis should not be a problem!
1) Pay attention to the character’s ethics. Does the character make just or unjust choices? Consider Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus does not make morally correct choices only when it is convenient for him to do so. Rather, he shows he’s a truly just character by sticking to his principles even when his life is at stake.
2) Decide whether the character’s actions are wise or unwise. For example, one may think of Friar Laurence in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as being a character who continually makes poor decisions that reflect his inner corruption.
3) What is the character’s motivation? As you are mulling over the pros and cons of each character’s internal thoughts and external actions, you will want to also consider why the character is acting or thinking in a particular way. Has the author given you any clues about the character’s past? In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, Lindo Jong’s domination of her daughter Waverly can be understood, if not entirely excused, by her terrible experiences in China.
4) Consider the effects of the character’s behavior on other characters. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is rife with the effects of one character’s actions on others. When Lydia decides to run off with the charlatan Wickham, she puts the whole family’s reputation, as well has her own, at risk, and even involves those outside her family, like Darcy.
5) Look for repeatedly used words that describe the character. Those words often give insight into a character’s psychology and motivations. In John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, Kathy is frequently referred to as having “sharp little teeth” and a “flickering tongue,” which are symbols of her snake-like monstrousness.
6) Be aware of items associated with the character. They may say something about his or her state of mind. A classic example is the delicate unicorn figurine in Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. The figurine is symbolic of Laura’s own sense of hope and her own fragility.
7) Read between the lines. Often what a character does not say is as important as what he or she does say. Think of Abner Snopes in William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning.” When the court finds Snopes guilty of ruining his boss’ rug, prior knowledge of Abner’s character tells us that his silence upon hearing the verdict actually speaks volumes. We know he will react later...and violently.
8) Is the character “flat” or “round”? A character is considered flat (or static) when he or she does not experience change of any kind, does not grow from beginning to end. Shakespeare often uses comic villains as flat characters, like Don Jon in Much Ado About Nothing. Round characters are those who do experience some sort of growth, like Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. By the end of the play, she has gone from being meek and submissive to being strong and liberated.
9) Consider the historical time period of the character. Refrain from making modern judgments about the past; put the character’s actions and thoughts in context. A female character living in England in the 1800s obviously could not make the choices that she could today, for both political and social reasons.
10) Finally, what does the author think? Look for any of the author’s own judgments about the characters he or she has created. The author may be directing you toward an intended interpretation. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne certainly meant for his readers to see Hester as good and Chillingsworth as evil.
IntroductionHow to Write a Character Analysis in 10 Easy Steps
As you were reading your assigned work, you had probably been engaging in an informal character analysis without even knowing it, whether from your own opinions, text you selected to highlight, or notes that you wrote. With a little guidance on what to do with those various notations, writing a character analysis should not be a problem!
1) Pay attention to the character’s ethics. Does the character make just or unjust choices? Consider Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus does not make morally correct choices only when it is convenient for him to do so. Rather, he shows he’s a truly just character by sticking to his principles even when his life is at stake.
2) Decide whether the character’s actions are wise or unwise. For example, one may think of Friar Laurence in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as being a character who continually makes poor decisions that reflect his inner corruption.
3) What is the character’s motivation? As you are mulling over the pros and cons of each character’s internal thoughts and external actions, you will want to also consider why the character is acting or thinking in a particular way. Has the author given you any clues about the character’s past? In Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club, Lindo Jong’s domination of her daughter Waverly can be understood, if not entirely excused, by her terrible experiences in China.
4) Consider the effects of the character’s behavior on other characters. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is rife with the effects of one character’s actions on others. When Lydia decides to run off with the charlatan Wickham, she puts the whole family’s reputation, as well has her own, at risk, and even involves those outside her family, like Darcy.
5) Look for repeatedly used words that describe the character. Those words often give insight into a character’s psychology and motivations. In John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden, Kathy is frequently referred to as having “sharp little teeth” and a “flickering tongue,” which are symbols of her snake-like monstrousness.
6) Be aware of items associated with the character. They may say something about his or her state of mind. A classic example is the delicate unicorn figurine in Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. The figurine is symbolic of Laura’s own sense of hope and her own fragility.
7) Read between the lines. Often what a character does not say is as important as what he or she does say. Think of Abner Snopes in William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning.” When the court finds Snopes guilty of ruining his boss’ rug, prior knowledge of Abner’s character tells us that his silence upon hearing the verdict actually speaks volumes. We know he will react later...and violently.
8) Is the character “flat” or “round”? A character is considered flat (or static) when he or she does not experience change of any kind, does not grow from beginning to end. Shakespeare often uses comic villains as flat characters, like Don Jon in Much Ado About Nothing. Round characters are those who do experience some sort of growth, like Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. By the end of the play, she has gone from being meek and submissive to being strong and liberated.
9) Consider the historical time period of the character. Refrain from making modern judgments about the past; put the character’s actions and thoughts in context. A female character living in England in the 1800s obviously could not make the choices that she could today, for both political and social reasons.
10) Finally, what does the author think? Look for any of the author’s own judgments about the characters he or she has created. The author may be directing you toward an intended interpretation. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne certainly meant for his readers to see Hester as good and Chillingsworth as evil.
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Using the criteria above, create a 10 step character analysis of Siddhartha for every chapter. When completed with the book, answer the following prompt in an essay. Be sure to follow the essay writing skills, including the criteria on banned words in your answer. When submitting, please submit both the pages regarding the 10 step character analysis along with your essay. Due at the end of the month.
How does Hermann Hesse develop Siddhartha as a character?
How does Hermann Hesse develop Siddhartha as a character?