Becoming your character

runeblade

Funny but I don't feel the need to impose my personality on my characters.

In fact, my characters seem pretty free to take up a direction and style all their own, without any direction from me. I just stand back and let them go.

I think that is what keeps it exciting...I'm waiting to see what happens too!

I don't read aloud. Hell, I talk to myself too much already.

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Jonathan_Philips

I agree with you about almost sitting back and watching where your characters go, but for me, it's not so much a question of trying to avoid injecting my own personality into a character it is a question of language. Someone from an entirely different background to me would not use the same language as I would. Trying to get into that character a little helps me see how he might see things and then express himself.

As for reading aloud, I find it to be the single most useful tool in editing.

Best wishes

JP

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greedyandneedy

I always write in the first person, which is probably a bit of a cop out really.

I like to put some of myself into my characters, and I like to try and imagine how I'd react, and how I wish I could act in certain situations. Kind of writing myself in as James Bond, I imagine a Me that I dream of being. It's fantasy role play on paper really.

All the women I write are based on real people too. Exes, female friends, my fiancée, or just an ideal femaile who lives at that moment in my mind.

I'm going to give 3rd person writing a go for my next story, and I'll bear your comments in mind too.

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dukky

I read mine aloud to myself, I find it very useful. Although I have learnt to check that there is noone in earshot when I do that. I have one pretty traumatised puppy dog over here. When I started off writing, I was injecting a lot of myself into my female leads. I dont do it so much anymore, because I want more diverse characters. Besides which, Im not all that interesting. Its a lot of fun to come up with new characters, and try to give them a life of their own, and its a good challenge in writing too. I often take aspects of the personalities of people I know, and use them to develop characters. Or aspects of the person I would like to be.

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peppercorn

I guess this is related to the topic, and it wasn't different enough to deserve its own thread . . . .

Do you find it difficult to write the characters who are of the opposite sex?
Do you have any special tricks you use to get into their thoughts and feelings?
Do you ever interview friends to immerse yourself in another's mindset?
How do you virtually walk that mile in another's shoes and then put it down in a story?
Or do you have no trouble at all bouncing back and forth between the sexes when you write your stories?


Perhaps the ideas you share will help other writers here on this site.

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