DEVELOPING CHARACTER
q Establish
your family members as real people who are as complicated as heroes in
novels. Emphasize the human qualities--their actions will speak for themselves.
Use concrete and specific details. Don't just tell about them, show
them.
q Use
Photographs to help with physical and place descriptions. Interpret them as
well as using them for concrete and factual details.
q Try to
establish a dominant impression of the person that you are trying to describe.
Although people often lack a clear outline, it is the writer's responsibility
to interpret character. Guide your selection of detail to produce an overall,
unified effect.
q Capture
feelings. Include not only what happened in your family's lives, but also their
thoughts and emotions when it was happening. Incorporate your impressions and
inner responses, too, if appropriate. (Be careful here; don't be
gushy-sentimental!).
q Describe
the characters in action, not only typical everyday scenes but in their
relationships, work, and play.
q Try dialogue
to make your family members become "real." In nonfiction, it must
really have been said or be representative of the kind of talk that did or
might have occurred. Unfortunately, writing natural dialogue is difficult. Read
it aloud to see if it sounds natural.
q Include
minor "characters" in your family history, too--the hired man, a
Sunday school teacher, a next-door neighbor--with whom your family member/s can
act, react, and comment upon or with.
q Include the
impact of relationships between people in your family--both allies and
antagonists.
q Do not pass
judgments on the people about whom you write. Use precise details rather than
judgmental adjectives.
q Make the
person believable by including the negative as well as the positive, the
unhappy as well as the happy times, the doubts and failures as well as the
successes. Nobody is perfect. Try to be objective and not judge the person. Be
responsible, responsive, and fair to the people about whom you write.
"Tell the whole truth with love" (Rainer).
How much
should you tell? Up to individual; however, "We have a right to tell our
stories, but not to blunder into publication without a thought for the
consequences" (
q Look at the
people in your life as characters in a book; as soon as you write about them
that is what they will turn into!
Developing Character
Physical
Description
Typical
actions and gestures
Facial
expressions
Quotations
from interview
Favorite
expressions
What the
person doesn't do
What others
say about the person
What others
say to the person
How others
react in the person's presence
Your
reaction to the person
Background
and personal history
Turning
points in person's life
Emotions,
feelings, attitudes
Quotations
from letters, diaries, journals
Favorite/typical
clothing
Pets
Favorite
foods, movies, books, magazines
Names and
nicknames
Important
people in his/her life
Philosophies
and goals
Hobbies
Education
Organizations
Accomplishments
Spiritual
beliefs
Anecdotes
that illustrate character traits
Paradox,
contradiction, irony
Metaphor
and figurative language
Sources: Philip Gerard's Creative
Nonfiction, Jean Dixon's Family Focused