I’m somewhere over the Atlantic as I write this, near Reykjavik in fact. Which I guess shows that I do occasionally work on planes, even though the passenger in front of me has just cranked back his seat, clam-shelling my laptop so I can no longer see the screen. Suddenly my iPad seems like a very wise purchase.
I went along to the second session in the Liverpool Everyman’s Introduction to Playwriting course this week. (pausing for inflight food – I had the chicken, and no sweetcorn for once – nice). This week we started on character and already I have material for a good few posts. I was particularly grabbed, though, by a variation on the character questionnaire technique.
The questionnaire we looked at was very full, and reasonably familiar. My favourite of these is still this one, which I came across at the Everyword festival last summer. New, this time round though, was the idea that you should answer all the questions twice.
_
First in character_: Is she happy? Sure! Outgoing? Absolutely.
Then as the author: Is she happy? She’s obsessed with seeming that way. Outgoing? She tries, but often too hard. She’s constantly watching for signs of judgement, and often comes across as brittle and forced.
I like the fact that this approach captures a character’s intentions for her public persona as well as the author’s assessment. It’s in the tension between these two perspectives that much of the drama of a narrative might be found. Knowing that the tension is there right from the start helps you to look for opportunities to show the fractures in the action of your story.
Not much action round here for next ten hours. Time to check out those inflight movies.
