Description:
Our favorite books have characters who become as real to us as those we meet in flesh and blood. Even readers who are drawn to fast-paced, action-focused novels are attracted to characters who not only entertain them, but also capture their empathy. Join Golden Kite award-winning author of The Bridge Home, Padma Venkatraman, and learn to employ different techniques to breathe life into your characters, so they leap off the page and create lasting bonds with your readers. Padma Venkatraman will begin by presenting stunning examples of characterization and then share hands-on activities (personal writing exercises as well as small group work) that invite you to delve deep into the complexity of your characters’ minds and hearts. You will play with ways to portray your protagonist’s personality more effectively and start to build dynamic, 3-dimensional characters by creating an emotional biography for one character, sketching a scene imbued with emotional complexity; and drafting a snippet of dialogue with subtext. You will also leave with a wealth of exemplars to study and suggestions for methods to employ later. Padma will also provide on-the-spot verbal feedback for attendees who engage during the Q & A (given time constraints and respecting the needs of everyone who is present).
Target Audience:
Middle-grade novelists at any stage in their writing career will be able to benefit from this Creative Lab. Beginning writers will gain a richer understanding of how to create a scintillating cast, while intermediate and advanced writers will enjoy experimenting with novel tools that take a deep dive into characterization and help them develop unforgettable characters for their works-in-progress.
Lab Overview:
- Padma will begin with an information-rich powerpoint, during which she will share techniques that help pull readers into a character’s emotional landscape. She will present ways to personalize a character and bring texts alive by adding subtext and context. She will address why some characters change and others don’t and how to create believable inner growth during a character’s journey. She will suggest ways in which authors may delve deep and go far beyond a superficial understanding of the characters they are creating. She will demonstrate how authors reveal character through a character’s actions, values, speech, body language, motivations and more. Together, in this large group setting, you will examine examples of excellent characterization and receive mini-prompts to tackle during this interactive lecture which will set the stage for the rest of the workshop. (45 minutes)
- Each attendee will fill out an emotional bio for a character of their choosing, to help them personalize the character by plumbing the depths of the character’s soul. (15 minutes)
- Attendees will split into pairs and interview each other (using the interview sheet provided), with one attendee playing the character and the other playing a psychoanalyst. (20 minutes)
- Attendees will sketch a snippet of text imbued with subtext, exchange their pieces of writing with a partner, and consider how they might revise this sketch. (20 minutes)
- Padma will lead a guided meditation designed to mine a joyous memory and use this personal experience to inform a character’s emotions. The guided meditation will culminate in a written exercise, which can later be used to develop backstory and imbue a scene in a novel with greater emotional richness and intensity. (20 minutes)
- The remaining time will be devoted to large-group sharing and Q & A.
Tangible take-aways:
In addition to learning techniques to delve into a character’s emotional depths, and tips on bringing various emotions alive on the page, attendees will leave with the following:
- Sketch of a scene in which their character experiences happiness, inspired by each attendee’s own childhood joy, but fundamentally reshaped to suit the character’s specific context and the character’s unique mind and heart.
- Completed emotional biography (worksheet) for a character.
- Completed motivation interview-sheet for a character.
- Starter snippet of dialogue with subtext.
- Recommended reading suggestions (books with exemplary characterization).
- List of in-depth characterization tools and exercises to explore and employ later.
