Bringing Characters to Life by Looking Within David Corbett Instructor The Examined Life Everything I learned about human nature I learned from me Anton Chekhov The Examined Life ReImagined ID: 631879
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The outer limits of inner lifeBringing Characters to Life by Looking WithinDavid Corbett, InstructorSlide2
The Examined Life:“Everything I learned about human nature I learned from me.”
--Anton ChekhovSlide3
The Examined Life Re-Imagined“Write what you don’t know
about
what you know.”
--Eudora Welty
Slide4
Writers possess only four tools: ResearchExperienceEmpathy
Imagination
Fortunately
, whole worlds can be built from
them.
Simply ask: What if …? Slide5
What if?Slide6
Goal:Expand our powers of “personalization:” Using our own experience to expand our empathy so we can build
an
intuitive bond
with the character.Slide7
IntuitionWe need an understanding that’s INTUITIVE:expresses itself in vivid, affecting imagery
b
uilds a
sense of a psychic
bond
f
orms an
imaginative and emotional link between
our own inner life and
the inner life of the
character.Slide8
IMPORTANT:Personal experience is necessary but not sufficient. Research and imagination help form a bridge between
our world and the story world. Slide9Slide10
HOWEVER:We shouldn’t—and frankly, can’t—leave behind our own emotional life when we explore the unfamiliar. Slide11
Empathy and ExperienceExperience and empathy reinforce each other.Experience permits
our understanding of ourselves to enhance our understanding of
others.
Empathy permits
our
engagement
with others to deepen our self-understanding. Slide12
The Examined Life, ReduxA deeper understanding of our own experience serves three key purposes:
It helps form an intuitive bond with the character.
It provides us with the one genuinely unique element we can bring to our stories.
It
mitigates the tendency to be
writerly
instead of open and honest. Slide13
A good time to break for questionsSlide14
Exploring Emotionally compelling momentsIn the exploration of emotionally significant moments that follows, don’t suffer over the superlatives—“greatest,” “most,” et cetera.
Allow
the moments that suggest themselves to emerge fully, whether there is one or several—or dozens. Slide15
Think in terms of scenes—not Q&A.Slide16
Exploring Emotionally compelling momentsExplore these moments honestly and without judgment.
Be
specific, down to what you were wearing, what everyone else was wearing, where you were, what time of day.
The
devil, as they say, is in the details, except in this instance the devil is your friend.Slide17
Exploring Emotionally compelling momentsThe most important emotional incidents to explore in a character’s life, and therefore your own, are
moments of helplessness
.
Why? They expose us.Slide18
Our personality gives way to our character.Slide19
EXploring emotionally compelling momentsThe mask of the ego drops, if only for an instant.
Stripped
of any pretense of control or power, we’re
forced
to confront a side of ourselves we routinely avoid or actively keep
hidden. Slide20
We turn from creatures of habit into mere creatures. Slide21
We turn from creatures of habit into mere creatures. Slide22
EXploring emotionally compelling momentsHow we handle that helplessness:
How
profoundly we’re
undone.
How
quickly we regain our
composure.
Whether
we run or fight or bargain our way back to
normal.
Says
more about us than we often care to admit. Slide23
Stories are built from such revelations.Slide24
Exploring Emotionally compelling momentsWhat are the most useful moments of helpless to explore?Slide25
Desire & YearningSlide26
Desire & YearningSlide27
DesireMotivates the pursuit of the outer objective in the story: save the miners, find the killer, find the antidote, marry the beloved, etc.Desire
:
Puts the character in motion.
Places the character in conflict.Slide28
YearningThe deeper unresolved craving which, left unfulfilled, renders the character’s life meaningless.
(Usually, as the story begins,
the
character is unaware of his true yearning.)
Yearning defines the stakes.Slide29
The relationship betweendesire & yearningThe conflict encountered in pursuing the desire awakens the character to his yearning.Otherwise, after so much struggle and failure, the character might simply say: Why go on?
It’s recognition of the yearning – the realization that, if it remains unfulfilled, life will feel squandered, misbegotten, or empty – that motivates the character to continue in his quest despite the odds.Slide30
Personal YearningIn a previous Write Brain, Page Lambert noted thatto understand the character’s yearning, you have to understand your own yearning
in wanting to write the story.Slide31
Personal YearningI’d take that one step further:What is the fundamental yearning in your life?What makes your life meaningful?
Is your yearning unfulfilled?
Why?Slide32
Yearning as symbolSometimes it’s difficult if not impossible to put a single word to your yearning.Sometimes it’s better to imagine it imagistically or symbolically:
Picture the
world,
way of
life, or state of grace
that you believe would fulfill you.Slide33
Yearning as ImageSlide34
Yearning as imageSlide35
Yearning as imageSlide36
Yearning as imageSlide37
Yearning as imageSlide38
Personal desireIdentify a goal you pursued with particular intensity: finishing your novelgetting your degree
courting your loved one
g
etting revenge against an enemy
buying your first home.
How did the pursuit of that desire reflect the yearning you just identified?Slide39
Another good place to stop for questionsSlide40
FearSlide41
CourageSlide42
SorrowSlide43
deathFirst experience with death.Most shattering experience with death.Most recent experience with death.Most devastating loss other than death.Slide44
JoySlide45
hateSlide46
LoveSlide47
shameSlide48
Pride/success(the Golden Moment)Slide49
Golden Moment,Part 2Slide50
The Golden Moment, Part 3Slide51
GuiltSlide52
ForgivenessSlide53
RageSlide54
tendernessSlide55
violenceSlide56
passionSlide57
IllnessSlide58
Best Time!With a family member.At a gathering of family, friends, or neighbors.With a stranger.With a lover.With an animal.
AloneSlide59Slide60
additional “prompts” to key significant emotional moments First time as an adult you told someone you loved him (or her)A time you said “I love you” and wished you hadn’tA time when you were struck or beatenA time you struck or beat someone elseSlide61
“Please stop. I’m scared.”“I’m telling.”“Don’t hurt me.”“Give that to me.”
“
Do as you’re told.”Slide62
“I could kill you.”“I’m not that kind of person” (or “You can’t ask me to do that”).“I thought you loved me.”“No matter what I do, it will never be good enough.”
Slide63Slide64
Don’t restrict yourself to just these suggestions. Imagine
other episodes in your life that have proved meaningful, painful, inspiring,
devastating, profound
.
Embrace
them.
Be
grateful for them
.Slide65
Another good place to stop for questionsSlide66
Shaping Moments into storiesSlide67
Shaping moments into storiesOnce you’ve assembled your set of scenes, you may detect a thematic unity connecting some of them:
violence
at the hands of
authority
a
need to placate indifferent or even hostile
adults
a
sense of being second (or third, or last) in line.
This
thematic unity is the connective thread that can turn these isolated scenes into a possible story. Slide68
Shaping Moments into storiesAnother technique: Choose moments of opposing emotional polarity:Fear vs Courage
Shame
vs
Pride
Sorrow or Loss
vs
Joy
Think of these as endpoints on an arc.
What happened in between? What needed to happen?Slide69
Shaping moments into storiesEnvision the scenes you’ve explored as episodes in a journey, not
disjointed
fragments.
Understanding
this is helpful not just for your characters, but for
yourself. Slide70Slide71
Moving toward insight: Finding the storyWe don’t move from shame to pride, fear to courage, misery to joy in a seamless, effortless glide.
Our
pains, sorrows, miscues, and wrongs misshape us, disfiguring our spirits, our hearts, our consciences. Slide72
MOVING TOWARD INSIGHT,FINDING THE STORYOur lives can become a kind of moral and emotional sleepwalk.It often takes a devastating loss, tragedy, or crisis to shock us out of the habitual behavior that has come to identify us. Slide73Slide74
Moving toward insight,Finding the StoryThis crucial moment of insight forms one the core epiphanies of our lives, and forges the decisions that point toward change.
Anyone
who has experienced a therapeutic breakthrough, or been obliged to perform a “fearless moral inventory,” as those in twelve-step programs must, know this kind of self-scrutiny.
But
writers must know it as well.Slide75
Moving toward insight,finding the storySuch “crises of insight” and moments of decision form the cornerstones of drama.
They
may take the form of a dark night of the soul, a sudden horrible feeling of
What have I done?
, or a hard-won acceptance of ourselves, warts and all.
We
can’t expect to portray them well in our characters without understanding them in our own lives. Slide76
MOVING TOWARD INSIGHT,FINDING THE STORYSlide77
Moving toward insight,finding the storyReturn to those moments of failure and shame and guilt and loss you’ve explored.
Not
just to flesh out the
emotions.
Reflect
on how that fear, shame, failure, or loss changed
you.
Recognize how pain has
made you fearful, untrusting, obsessive, brash. Slide78
MOVING TOWARD INSIGHT,FINDING THE STORYSlide79
Moving toward insight,Finding the storyNext, search out those moments in your life where you’ve wrestled with those shortcomings, faced them squarely, and made the difficult decision to find a new path—toward success, or joy, or acceptance. Slide80
MOVING TOWARD INSIGHT,FINDING THE STORYSlide81
Moving toward insight,finding the storyIdentify the people who inspired you, or obliged you to be honest about what you were doing
.
As
long as you put words on the page, those moments, those people, will guide you to the psychological, moral, and emotional territory where your truth lies.
Ground
yourself there.
Write
from there.