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her hair is my favourite colour in the whole universe

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by Camilo Paredes

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16-1-2019, M.A. Tempels © “… I want to hold your hand.”

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• Cloudographic shades 

Hans Gude, Yuri Pryadko, Renato Muccillo.

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Hi Maggie! Have you ever had problems with characters who are too much like yourself? If so, what have you done to write from perspectives that sound different from yourself? Thanks!

Dear expertlyfeigningnormalcy,

Our default setting as creators is actually “self.” This is because everyone in the world has to go through the process of understanding how much of their experience of reality is universal. Does everyone feel pain when they’re burned? Does everyone have two parents? Does everyone live in a house? Does everyone say y’all? etc. etc. 

That means that without effort, without study, without empathy, our characters will be us. Even if they look wildly different, like ninety year old retired bankers or twenty year old hippies or one thousand year old tree people, their motivations and dialog will be limited by what we understand of the world.

Some good exercises to be sure that you’re not writing you:

• ask yourself, what would I do in the situation I just placed this character in? If the answer is always the same as what the character is doing, you’re writing yourself (or at least how you see yourself).

• write down other people’s vocal tics (for instance, I know someone who says ‘whatnot’ a lot and just interviewed someone who kept saying “crumbs!”) and then do your best to analyze your own speech for tics. 

• read your dialog out loud, without dialog tags. Can you or your critique partners tell the difference between characters?

• swap your characters out in scenes. Do they behave the same way when facing the same circumstances?

It’s one of the cool things about writing that rewards age and cunning. The better you know humans, the more interesting and varied your characters can become.

urs,

Stiefvater 

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when u dont like ur art take a deep breath and remember u created it from nothing, like a god