How hard is it to create a person? I think being a writer really opens our eyes to just how diligent God was/is when he created man. There is so much complexity to a person, aside from the basics: what he likes, what he wants to do, and what makes him angry. I get so overwhelmed when trying to come up with even the little characters who make a one-time appearance in my work. When I close my eyes and try to imagine their eyes or the face they'd make if they saw something shocking, all I can see is a blank piece of paper. My challenge to whoever may be reading thing is to open your eyes to the world around you for inspiration rather than the romanticized, fictional recesses of your brain.
I don't want you to think I'm a creep who looks at people obsessively or anything like that, but observing people it sort of a hobby of mine. Being an aspiring writer, I'm always looking for inspiration anywhere I can get it. There are some people who just strike a note with me, people who look like they belong in the pages of a book rather than the real world. I run into somebody like this almost on a daily basis. Yesterday it was the boy who was working at the bookstore. He looked like he might be eighteen or nineteen, he was wearing a navy and white stripped polo shirt. The hair on his arms and head was all gone, his face was jaundiced, and his eyes were bloodshot. It looked to me like he was getting off of chemotherapy, but I'm not sure. Despite the sickly look about him, he was very beautiful and his smile was nice. I went in to ask about a text book, but he said the book was out of stock. I was the only person in the store, and I wish I could have thought of an excuse to stay in the store a little longer. Again, not trying to be weird or anything, I promise. :) Just looking at the way he carried himself and the inflections in his voice are really good ways, for me personally, to scope out a person's characteristics.
Anyways, I think writers, a lot of the time, spend so much time trying to create these elaborate characters with deep and realistic personalities. I think of my personal favorite book characters and try to make mine seem as real as them. I think the problem with trying to create a realistic character completely from our own minds, though it is completely possible, is that we're not basing this character off of anything, just what comes to our minds. I think it's important to open our eyes when we're out in the real world, away from our computers, to look for inspiration. The boy I saw in the bookstore was so real to me that I think he could make a great character. Though I don't know anything about him really, I can take what I saw and transform it into something believable.
Imperfection is what makes characters real. I know for me at least, when I try to come up with characters in my mind, at the end of the sketch they come out 'half-baked.' Too typical or too perfect in this way. I say the best way to create a perfect character is to look at the imperfect people around you. It's people you see in the grocery store, the classroom, or the office that jump off the page, not the feigned 2-dimensional people we concoct in our brains.
No comments:
Post a Comment