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I just finished SOTG since it just came to paperback. The first time was with Children of the Mind. I have realized that there is a lot of emotional connection to the characters for me, far more then in other books. It may just be because I had read it originally when I was really young. However I think there is a little more to that. I have been lately experimenting with script writing as a student in Drama, I can write intellegently and interestingly to effect the audience. One thing occured to me last night though, like a good actor does a writer become their characters?
Does a writer see the world through the eyes and mind of each character, creating each characters personality, their mask, behaviors? I mean sure you can think these things up, however how much more effective is it if you become them?
Then just like actors in a play, each character even though just words on a page would mean more to us. Would have a deeper connection, I wonder if this is something that OSC might do.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I don't know about the great Uncle O (though I'd guess so from his lessons, esp. the advice on names) but I know I write like that. Heck, I read like that- absorbing a single character into my consciousness so that I virtually become Jane or Ender or whoever. As a result, I get more from the world than I might, but also less (because I get only one character's view point at a time). I always read books several times because of that little quirk.
Posts: 135 | Registered: Mar 2006
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When a writer creates a character, they inevitably put some aspects of their own self, whether current or past. I myself often find myself looking through the eyes of the characters in my own stories, and even catch myself thinking like them from time to time (a la Valentine/Demosthenes). As Jimbo said, the same applies to reading. Maybe that's why I tend to re-read my favorite books, not just to enjoy them again, but to gain new perspective.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Just been playing with some free style writing that way - Much more effective - I suppose I have always been doing it this way just not completly and it makes it better when I commit more of myself into it.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Personally my most felt for character was in CoTm when Jane was dying and crying out for peter to help her i realized then how much i would "miss" jane if she "died" in this story
Posts: 201 | Registered: Mar 2006
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It's good though to be able to connect to any character - can't wait for the connecting novels in the series to come but that can be a while yet.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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For me, writing is like improvising a play, in which I play the part of the guy telling the story. Sometimes the storyteller "character" gets inside and "does" the voice of the point of view characters; occasionally, the narrator's own voice shows through. But I'm the actor who is ad-libbing the part of the narrator who is telling and acting out the play.
It sounds convoluted, but it means I'm up to my eyeballs in character - and yet never unaware of the actual craft: I don't lose track of structure or story, any more than an actor on stage is ever for a moment unaware of the audience.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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That makes perfect sense to me oddly, and it's great to hear. I'm glad to know that you go through such a well crafted process.
Posts: 129 | Registered: Feb 2004
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