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Anne Skyvington

The Art of Creative Writing

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Writing

Characterisation in writing fiction

written by Anne Skyvington June 18, 2015
a-woman-eyes

 I attended my first ever Webinar one  day, about a year ago. It was a web-based seminar on Characterisation, organised by the TBA Lounge, an American site, and was set to happen at 9.30pm Thursday Eastern American Time. This corresponded to 11.30 am Friday in Sydney. As well as filling in holes in my knowledge of how best to reveal characters in writing, it was fun to connect and interact with a lecturer and audience on the other side of the world. We, the participants, had the use of a bar for written responses, and a “golden hand” icon that allowed you to ask questions using the microphone on your computer or laptop. If you wished, you could just remain quiet and take notes in the traditional way.

gandhi-madame-tussaud

Topics advertised for exploration were:
* The Golden Rule of the emotional response
* Creating three-dimensional characters
* Giving your character roots
* Techniques for revealing characters
* How to write speech, narrative summaries and internal dialogue

The most important insight for me was to understand the differences between what the lecturer called “external emotion” and “internal dialogue”, both of which which she placed at the other end of the pole from “narrative summary”.  Examples of each were given, and we had a homework task based on the former two aspects to be marked by her. The main difference between the first two is that internal dialogue is thoughts and responses seen from inside the character’s head, while external emotion is gestures and clues seen from the outside by the narrator. Narrative summary covers a lot of information efficiently but is not as emotionally responsive for the reader.

The lecturer gave literary and media examples of characters to illustrate her points, for example Peter Pan in the book by J.M. Barrie and character references from the French film “Amélie“. Another task set during the lecture was to focus on the characters of well-known people, such as those from Madame Tussaud’s statues, for example Mahatma Gandhi, and imagine them placed in conflictual situations to see how they would react. One example was to imagine how Gandhi would react if he were forced to attend a modern day night club.

Overall it was a positive experience for me, because it filled a gap in information, however I would not be happy to pay the price of enrolling in the site on an ongoing monthly basis.

Related articles
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Characterisation in writing fiction was last modified: October 24th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
the golden rule of the emotional responsewhat are the differences between external emotion and internal dialogue?what are the main features underpinning characterisation?what is a webinar?what is characterisation in fiction?what is narrative summary?
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Anne Skyvington

I have been a reader/writer all of my life as far back as I can remember. Blogging has opened me up to another world, where I can share my skills and continue to create through word and picture. Writing is about seeing the world and recreating it for others to see through different eyes.

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4 comments

Ian Wells June 17, 2015 at 11:39 pm

A Webinar and a golden hand … my you are getting into this writing thing aren’t you. I must admit it
all sounds fascinating and all this input must be having an effect on your style and your skills. Just don’t forget we little people; keep on popping out your gems.

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Anne Skyvington June 18, 2015 at 8:26 pm

Thanks for this, Ian. It’s such a passion, this writing thing, once you get the bug. Yes, writing for the blog is a chance to keep on writing and sharing with other like-minded people.

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Lynne June 17, 2015 at 10:18 pm

What a wonderful opportunity.

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Anne Skyvington June 17, 2015 at 10:36 pm

Hi Lynne. Thanks for stopping by.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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