Since last update I have created a survey on Character Development and had my English Communications class answer the questions. Not many of them were thrilled to take it but they usually never are if a survey is involved. In hindsight I guess my questions and answers weren’t the best but I was still able to get some interesting information off of them. Apparently more than half of my class think it’s easy to create a character but most of my class also said that they didn’t develop their characters if they made any at all. This makes me think that most people don’t think character making is difficult, and in a sense it is but in most cases it isn’t. I mean anybody can make up a person, slap on a name and a tragic past and call them a character but it takes a lot more time and creativity to make an actual solid time line for a characters life, filled with their changes and experiences and how they develop their personality. We are creating people and unless they were God, I don’t think it would be very easy.
For example say you created a character but you weren’t very original and basically made a better version of you. They have the same experiences as you and the same personality as you (or one you’d wish you had) but their better, stronger, smarter, wittier as well as a tragic past that makes them more interesting. That’s a self insert character, probably the easiest character ever to make because the character is you, essentially. A lot of people make these types of characters, some people do it on purpose while others do it subconsciously, and these types of characters are frowned upon. True that these characters could be made just for fun or to help the creator practice writing characters but they are still you and not original.
To make a true original character you have to make a completely separate person from yourself, sure they can have one or true traits in common with you but they still have to be another person. They have their own personality, their morals, their own life filled with choices. What have they done with their life, what are they planning to do with their life? Are they going to succeed or fail, will they meet true love or die alone? All these questions are up to you, you have to decide what happens in their life because you are the creator but you are not them, so you have to base their decisions on the morals and personality.
On another topic I have also copy and pasted the websites I found that helped me with my Research Project. I’ve only found three but TV Tropes is one of them, so that should give me a lot of information about stereotypes and what not. I’m not sure if its biased, I mean I think it is but from a creative persons perspective that has seen a lot of different points of view rather than from just one person’s opinion. I guess... yeah.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Very Late Post
I haven’t made a journal for the Research Project for a long time and sorry about that, but I have been doing a lot of work since last time I updated.
During the holidays I was able to create the two characters for my research project. At first I was contemplating weather or to use characters I had already created and develop them further but most of my characters are a little, weird and quirky and I didn’t think they were appropriate. So I decided to go with new characters that I created on Christmas Day while I was in Stansbury visiting my Nanna. The farmlands that surround the town, I guess inspired the characters and their setting.
The characters are Sally O’Brian and Samson Bailey. A farm girl and an ex-adventurer that both working at a bookstore (techniqually Samson owns the bookstore and Sally volunteers to work as an assistant) and they get along by telling each other stories, Sally tells imaginary stories while Samson tells real ones based on his old adventures. Sally is a ten year old with a huge imagination while Samson is in his 60s/70s that uses his love of stories to create a book store. The story takes place in Stansbury because that’s where I had the idea.
Also during the holidays I was able to write the character interview with my own characters to understand them better, and I did. I learned that both of them tend to talk a lot, while a lot of my previous characters tended to talk in small sentences while in conversations with each other, Sally and Samson tend to go on forever whenever their speak. They usually tell stories when in conversations which make them very one sided at times, both of them just like talking! But in retrospect it kind of makes sense. I’ve also got a storyline planned for what happens in their story. (That sounded like improper grammar.)
I have completed their bios and have drawn pictures on what I think they’d look like. I’ve also just completed a survey that I plan to give to my English class, Mrs Jones has given me permission, now all I have to do is print them out, though I don’t think I’ll be able to hand them out until next lesson, we’ll see.
That’s pretty much all I can think of to write for now, so hopefully I’ll come up with new things later.
During the holidays I was able to create the two characters for my research project. At first I was contemplating weather or to use characters I had already created and develop them further but most of my characters are a little, weird and quirky and I didn’t think they were appropriate. So I decided to go with new characters that I created on Christmas Day while I was in Stansbury visiting my Nanna. The farmlands that surround the town, I guess inspired the characters and their setting.
The characters are Sally O’Brian and Samson Bailey. A farm girl and an ex-adventurer that both working at a bookstore (techniqually Samson owns the bookstore and Sally volunteers to work as an assistant) and they get along by telling each other stories, Sally tells imaginary stories while Samson tells real ones based on his old adventures. Sally is a ten year old with a huge imagination while Samson is in his 60s/70s that uses his love of stories to create a book store. The story takes place in Stansbury because that’s where I had the idea.
Also during the holidays I was able to write the character interview with my own characters to understand them better, and I did. I learned that both of them tend to talk a lot, while a lot of my previous characters tended to talk in small sentences while in conversations with each other, Sally and Samson tend to go on forever whenever their speak. They usually tell stories when in conversations which make them very one sided at times, both of them just like talking! But in retrospect it kind of makes sense. I’ve also got a storyline planned for what happens in their story. (That sounded like improper grammar.)
I have completed their bios and have drawn pictures on what I think they’d look like. I’ve also just completed a survey that I plan to give to my English class, Mrs Jones has given me permission, now all I have to do is print them out, though I don’t think I’ll be able to hand them out until next lesson, we’ll see.
That’s pretty much all I can think of to write for now, so hopefully I’ll come up with new things later.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
More Character Development
So far I have written my proposal and have planned out what I’m going to study for my research project for the holidays. Character Development wise I’m still not sure what kind of approach I want to take with characters. So far all I know that I want to have them kind of opposite to each other and at least give them different genders, I also want to make them more relateable(sp?) and not the type of characters you’d see in a fantasy novels, ‘shooting magical beams of good to destroy the bad guys kind of thing.’ I also don’t want the characters to be too futuristic or historical, something modern so things don’t get too tricky, but knowing me I’ll probably want to put a million plot twists in everything, let’s see if I avoid that.
Other than planning and writing up my proposal I haven’t been doing much of anything else in this subject. I’ve been doing some film work in media studies and I think it might be influencing some ideas for my work. Previously I’ve mentioned that I read an article about interviewing your characters to develop them and that I was willing to try this out for my project but now I’m thinking that maybe I could do a live action movie on the interview as well as a short story based on it. Of course I’ll cancel the idea if things become too tricky but it’s a possibility I want to keep open. It will also be useful if I ever decide to present my research project as a video presentation rather than research information in a folder.
Also for those that don’t know TV Tropes is a great place to find information on character clichés and stereotypes, so some people might want to check them out. Here is an article on Character Development if anyone is interested:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterDevelopment
Other than planning and writing up my proposal I haven’t been doing much of anything else in this subject. I’ve been doing some film work in media studies and I think it might be influencing some ideas for my work. Previously I’ve mentioned that I read an article about interviewing your characters to develop them and that I was willing to try this out for my project but now I’m thinking that maybe I could do a live action movie on the interview as well as a short story based on it. Of course I’ll cancel the idea if things become too tricky but it’s a possibility I want to keep open. It will also be useful if I ever decide to present my research project as a video presentation rather than research information in a folder.
Also for those that don’t know TV Tropes is a great place to find information on character clichés and stereotypes, so some people might want to check them out. Here is an article on Character Development if anyone is interested:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterDevelopment
Mind Map
Sorry for not posting often. This is my current mind map for my research project, I'll post it alone before I post up my proper blog.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Character Development
Today (well technically last week it did) I finally get to start my research project, and already I'm pretty confused, but I have figured out some of the things I want to do for it. As you know, this research project is about character development, a subject that has interested me for a long time. I hope that I will be able to update more on this blog compared to my last one. Now some information on what I did last week:
Last week I just learned of the stuff we had to do for the Research Project and have mostly no idea of what I’m supposed to do. Most of the lesson involved getting the laptops to work; they were being very slow when loading up and the internet wasn’t working for awhile as well. When the computer finally started working the class was told to write down keywords for their chosen subject. I also looked up some internet sources to help me with my subject, they seem really helpful. We were also given some sheets that would help us with the research process and with our research journal. I don’t think most of the students used them though. The rest of the lesson had to be in silence due to the rowdiness of the class but it did help me get some work done, as well as let me read a few articles about character development to help me with my research. One of the articles gave a lot of useful information about the personality and quirks of characters and another one shared some advice on how you can interview your character to help develop them further, which is something I might try in the future.
Links:
http://fullcircle.comicgenesis.com/characterdevelopment.htm
http://www.essortment.com/all/characterdevelo_rucc.htm
Last week I just learned of the stuff we had to do for the Research Project and have mostly no idea of what I’m supposed to do. Most of the lesson involved getting the laptops to work; they were being very slow when loading up and the internet wasn’t working for awhile as well. When the computer finally started working the class was told to write down keywords for their chosen subject. I also looked up some internet sources to help me with my subject, they seem really helpful. We were also given some sheets that would help us with the research process and with our research journal. I don’t think most of the students used them though. The rest of the lesson had to be in silence due to the rowdiness of the class but it did help me get some work done, as well as let me read a few articles about character development to help me with my research. One of the articles gave a lot of useful information about the personality and quirks of characters and another one shared some advice on how you can interview your character to help develop them further, which is something I might try in the future.
Links:
http://fullcircle.comicgenesis.com/characterdevelopment.htm
http://www.essortment.com/all/characterdevelo_rucc.htm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)