{"id":2888,"date":"2015-05-16T21:19:12","date_gmt":"2015-05-16T21:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/From-Jeff-Vandermeers-Wonderbook-some-ideas-for-deepening-character"},"modified":"2015-05-16T21:19:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-16T21:19:12","slug":"from-jeff-vandermeers-wonderbook-some-ideas-for-deepening-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/2015\/05\/16\/from-jeff-vandermeers-wonderbook-some-ideas-for-deepening-character\/","title":{"rendered":"From Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, some ideas for deepening character."},"content":{"rendered":" \n

From Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook<\/em>, some ideas for deepening character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Consistent inconsistency<\/strong>. Real people don’t act rationally all the time. We have contradictions within ourselves, and stress often brings them out. Show this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Action versus thought<\/strong>. You can show the reader the character’s thoughts, but the other characters only see their actions. Set up a gap between the two. (This is the reason we excuse our own actions even when they’re like those of others we condemn: we know the thoughts that led up to doing those things, but we have to guess at other people’s motivations.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Need versus want<\/strong> (this one comes via Tobias Buckell). Characters should want things, but sometimes the things they want are not the things they need. There’s gold in that gap. (Or – my own observation here, from Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon<\/em> – the thing they want may not be compatible with the thing they must do.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. Transfer of energy<\/strong>. Have you ever come in from a day in which someone annoyed you, and taken it out on your housemates? What if the person who annoyed you was themselves reacting to something elsewhere in their life?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It can happen across time too, when we react to a person or event not for what that person or event actually is, but for what they remind us of. This is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. People as symbols or ideas<\/strong>. To ourselves, we’re people. To other people, we may represent something more, less, or other than ourselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6. The secret life of objects<\/strong>. Objects can be important to us because of what they represent too, and so we may value them beyond their monetary worth. This can transfer energy, it can be a source of interpersonal conflict, or it can be an occasion of threat or loss for a character. (I’m thinking of Jim Butcher’s Changes<\/em> here. Harry Dresden had a crappy basement apartment filled with worn paperbacks and a beaten-up old car, but they were his<\/em>, and when he loses them, we feel it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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#wonderbook \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, some ideas for deepening character.
\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[68],"tags":[94,89],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}