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Character Emotions MUST Spill Out into Big Actions

Characters, even supporting characters, should be bigger than life. No flat characters. Fiction demands round, “fleshed-out” characters. I’m working on a revision and I know this. Yet, when a friend read my revision, her response was that I needed big actions for my characters.

In the revision, I had noticed that the supporting character (Father) didn’t have much reaction to the main character (Laurel). I revised, adding in actions. But the actions were small: fist clenched, raising eyebrow, turning away.

Nothing wrong with those actions if Matt Damon was doing them on the big screen. There, the small actions would mean more. But think of him as Bourne and you’ll remember the BIG actions.

Revise for Emotions that Spill Out into Action

Revised: now, Father picks up a blanket and shakes it, snapping it up and down. He throws it onto a bed and when it falls off, he wads it up and throws it at the wall. It’s not the huge actions of an action-thriller, but in the context of the current scene, these are big actions. (Make sure you keep everything relative and in context!)

Even supporting characters need big actions. So, why didn’t I use them before? I think it’s because I’m a very restrained person myself. I keep a tight rein on emotions, not letting them spill out into big actions. That means for my characters, I need to push them to build emotions so strong that they MUST spill over into big actions.

And yes, the revision is much stronger. My early readers report that the Father is starting to come alive. Hello, Dad!

Howdy doo. Well, I just got back from an exhausting wedding weekend. It was a lot of fun though, and I even managed to get a little artwork in on Friday night. Currently, I am just happy to be back in my little corner studio working on the next piece. Sadly, after the current piece, I have to take another break for the move to Beacon, NY on the 8th and 9th of July. Throw in the 4th of July weekend, and time gets tight especially with all of the packing to be done. But it should all be worth it to be able to easily head into New York City on a whim or on business.

Speaking of the business, here are the sketches for the Crisis editorial mentioned in the last post. The article is about sexism and the oppression of females in rap music. The art director wanted a "I am woman, hear me roar"-type of illustration. So I decided to explore that as well as other avenues.

Sketches:



I actually did five sketches, but two were pretty lame so I didn't even show them. The art director like the "fist-in-yo'-face" sketch so that was that. I personally like the "spitting fire" sketch but was happy to do either. Perhaps I'll do another finish off of the unused sketch if I feel so inclined.

The Final Art:

This was a fun job. I am actually using this as my next mailer around July 15th (after the move and getting situated). Hopefully, it will arouse some interest. Also thinking of working on some likenesses for the portfolio before the end of the summer in this style as well as continuing to push the linear-style with new pieces. A newly updated www.chris-whetzel.com should be up by this Friday to coincide with the mailer.

And thats that. Back to work :)

In This Show: Tammy Munson at PodcampEDU