Observations and tips from a first-time attendee of the world's largest animation festival.
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Blog: Cartoon Brew (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Events, Festivals, Anca Damian, Crulic, Gergely Wootsch, Alessandro Novelli, Annecy 2015, Gerhard Treml, Florence Miailhe, MIFA, Leo Calice, Michele Lemieux, Claire Parker, Alexandre Alexeieff, Eden's Edge, Stacey Steers, IBEX Puppetry, Jacques Drouin, Magic Mountain, Jim Henson, The Guardian, Penny Dreadful, Heather Henson, Round, Kirk Hendry, Add a tag
Blog: sketched out (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustration, illustration friday, drawing, humor, cartoon, sketch, children's illustration, sketchbook, sketching, Thanksgiving, blowfish, round, Add a tag
After all the lovely, salty, Thanksgiving feasting and the ensuing, weeklong grazing of leftovers, I now look in the mirror and I see a blowfish.
A blowfish!
It’s time to deflate with some nice, healthy salad, methinks.
The fact that this week’s Illustration Friday theme is “round” is no coincidence, is it?
Blog: Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: character, characters, characterization, mad, anger, emotion, flat, how to create, round, big actions, Add a tag
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!
Add a CommentBlog: The Spectacle (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Joni Sensel, Parker Peevyhouse, P. J. Hoover, K. A. Holt, round, Jo Whittemore, Add a tag
As much as I enjoyed reading both The Hunger Games and Catching Fire this year, I have to admit that my favorite was an older one — M.T. Anderson’s Whales on Stilts. I laughed out loud in public reading this book, and I think it’s brilliant.
My oldest son is in the second grade this year and really learning to love books. He and I read together nightly, and right now we’re about halfway through with Suzanne Collins’ Gregor the Overlander (the first of the Underland Chronicles series). This book has been out for sometime, but my son is just now old enough to really enjoy it. It has to be my favorite book of the year so far, because it’s been so surprising in parts, making us both giggle uncontrollably as we read together. It’s not a new book, and we haven’t even finished it yet, but we’re really loving it.
I started reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan and couldn’t put it down. I loved the explanation for the zombie disease, how grim the world was, and how the author was not afraid to raise the stakes. I can’t wait for the sequel, The Dead-Tossed Waves, in 2010.
I really enjoyed the main character of Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me. I loved the scene in which she contemplates the entire history of the world in order to decide if her problems really matter in the grand scheme of things. And of course, the ending was interesting and a great discussion starter.
This year, I returned to an old favorite…Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I love this book because it’s lighter in tone than his usual work, and I find it comforting. The characters are memorable, even the small ones, and the story is so very sweet. It’s a love story, an adventure, a fantasy, and a comedy with a twee bit of steampunk mixed in.
Posted in Jo Whittemore, Joni Sensel, K. A. Holt, P. J. Hoover, Parker Peevyhouse Tagged: round 5 Comments on Roundtable Discussion: Favorite Books of the Year, last added: 12/3/2009
you crack me up, at least it’s a cute blowfish
Perfect! I know exactly how you feel!
Your posts always make me laugh… your characters are the best!