Resources Review: Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins | #Author Toolbox Blog Hop

by lcelum@yahoo.com | Apr 17, 2019 | #AuthorToolboxBlogHop, Blog, Book Reviews, Creativity and the Writing Process

As I mentioned last month, I have this thing for how-to resources about writing. There’s something about studying the craft of writing that makes me feel content and inspired, so much so that I have to be careful to make sure that any extensive studying I do does not become a thinly-veiled form of creative procrastination.

Because of this, I’ve read enough that the basic advice is becoming ingrained and is beginning to sound repetitious. You know, in the same way a sunrise becomes repetitious because there’s never a day when the sun doesn’t rise. It’s not that each sunrise is not uniquely beautiful; it’s just that every dawn contains the same basic elements and follows a pretty standard process.

This is why I was so surprised by Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors, by Brandilyn Collins. I began reading it with the expectation that I would find basic ideas about character development. However, I was delighted to find that, while the book does deliver those ideas, it also does so much more.

Getting Into Character approaches character development through the system of Method Acting, a set of techniques formalized by Constantin Stanislavsky. In this system, method actors use the techniques of Personalizing; Action Objectives; Subtext; Coloring Passions; Inner Rhythm; Restraint and Control; and Emotion Memory to delve deeply into a character’s emotions and motivations so that they may portray characters in a fully-developed way. Brandilyn Collins identifies each of these techniques very briefly, then spends one chapter per technique discussing in detail how to apply each to developing story characters.

I am only one third of the way through this resource, but already I have learned so much. For example, I have known for a while that, in order to build a rich plot, characters should have internal and external goals and those goals should be somewhat related. However, in the chapter on Action Objectives, Collins coaches readers to state these goals as a two-pronged Desire in which a plan of action is followed by an ultimate goal. To demonstrate how this works, Collins gives the following examples:

“I want to never again lie to my husband so that I can rebuild trust in my marriage” as opposed to “I want a happy marriage.”

“’I want to hurry my roommate out the door so I can have some time to myself’ rather than ‘I want to be alone.’”

Collins then goes further to detail to discuss how this two-pronged Desire helps create scenes of conflict that are organic to the story and fight the dreaded mid-story plot sag.

These tidbits alone have helped me streamline my writing process, transforming the plot development of my third novel in such a way that, by itself, this technique makes the book worth what it costs. I can’t wait to see what the rest of this resource holds.

What about you? What new writing tips or tricks have you learned in the past month?

To continue hopping through other great blogs in the monthly #AuthorToolboxBlogHop, or to join in, click here.