Exercises
The Hot-Seat
This follows from the above tip and is another actor’s exercise and one that works in a group setting. This is…
Jake Arnott
By: Jake Arnott
Tips / All / Backstory, Characterisation, Dialogue, Generating ideas, Igniting the imagination, Location/Situation, Plot, Research, Starting to write, Subject, Unfolding scenes, Writing a novel
Sometimes characters turn up like old friends and just start talking to you like you’ve known them all their lives. Other times they are elusive: fugitives you have to follow or track down with just a sparse set of clues. Some are destined to remain strangers, enigmas for a reader to decode. But if you really need to know a character the best way to find them out is to become them.
If you spend some time as your character then you might be able to channel something of what the Method school of acting call the ‘art of experiencing’. We know of how actors have done this, of Robert DeNiro spending weeks driving a New York cab in preparation for his role in Taxi Driver. As a writer you can be more measured in your approach, but it’s worth playing the role of your character just a little to test what their motivations might be. So experiment in how they move, what they eat, read and make their way through the world. Go and see things through their eyes and collect what actors call ‘sense memories’.
And the greatest research resource you have for your character is yourself. It is so often in the characters seemingly wildly different from us that we find aspects of ourselves. Remember what Flaubert said of his greatest creation: ‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi.’
Exercises
Whenever you write a scene it’s a good idea to rewrite it – perhaps in note form – using a different…
Tips
Each line must carry at least one unit of sense either in the line itself or across several lines.
To make…
Tips
Objects have immense power to help us to tell stories.
I have found that an entire storyline can be found in…
Exercises
PART ONE: Documentary or Research Exercise for Screenwriters
Using a still camera and or a tape recorder (or video recorder), follow…
Tips
After the giddy rush of a first draft, how you edit and refine your work is of equal, if not more…
Exercises
Start with a scenario – this might be a random picture, a very short scene from a novel, a few lines…
Tips
Before you begin to write your story ask yourself what is it about, what do you want it to say, what…
Exercises
Think about your favourite novel or short story, or if not your favourite, then the novel or short story you are…
