Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Tuesday's Writer's Tip - Other Peoples' Lives #MFRWAuthor #BWLAuthor #People #Lives #John Gardner

Once again while reading John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist, I came upon a bit about how an author must learn to live other people's lives. While our characters might have some bits of ourselves they must become alive in their own unique way. This takes a step into another person's life and his emotions. Perhaps hard but reading can help but also observing other people at various times of their lives.

Does this make the writer a psycholgist? Perhaps. How does one learn to do this. For me, it's a matter of imagination and also Astrology. I've been a student for years and when developing my characters, I know three things about them other than the usual character traits. I look at their Sun sign, their Moon sign and their Rising sign. Knowing the traits of all these from books and also from people I know with these signs, I'm able to step into my character's shoes.

Finding the way that helps you do this can be a number of ways. When you do, the characters come alive.


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1 comment:

Ofeloski said...

Great blog post! As a writer, what are now your source of inspiration? I’m struggling with a creative block. I found out that some artists inspire me to write, does it happen to you? If so, which pieces of art or paintings inspire you? Debra Crary is an American artist based in Mexico <a href="https://www.debracraryart.com" rel="nofollow”>(you can take a look at her paintings here)</a> and, for some reason, her colourful Catrinas and her style full of Mayan motives inspired me to do some research on Mexican Culture. Also, I recently read “American Dirt” and was fascinated by the story. Even if I’m struggling to compose a piece of text, learning about ancient cultures alleviates the anxiety. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Regards.