Now we're on to Chapter 4. Here, Maass says that one of the things that makes a memorable, larger-than-life protagonist is that they will do what the rest of us would never do. They say things out loud that we only think. And of course, they come up with witty repartee in an instant, where we always have the perfect comeback an hour after the discussion.
Part of the exercises (Page 31 of the Workbook if you're following along) is to outline the things that your character would never, EVER, under any circumstances, say. What s/he wouldn't do. And what s/he wouldn't think. Then, find places in your story for your character to think, say and do those things.
What type of situations might cause that? What would be the consequences of the thought or action?
My thoughts at this point (having not done the exercise yet) are that it would have to be fairly well into the book to write this. Because a reader isn't going to know it's against the character's traits to think/say/do something until they know the character. But then I can see the shock value of starting with something big and dramatic, like killing someone, and then revealing how out of character that is. The repercussions of whatever opened the book would have to be felt throughout it, I'm thinking.
Has anyone done this exercise already? Thoughts?
2 comments:
Since I just got done reading this book myself, I haven't tried some of the exercises with my wip. But this one was an eye opener. Talk about taking life and turning it on it's head! Yikes!
I'm going to do the exercises tomorrow, Laurie, after I get a requested partial off to an editor. Have you tried this exercise yet? Want to do it and we can share what we found out?
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