For the improv class I'm taking, the
first class was on character. As normal we warmed up.
(If you plan on taking an improv class,
I might recommend refreshing yourself on some tongue twisters! Some
of my favorites were:
- Betty Botter bought a bit of butter.
- But the bit of butter Betty bought was bitter.
- So Betty brought the bit of bitter butter back,
- And bought a better bit of butter
- Better than the bit of bitter butter Betty brought back.
I am a mother pheasant plucker, I pluck mother pheasants. I am the
best mother pheasant plucker, that ever plucked a mother pheasant!
But I digress. )
For the class we had to come up with
our own characters and do an interview with the teacher/director of
the class. It wasn't a business interview, it was just a question
and answer session.
Some of the characters from the class
were,
a man who was really into all things
surf and water sport related, even going so far as to name his dog
“ski”,
a lady with a lisp that made all her
“L's” into “W's” (She wanted to go to Hawaii and wearn to
huwa,”
a lady that lived in a condo that
didn't allow dogs and she had a dog,
a thirty year old man that was a
retired gynecologist because he called a plumber when a patient said
they had something wrong with their “pipes.”
Then there was my character...
I went up and had an interview that
went something like this:
Director = 1, Character = 2
(2 looks around corner)
1- Hi
2- Is it my turn?
1- Yes, come on in and have a seat.
(2 walks in and wipes off seat)
2-Sorry, I had someone at school today
put a chocolate pudding on the seat and I didn't notice and sat down
and had pudding on my pants all day.
1. Hi, What's your name?
2- My name is Jenny Marie Miller.
1- So, do I call you Jenny or Jenny
Mar--
2- You can call me Jenny Marie Miller,
that is my name after all.
1- Oh, you go to school?
2- Yes, I'm in 11th grade.
But I'm only 13. They should have skipped me ahead a couple more
years but they didn't.
1-Where do you go to school at?
2-Kissimee High School for the Gifted.
1-What do you want to be when you grow
up?
2- I haven't decided yet, a physicist,
a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon.
1- Oh really?
2- And I want to cure a incurable
disease.
1-Which one?
2- Oh, I don't know, an incurable one?
1-Where do you see yourself in 20
years?
2- At least with a Nobel peace price
and a Peabody.
1- At least?
2- Of course, I mean Stephen Colbert as
a Peabody!
1- Not a fan of Stephen Colbert or the
Daily Show?
2-Oh, come on, they are on basic cable!
1-Do you have any pets?
2- I have a fish tank. I've started a
collection. I want to get the full cast of Finding Nemo.
1- Isn't there a great white shark in
that movie?
2- Oh yes, I plan on having the first
successful great white shark in captivity.
1- Well, I think that is all we have
for today...
2- That's all?
1- That's all.
2- (walks off) Wow, that was a waste
of time.
------- By doing the interview, I
realized that this character.... although a gifted child... was also
a bonafide B. I. T. C. H... By learning this while doing the
interview, I knew where to go with this character on the next stage
of the class.
In the next stage of the class we were
told to put this same character into a monologue that would be a
scene. So, they had to be talking to someone.
Things to remember for the scene were.
1. They needed to be talking to someone, and 2. They needed a reason
to be there at that time.
For my scene, in contrast to what I
did... Jenny Marie Miller was quite snotty to an adult that was
interviewing her... I wanted to put her with her peers.
For my scene, I also wanted to bring in
elements of what was brought up in the interview.
The monologue that I came up with was
Jenny Marie Miller addressing Kissimee High School for the Gifted
Einstein Club::
I would like to call to order this
emergency meeting of the KHS Einstein Club and I would like to remind
everyone hat next week is the vote to change the name from “Einstein
Club” to just “Science Club” because let’s face it Einstein
wasn't really that great...
I called this emergency meeting because
I want to announce that I've decided on the incurable disease that
I'm going to cure.
Today in class, Bobby, put a frog down
my shirt...
so, after looking into his genealogy,
I've decided that I'm going to cure...
male pattern baldness! Thank you, thank
you!
And I'm not going to give the cure to
him!
Thank you so much for attending this
impromptu meeting. I realize that most of you have probably missed
your bus by now, but I know that announcement was worth it.
Thank you.
Dismissed.
In my mind this character really became
fleshed out in these exercises. I see her right beside the guys on
the Big Bang Theory.
Taking this into the world of the
novel, I think the interview process would be a very useful tool to
accomplish characterization within the text of the novel.
I've seen interviews recommended
before, however, I think they need to be done within the context of
the story. The hero and heroin don't feel the same way about each
other, their surroundings, their circumstances throughout the entire
story. Therefore, they need to be interviewed to see how they are
really feeling, during stopping points in the story.
At the moment, I'm writing a paranormal
novella, and I came to an abrupt halt in writing, because my
characters were being just too nice to each other. After going back
and digging into their characters once more in the middle of the
story, as I had done at the beginning, I realized that the fight in
them was still there, but the circumstances of the story were making
them nice to one another. They both had a lot of bark and bite left
to them (figuratively and literally) but it wasn't naturally coming
out in them where they were at. (a life and death situation) So, by
calming the situation around them down, the inner turmoil could come
to the surface, and there was my missing alpha and his spitfire of a
heroine.
Coming Soon- Improv for the Novelist –
Part 2- Character's Through Time
