A character is a lens through which actions, objectives, relationships (etc) are viewed.
The combination of these factors gives any of the characters an individual perspective with regard to the narrative and of course determines the actions and reactions of that character.
How does 'Character Sketching' Work?
Setting out different characters’ perspectives at any point in a narrative, provides an excellent base for the creative development of a work.
This technique has the additional benefits of helping to create and flesh out characters – and also to develop the voice and characteristic dialogue of a character.
Character Sketching begins with a specific idea (i.e. a subject, concept, theme, direction, belief that is the focus of your work).
The Character Sketching technique is then used to add general ideas (i.e. diverse, different and disparate ideas derived from creative thinking) to this specific idea.
The combination of the specific and the general will lead to a potential scenario (point-of-departure) for a creative work.
Illustration: Character Sketching
The following are examples of passages from The Tailor that were facilitated with the Character Sketching Creative Technique:
Character: Anjali
Objective: Maintain control
Lens: Nothing has changed
*****
Anjali entered the room as if this were just another off-the-shelf encounter between the women, placing the files she was carrying on the cupboards to the right of the entrance door. Panya, who had remained seated as that was the pattern to be followed, was shaken by the unexpected normality of Anjali’s approach, and bought herself some time by asking, ‘How did it go?’
‘I could feel that the messages were striking home,’ Anjali answered in a measured manner. ‘You know when the cut and colour and fearlessness of the design is there. One of the Directors around the meeting room table became quite irritated. It was as if he knew that the river was flowing on a new course, in a new direction, and he could do nothing to stop it. His arguments were soon swept away by the endorsements from the other Directors.’
Character: Panya
Objective: Maintain control
Lens: Fear of the consequences of change
*****
Panya had regained her poise and was back on script. ‘You are being pulled out of shape by your ambition,’ she said deliberately but serenely. ‘There is no foundation to this work. It can take us nowhere. You have made our tailoring subversive. This obsession has corrupted you like a fungus. It is rotting away the base that we have worked too hard to fasten in place.’
Panya was now on her feet. She would work to the pattern – or at least as closely to the pattern as this unfurling affair would allow. ‘The role of the Tailor is to sew comfort into the world,’ she said with a rehearsed delivery. ‘If your fashion leads to this outcome of so much upheaval and conflict, what is the good of it?
Alteration and repair fit within the structure of this valley and the lives of the people who live here. The fabrication of your design can only be forged in a hot fire of change and destruction. The cost is too high for this little tailoring business to even consider.’