Interviewing Your Character

The technique of character interviewing is a very powerful tool in developing characters in fiction writing. The secret to its success is being loose enough, critic-free enough, to go with the creative flow and let be born whatever will be born. You might want to spend time visualizing the character in your mind’s eye. You need not visualize the character’s physical presence absolutely—I never have a photo perfect picture of my characters; rather, go for a walk or sit in a quiet place and feel yourself opening to the character’s presence, allow the character’s energy to rise up within you.

Get a sense of the character as he or she appears. Sense the energy, hear the voice, let the interview take on a life of its own. If nothing comes to you right away, don’t push it. Instead, go for a walk, or while you’re doing some mindless task, or just before falling asleep, ask for a character to come forth. Take whatever comes. Don’t worry. Don’t second guess. Play the character. Sense the energy.

Coming Soon on the Blog: 50 Interviewing Questions

Let Emily Interview Your Characters: Explore How

Or a TeleSeminar on Interviewing Characters

Priming the Pump of the Imagination:

Image as a Bridge to Character and Story
A Four Session TeleWorkshop from Emily Hanlon

Can picture spawn a thousand (or more) words? For a writer — absolutely! That's exactly what we will be doing in this high energy, four week teleworkshop.

Explore This Four Session TeleWorkshop

Tuesday
starting March 25!

IMAGINATION AND BRUISED NOSES

Dear Writers,

Emily graciously invited me to share the following excerpt from a recent article I wrote for ImagiNews.

Enjoy and Write On!

Patresa Rollinger

A few years ago that strong voice of knowing informed me I needed to move on from places in my life that had come to fruition. It was time to venture into new territory, plunge deeper into passion, expand my vision and creativity. I barely had time to grab my pen as I was marched down a magical path called fiction writing. The voice said “GO.” I tried not to listen. Oh, how I tried. But my Inner Writer, cloistered far too long in an empty white room, banged on the walls of her cell. “Let me help for a change.” She cried.

“…for a change.” The words struck home. I heeded her call.

I was offered a white page of limitless possibility after years of writing medical chart notes. Feeling immensely liberated I naively stepped into the delicious vast emptiness that was mine, all mine, in which to create – and promptly ran wham bam into the limits of my Imagination.

If you’ve never had the experience of writing fiction, be forewarned. There are no parameters as there are in non-fiction. When you enter the realm of limitless possibility there is no guide BUT Intuition. You will probably get a bruised nose, the result of constantly bumping up against your limits. That is good. Because once you know your limits you can invoke your Intuition to formulate a plan to move beyond them.

Fiction writing offers the most brilliant, severe, jaw-dropping, bring-me-to-my-knees insights I have ever experienced. It can be fierce at times yet offers a deeper, more intimate, level of Intuitive connection. Each new scene illuminates a different facet of the jewel that is life. It helps us see and understand treasures that lie within each of our lives, sometimes bright and shiny, sometimes barely visible beneath the dust; sometimes submerged so deep we can only imagine they are there.

More of Patresa’s musings can be found at: http://www.jewelsinthedust.blogspot.com

Sale on all 2007 TeleSeminars and E-books: 50% Off

Sale Ends on March 15

View the Sale


Teleseminars on:

1. Character Development in Fiction Writing: The Art and Technique of Interviewing

2. Awakening to the Artistry of Living

3. The Power of Point of View in Fiction Writing

4. The Five Ingredients of the Scene in Fiction Writing

5. Creative Process, How and Why It Works

6. Accessing Your Writer's Voice: Defanging the Inner Critic

7. The Passion of Fiction Writing

8. The Myth of the Descent of Inanna and the Powerful Journey of the Feminine

9. Writing Your Story, Creating A Tapestry of Your Life: Memoir as a Healing Journey

View the Sale
Sale Ends on March 15

I Am Not I

There is a very particular risk inherent in the creative process: when you take the journey inward, you discover that you are not who you think you are, or you are more than who you think you are. But sometimes these images reflected through the inner mirrors are so alien that they first appear ugly, even demonic and cause us to run. The trick is not to run, but to persevere. The image will shift, the fear will dissolve and the stranger seen through the creative mirror will become familiar and quite wonderful. These unknown parts of us will guide us through unseen doors, into unexpected landscapes.

A poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez speaks wonderfully to this point.

I Am Not I

I am not I.
I am walking beside me
whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit
and at other times manage to forget.
The one who forgives sweet when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who remains silent when I talk,
and the one who will remain when I die.

How do we discover these who walk beside us and tend to be who we are not? How do we learn to lift the smoke screen?

First of all, I'd like to suggest that these ones do not walk beside us, but these unseen, unexplored voices live inside us.

There are different ways of finding this inner self which some call the dark or shadow side, hidden self or true self. Whatever you call them they are parts of our selves that have been secluded, usually in childhood or adolescence, when it seemed somehow dangerous to put them out into the world. We learn very early in life to pass judgements on those parts of ourselves that don't meet with acceptance and, in so doing, we doom ourselves to live through a very small part of the totality of self while casting other parts of self into the shadows, where we keep them hidden, silenced in the dark.

Carl Jung said that the unconscious is a great friend, guide and advisor to the conscious and that psychic wholeness comes from bringing the unconscious and the conscious into balance. He believed the primary way of doing this is through dreams. I believe that this communication is also part and parcel of the creative journey. The trick is in breaking through the stranglehold that the rational, conscious mind, the "I" we think we are, has on us.

As far as I am concerned, this is the most difficult part of the journey, quieting the inner critic so that we can go unfettered, without judgment and criticism, into the great sea of the unconscious. This breaking through is also the hook -- or perhaps it is more accurate to say that when we finally break through into the creative unconscious, we are hooked. For there we find the hidden selves who hold so much of our deep yearnings and explosive drive. They hold talents, wisdom and knowledge we never dreamed we had. For the fiction writer, our hidden, disowned selves often come through as powerhouse characters -- if we let them! In so many ways, these hidden selves are partners in the dance of creativity.

To explore these ideas in more depth and see how they affect you and your writing, buy Emily's book, The Art of Fiction Writing and receive two e-books free!

A Creation Myth of Personal Creativity

Have you ever written a myth of your creativity?
Recently I did. You might try writing one of your own.
Please feel free to post it to the blog.
And if you would like to become a member of the blog, email me.

A Creation Myth...
In the beginning she came into the world dancing on the fiery spray of a dying star. She came and she forgot. Not right away, because the air of earth was vibrant, there was love in her father's eyes and warmth in her mother's body. The invisible was but a heartbeat away.

She came to dance, but the dance changed. She came to sing, but the song changed. She forgot she was a song of Mystery and love. Except in private times when the world outside slipped; she flew back into the light, and the mind of the child was filled with the song of remembering.

Forgetfulness is a mean depression, a prison where the self is lost, cold and alone under a well-worn cloak promising comfort and warmth. "You are safe in me." And called her, "Dear One."