Latest Read: Syd Field-3.The Creation of Character

Tonight I read a chapter of Syd Field's Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting. I've really been enjoying this book. Field has express so far how the basic outline of a script is written. The chapter I read tonight has been most interesting and it's been all about character. Character is something I struggle with. Sure I have the name, the background, the family, the history but even with all of these things, I struggle to know what the character will do in certain situations. I think what I struggle with is that I try and relate to the character, "If I were in that guy's situation," or "If I had that kid's childhood," "If I had those people for family," etc. But what I really want to accomplish is not what I would want to do, but what would the character do. Sure I can move forward in my story no problem, but I still feel I'm relating to the character too much. A little is okay, but too much and you have the same story people have been writing for hundreds of years. Some will come a long and say "Oh, I have seen that character before!" because humans can only do so many things before it get's predictable. The goal is erase predictability and create spontaneity. Experimenting with characters is what I plan to do in my future posts. I need to create a character with a deep history and an intense future.

Oh, how I love writing. There is anything much more exciting then pulling out my laptop and typing away the chapters to my book or putting a pen to my journal and recording down the many idea's I have for short stories. Oh how I lack the discipline to actually complete any of them. I've been working on that... discipline. Maybe by the time I have my own family I'll finally have some.

Fairy Tale

The little elf is dressed in a floppy cap

and he has a big rosy nose and flaring white eyebrows

with short legs and a jaunty step, though sometimes

he glides across an invisible pond with a bonfire glow on his cheeks:

it is northern Europe in the nineteenth century and people

are strolling around Copenhagen in the late afternoon,

mostly townspeople on their way somewhere,

perhaps to an early collation of smoked fish, rye bread, and cheese,

washed down with a dark beer: ha ha, I have eaten this excellent meal

and now I will smoke a little bit and sit back and stare down

at the golden gleam of my watch fob against the coarse dark wool of my vest,

and I will smile with a hideous contentment, because I am an evil man,

and tonight I will do something evil in this city!

Ron Padgett



This poem, though short is very interesting. You think it's all happy and joyful until you read toward the end. It has a dark twist that completely unexpected. My creative writing class enjoyed this as a choice of poem's to bring in and it wasn't until after I had that class what a treat it was to come across such a unique poem.

Matter

What things know what they are,

how do things differentiate?

Sure.

Things will go and things will remain.

Like water and Oil:

Water on the surface, oil settling to the bottom.

It’s only nature

The oil is slippery,

It’s used for cooking.

That’s when it get’s burned

Oil is tossed, meals wasted, water useless.

Children try and cook with knowledge

This is the only result of fools

But how can oil know?

How can children know?

The Spies

It started with a fight, the exchange of

punches between the clones. All love

had left the room, now blood dripped

from the words they lipped

each other. Jon pushed Greigh

down the hill running to Bear Bay.

He began his new life

finishing high school in the cold ice

of winter.  Jon then was

approached by some agents revealed by doves

flying through the park. They asked

him to join their mission, a task

that only he could do. When he

said ‘yes’ he knew it would be

a risk but with his brother

now gone he had nothing further

to live for.  A new morning began

with breakfast for man.

Walking into the office, Jon sighed

ready for debriefing but it was a lie

he witnessed when seeing his

face on the screen. “The mission is

for you to impersonate Greigh

something you can do on the way

to Berlin.” Said the director with command

as he asked everyone to stand

up. Jon went on his mission to

Berlin becoming the very person he thought to

be dead. But chaos intervened and

Jon saw Greigh’s face through the demand

of his job. Greigh couldn’t believe the sight

of Jon and they ran for cover with fright.

When madness was over and guns

stopped firing, they were free to use their lungs

to breath. The mission had failed but

Jon promised to make amends and shut

the door of the past. Together Greigh

and Jon became a team, fighting away

for the country they were livin’

for knowing they were forgiven.