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So I’m currently writing a story where my character has emotion-based powers. When she is angry or scared she can do pretty powerful things, but they leave her completely weak and worn-out.
I’m not a very experienced writer, so I was wondering how exactly I could write her as weak and exhausted? In the part I'm writing, my character has just used a whole load of power because she was scared and angry. She fainted and has woken up a few seconds later and is physically weak.
I’ve got her as finding it hard to move, she’s super dizzy, she can barely keep her eyes open and she can’t think straight.
Is there anything else that either would help me or that I could write in to show how weak she is?
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You seem to have it covered decently well already, so you should do fine.
Although, I think you might be overdoing it just a tad. As she's just fainted, I think this is a bit too tired. Depending on how long she's been out, that's how long your character has been napping. Probably not much longer than a minute or two(I've fainted before from heat, it's not fun if you're on anything hard and you wake up with a giant headache). Depending on your character's recovery speed, you might have less symptoms.
I would knock it down a bit to 'hard to move, she’s really dizzy, and she can’t think quickly'.
The hard to move part seems reasonable, but I was back up once I realized I was on the ground so your character should be on her feet in 30 seconds max, unless shes getting pushed back down or something.
The dizzy part will mostly come before they pass out but it's still an after effect. Thinking straight and thinking quickly are rather different things. I was still sane after I woke up, although it took a minute to piece together what happened. Overall, she should be up in 30 seconds, dizziness should clear up in 1-2 minutes, and once she takes a nap she should be all good.
Have you ever been completely exhausted? If so, you can draw on that experience to see what would be realistic.
If not --or if it's not fresh in your memory --it's an easy enough experience to create. Just go online and find a difficult workout video. Once you get done working out for 30 minutes, you'll know what exhaustion feels like. Just be sure to take notes so you don't forget the immediate sensations.
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It can be tough to write a character falling asleep.
Falling asleep isn’t something that you can be very aware of as it is happening, so it can be difficult to really capture the feeling. Because of this, writers have devised all sorts of techniques to avoid writing it, but that’s thinking about it the wrong way. You should never shy away from a challenging scene, especially if taking the easy way out could interrupt the way a reader experiences your story.
One of the most frustrating situations is when your story is at a standstill because you don’t know how to write a particular scene. Writer’s block can stop a story in its tracks, and sometimes, if the situation is difficult enough, it can prevent the story from ever getting finished.
Writers have a favorite trick when they don’t want to write a scene or transition, and that’s what is colloquially known as “fade to black.” The idea is based on a cinematic technique where a scene quite literally fades out to a black screen, and people just took the concept and applied it to their written stories.
The problem with this, of course, is that written stories don’t have any visuals, so the effect has to be achieved by manipulating a reader’s visualization of the scene. This is often done by trailing a scene off in a vague summary that finishes an action or interaction quickly, and lets the reader drift away on imagery until the scene feels distant. Then, when the scene ends, it doesn’t feel abrupt, and instead seems to fade away in the reader’s imagination.
There are times when it can be appropriate to utilize this technique in writing, especially to gloss over less interesting elements of a story like uneventful travel. It can also be a good way of softening the transitions between chapters. In most cases, however, a fade to black is used to skirt around a topic that a writer isn’t comfortable with writing. Some scenes are just more difficult to write than others, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to write them.
Utilizing a fade to black when it isn’t appropriate for the situation can come across as lazy to your readers.
However, is it appropriate when writing a character falling asleep? Well… yes and no. It depends on the situation in which the character is falling asleep. As a general rule, if you don’t want to draw attention to the fact that the character is falling asleep and you’re just using that to transition to the next morning, you could probably get away with it. However, if the scene isn’t that important, you should consider cutting it out of the story altogether and just moving on without boring the readers with the character falling asleep comfortably in bed.
If you are writing about the character falling asleep as a way of leading into an important dream, or to have something happen while they are asleep, then a fade to black might be the best choice for you. This is a situation in which you will need to use your best judgment to decide what is best for your story. However, there are a few other ways you can approach writing that scene.
Sleep is unavoidable.
You can’t just have your characters traipsing around for days without stopping to rest—that isn’t realistic! After being awake for more than 24 hours, your characters should be significantly compromised. They would have a hard time remembering things, seeing patterns, or solving problems. They would have difficulty driving a car or using guns, and anything else that requires a steady hand or prolonged focus is most likely going to get botched.
Not only will the sleep-deprived characters have difficulty with cognitive tasks that would ordinarily be easy for them, but they will also likely struggle with:
If you’re going to deprive your characters of some much-needed rest, then you’re going to need to show the consequences of that in the story.
Characters with insomnia are going to be feeling like this quite often.
If you want some pointers for writing about that, take a look at Losing Sleep Over How to Write a Character with Insomnia?
Now, what exactly happens when a person starts to fall asleep? Well, the process begins when the brain decides that it needs time to rest, to organize the memories from the day and to clean out waste from its cells. This is usually about 15-16 hours after waking up from the previous night, but that can vary depending on how much sleep the person got before.
Neurotransmitters tell the neurons in the person’s brain when it is time to sleep by shutting off the signals that keep them awake and alert. This also causes the brain to increase the production of melatonin, which relaxes the body, slows down heart rate and breathing, and regulates sleep cycles. Light signals can also trigger this reaction to occur, so a person may become sleepy if they are left in a dark room.
Once this process begins and a person is laying down to sleep, they will usually fall asleep somewhere between 5-20 minutes later.
If they are particularly exhausted, they may fall asleep sooner. If they usually have difficulty sleeping, then it’s also possible for this process to take much longer.
Writing about falling asleep in a closed first-person perspective can be a real challenge. Falling asleep isn’t generally something you pay attention to in real life, so it can be difficult to describe what it feels like as it happens. And yet, you need to be able to do just that in order to make the reader relate to the situation as the character begins to nod off.
You should never mention that the character is falling asleep. Whenever possible, you need to show your readers what is going on instead of telling them. The best way to do that is by getting clever with how you describe the things that a character sees, feels, and otherwise experiences.
As the character dozes off, show the readers that their thoughts are drifting to other topics that don’t relate to their surroundings.
Most importantly, leave out any visual details about their environment, to signify that they have closed their eyes and cannot see what is happening. Make your descriptive language wander, and focus mostly on audible or imagined sensations. Deliberately leave your descriptions vague and somewhat intangible, and have these thoughts and other dreamlike elements mingle with the things going on around them.
For example, a character could be falling asleep during a meeting to come up with a strategy for escaping a prison. She is surrounded by people she has never met before, but she is too exhausted to keep herself awake. In the middle of the discussion, she begins to nod off, thinking of her family. Surely, she assumes, her brother would be missing her. She thinks more about her brother, vaguely, but he says something about stealing keys. Did he really say that? She snaps awake when she realizes that one of the other captives said that instead, and she realizes that she was dreaming.
This can go on a few more times before the dreams carry her away or the group gives up the effort and all go to bed.
Then, of course, you would need to take this idea and apply it to the correct perspective by adding in the character’s personality and changing the pronouns to first-person. Try to make the readers feel almost like they are drifting away with the character. To slow it down even more, try adding in ellipses (…) to break up the character’s thoughts and make them seem more sluggish.
It is important to consider the situation that your character is in, and how that could impact the way in which they fall asleep. Are they fighting to stay awake? Or, are they trying to get some sleep before a big event the next day? Are there distractions around to keep them awake? Has it been a while since they had the chance to rest, or did they have a nap not long ago? There are many variables to consider when approaching a scene like this, and only you can really know what is best for your story.
These variables not only have an impact on how a character falls asleep, but also the dreams that they have once they are asleep. If you want some pointers for how to write about dreams, and when it is appropriate, check out my other article: Writing About Dreams and Nightmares.
And, of course, if your character falls asleep, they will eventually need to wake up again (hopefully). For tips on writing about waking up in different situations, check out my article: When and How to Write a Character Waking Up.
Contents
Description of the character of your hero is one of the main parameters in his creation. Despite the importance of this character in the story, he must have a character that other people can feel. It does not matter where you will use this face: in a book, in a role-playing game, in a drawing, or in simple fan fiction. Without the right presentation, no one will understand your hero, will not be able to fully appreciate his role. With the help of a characteristic, you can separate this person from the rest, or vice versa, attach to one of the groups; to interest readers and make them follow developments with enthusiasm. nine0003
Here is a list that can be used to characterize this or that creature. These items can be added to the character card.
The first impression of a character always comes from his appearance. This includes height, eye color, nose shape, clothing style, possible health problems, slovenliness.
It should contain everything that can be noticed immediately by looking at it only once. nine0003
Appearance to describe the character is often taken for a certain message. It may not correspond to the personality at all, or vice versa - only emphasize it and reveal more details. Appearance is not the main feature in a person, but it can be used to show a change within him.
Let us imagine a hero with bruises and abrasions from frequent fights, badly combed hair, unevenly adjusted clothes that he wears every day; he has a perpetually tired look with a hint of anger that never leaves his face. And suddenly, over a certain period of time, his skin clears up, his T-shirt no longer looks sloppy, his eyes regained their former enthusiasm, facial features softened. nine0003
Why is he so transformed? What happened to his inner world during this period? How did you achieve this?
Whether it is worth answering these questions or just hinting is up to you.
LzfrusnckopUsually people are divided into:
Efficient, energetic, patient) Temperament can explain quite a lot in the character's personality. The choice of this criterion is very important, since most actions in particular depend on it. nine0003
People with different temperaments solve problems in different ways. Let's imagine a situation: a character has been working on his project for a long time, spending a lot of time to implement his ideas and ideas. However, at the last moment he makes a mistake that affects the outcome of his creation. For a sanguine person, this failure will be experience , he will try to fix what happened and continue to try until he gets what he wants. The melancholic will not even try to change something, such a person will simply quit his job and begin to fade before our eyes. What happened will be for him shame .
ともわか Depending on how the hero relates to himself, his character changes.
If he hates himself, is afraid of his body, considers himself ugly and insignificant, then such a person will be rather shy and withdrawn. If the opposite is true, he feels confident, more relaxed; such a character can calmly follow his own path and not be afraid of obstacles.
In the first case, the main thing for a person will be the acquisition of self-love. It can be put in different situations, playing and testing for strength, for the ability to fight and change. It is interesting to watch such a character, look at all the mistakes and failures, try to understand his nature of thinking and reveal the most secret corners of the soul. nine0003
In the second, everything is simpler. Usually there is an emphasis on overcoming the difficulties that prevent the individual from achieving his goal. It all depends on the concept and idea.
tatyana__kupriyanova This criterion is included in the basic understanding of the hero's character.
A character can have any goal: find his happiness, enter a prestigious university, get to know himself, learn many languages. They can be large and small with their own special backstory. The hero will have to choose which path he will take, whether his path will be justified.
Will a person decide to rob a bank for the sake of wealth or will he create his own business? Or will he even hit his target? Where it leads? By answering the questions, you can come up with a story for this person. nine0003
Most writers reveal their character by describing their relationship to another person. His looks, tone of voice, gait, emotions - all this can help in creating a first impression of a person.
This also includes a comparison of one character with another, which can also clarify more details in the character.
A person's habits can tell about his mental health, nervousness. Let's list the categories of habits.
Habits can also be associated with hobbies or professional activities.
Favorite and unloved things of the hero B:
You can test your character's resilience and courage by suggesting challenges that can serve as the purpose of a story.
Does he not like spiders? How about sending him to an arachnid exhibit? nine0076 Is your character afraid of people? Make him go outside.
In order for your hero not to seem like a simple inanimate doll, he must have strengths and weaknesses. A person cannot be perfect in everything, because we all make mistakes. Someone is not given mathematics, but he wants to study astrophysics, and someone does not understand anything in literature and is not going to do anything about it. There are those who have the ability to do something, and there are others who do not have them at all. To work out this point, it is worth answering the questions:
Often in various creations you can see such a category as Mary (Marty) Sue .
Mary Sue or Marty Sue is a character with no weaknesses. He knows everything you ask; this hero has abilities in all areas of science, specialties. Every business comes easy to him; everyone around adore and idolize this person, put him on a pedestal. In other words, it is the navel of the earth. nine0003
This image must be shunned and avoided at all costs. Such a person causes rejection among readers and carries with it hostility and lack of interest in this person.
Sharp description of all the characteristics of your character will lead to a lack of engagement in the reader. Reveal his identity so that no one knows everything about him from the very beginning. Do not speak directly, use comparisons, epithets, metaphors. Show other people's discussions to learn something new about the character through their words. Talk about the little details that fit him.
Tell about the actions of the hero, write about goals, thoughts, feelings. nine0003
Most writers use landscapes, a character's relationship to nature to reveal his soul, to open secret doors within his own "I". Also here can be attributed proximity to the people, to the family, to the social stratum.
A person's eyes can tell a lot about him. If there is no description of the eyes in the narrative, then something is wrong with this hero. As if there is nothing inside him, as if he is a machine without any feelings. This point can be a good help in characterization. nine0003
A cliché is a template by which one or another thing is most often described. Of course, you can use descriptions such as "he had deep blue eyes like the sea" or "her long wavy golden hair was blowing in the wind". However, this has all been used so many times that it leaves almost no impression on the reader.
Bullet journal : how to start keeping a diary?
Diary stickers. nine0003
A mnemonic is a way of remembering information.
How to create a character? Character design and character.
Sale of Adopts / What are Adopts?
The heroes of our favorite books, as a rule, are not born in a vacuum. It is hard for any author, even the most talented one, to create a character from scratch. Yes, and there is no need for this - such a literary homunculus will almost certainly turn out to be flat and unconvincing. nine0003
Therefore, one way or another, the writer endows his characters with the features of real people: from world famous personalities - celebrities or historical figures, to his acquaintances - friends, relatives, and even himself. And there is nothing wrong with that - the image created on the foundation of the character, habits and details of the biography of a particular person becomes more alive and voluminous - it is easier for the reader to believe him and even associate him with himself.
In addition, with the help of such a hero, it is easier for the author to convey the spirit of the era being described - its ideas, questions and problems. nine0003
If a character combines the features of several people, then this is a collective image, and if it is based on the character and life of a particular person, then it is called a prototype.
From ancient times to the present day, writers rely on the Christian tradition when creating characters. So did Mikhail Bulgakov - in the novel "The Master and Margarita" he uses the images of the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ, whom he brought out in the book under the name Yeshua Ha-Notsri. And he does not just use, but rethinks them - Yeshua does not recognize himself as the Messiah - and those around him do not consider him as such, calling him a "philosopher", and Pilate experiences pangs of conscience because of his own cowardice, which did not allow him to save the condemned. nine0003
In the "Moscow part" of the novel, the writer departs from Christianity.
For example, Woland no longer correlates with the biblical Satan, but becomes a kind of successor to Mephistopheles from Goethe's Faust. Bulgakov wrote off the Muscovites from his acquaintances: Ivan Bezdomny absorbed the features of the poets Alexander Bezymensky and Demyan Bedny, and Mikhail Berlioz - a host of Soviet literary ideologists, among whom were the founder of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers Leopold Averbakh and the head of the department of the Soviet Union of Writers Mikhail Koltsov. nine0003
This is not the first time that Bulgakov uses his acquaintances as prototypes. Before starting his literary career, he worked as a doctor for a long time - after the outbreak of the First World War, he worked in the frontline zone, and a little later - in small provincial towns and villages, where he treated mostly peasants. It was they who became the prototypes of the characters in his stories from the "Notes of a Young Doctor" cycle, the main character of which has to fight not only with his own inexperience, but also with the ignorance of his patients.
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And Bulgakov used the images of his eminent acquaintances for parody purposes in the "Theatrical Novel". In fact, this whole book is one big mockery of the Soviet intelligentsia, in which celebrities are shown from an unusual angle and in a light unfavorable to them. Behind each representative of literary and theatrical bohemia in the novel, one can clearly see its prototype - from writers Alexei Tolstoy and Valentin Kataev to directors Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Thanks to the images of Soviet stars, Bulgakov managed to more clearly show the main conflict of the book - the opposition of a novice talent, in which Bulgakov himself is guessed, and a bronzed beau monde, and also add piquancy to the novel - after all, the reader is interested to know what the idols of entire generations were "really". nine0003
A similar technique is used by Vladimir Nabokov in his novel The Gift. In it, the writer parodies his critics - Georgy Adamovich and Pyotr Pilsky.
The first one was skeptical about Nabokov's first works and even doubted his literary talent. The second, in his reviews of the writer's books, made completely ridiculous mistakes - for example, he could not write the title of the novel "Invitation to Execution" correctly. After the release of The Gift, Adamovich recognized himself in Nabokov's character and called this parody "successful." Pilsky, on the other hand, took the novel with dislike and called its protagonist "strange". The main character is really unusual - most critics agree that Nabokov himself served as his prototype. As proof of this, they cite many coincidences in the details of the biographies of Nabokov and his hero - both of them are writers, they lost their fathers early and were forced to emigrate to Germany. However, the author himself in every possible way denied the autobiographical nature of the novel. nine0003
But not all writers denied that they themselves became the prototypes of the heroes of their works.
Thus, the "King of the Beats" Jack Kerouac never hid that in the novel "On the Road" he described his own adventures, although he acted in them under the name of Sal Paradise. The second most important character in Dean Moriarty's novel was based on Kerouac's friend, serial car thief Neil Cassidy. He was called the "world famous prototype" - in addition to Kerouac, Neil became the prototype for the heroes of the books by Hunter Thompson, Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe. Other characters in On the Road also have real-life inspirations: Old Buffalo Lee is writer William Burroughs, Carlo Marx is poet Allen Ginsberg, and Roland Major is Pulitzer Prize winner Allan Temko. nine0003
Sylvia Plath's novel "Under the Glass Dome" became for the writer not just an autobiography, but a kind of confession. In it, she emotionally described her experience of an internship in a popular magazine. Loss of control over what is happening, attacks of fear, depression - both the main character and her creator had to go through all this.
The piercing tone of the book led American publishers to refuse to publish it for about 10 years. However, when this happened, the novel literally blew up the public and won the Pulitzer Prize. True, the writer herself did not see the success of her book in such a way - she received the award posthumously. nine0003
But not only personal tragedies are becoming popular. The heroes of tender and touching stories in Narine Abgaryan's book "Silence of Color" are the writer herself, her sister and acquaintances. The use of prototypes gave her works a sincerity that readers appreciated. And among them are not only adults, but also children - Abgaryan's autobiographical story "Manyunya" about the adventures of two girls, their relatives and friends became a bestseller and was filmed.
The use of real prototypes in children's literature is not as rare as it might seem at first glance. The image of the main character of one of the most famous fairy tales in the world - "Alice in Wonderland" - is based on a real girl named Alice Liddell.
She and her sisters were the daughters of Chief Lewis Carroll, whom he often looked after. Once Alice asked Carroll to compose a fairy tale, and on the go he came up with a story about her namesake, who went into the hole for the White Rabbit in search of adventure. Alice and her sisters liked the story so much that they asked her to write it down. And after the publication, the tale very quickly became popular and entered the "golden fund" of world children's literature. By the way, the manuscript of the story about the fictional Alice donated by Carroll was very useful for her real prototype - having got into a difficult life situation, Mrs. Liddell was able to sell the original fairy tale at an auction very profitably. A similar story happened with the fairy tale about Peter Pan. The writer James Barry wrote it for the sons of his friends, the youngest of whom was Peter Davis, who became the prototype of the protagonist. nine0003
But writers do not always use as prototypes people they know personally - sometimes this is simply impossible, because they are separated by time, as in the case of historical figures, distance or other obstacles.
This complicates the author's task - after all, he has to focus on the public image of his future hero, which is far from always reliable. This is what Jonathan Franzen had to do when creating one of the main characters of his novel "Sinlessness" Andreas Wulff - the charismatic and elusive "king of hackers". Its prototype was the infamous Internet dissident Julian Assange, whom the writer had no opportunity to personally meet - at the time of the creation of the novel, he was hiding from political persecution. nine0003
Knowing who became the prototype of the heroes of your favorite story often becomes one of the keys to understanding the author's intention. If you want to know a little more about the prototypes of characters in famous novels, films and TV shows, we recommend you the book "19 Myths About Popular Heroes". Well-known bloggers Lyudmila Makagonova and Natalya Seregina will tell you who inspired writers and directors to create cult heroes.
02.12.2022 Books
11/25/2022 Books
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