{"id":8107,"date":"2019-08-06T07:34:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T11:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8107"},"modified":"2019-08-06T07:34:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-06T11:34:28","slug":"deadly-ink-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8107","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Ink: Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Handwriting,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Very possibly I made an impression on my daughter\u2019s new\nin-laws last month when I said how, with most women, you can talk to them about\ntheir careers or their kids or what they\u2019re reading, but in my case you could\ntalk about blood spatter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might think this would have been a conversation-stopper,\nbut my daughter\u2019s new sister-in-law immediately launched into how her son had\nbled so profusely after knocking his head on the kitchen counter. \u201cOh yes,\u201d I\nsaid knowingly, \u201cscalp wounds. Lots of blood.\u201d It pays to know your stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I added to my trove of crime and thriller lore this past\nweekend at the annual Deadly Ink<\/a>\nconference, an intimate group of crime and thriller writers and readers, mostly\nfrom New Jersey and its Manhattan suburbs. It\u2019s a great place to expound upon crime-writing\ntopics and to hobnob with other like-minded folk. Guest of Honor this year was\nenergetic and down-to-earth author Wendy Corsi Staub, who participated\nbeginning to end, and our Toastmaster was Dick Belsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ended up on three panels, Character (you need them!), the\nDark Side (who, me?), and Building Suspense. The only suspense was whether I\ncould think of something useful to contribute. Regardless, the panels were all lively\nand fun and, since almost no one ran out screaming and demanding their money\nback, they may have actually been useful or, possibly, entertaining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had made some modest preparations for the Character panel\nand focused my remarks on what I\u2019d brushed up on, character description.\nSometimes writers describe characters readers only see once or twice. Not\nnecessary.. Sometimes they give a complete height-weight-eye color (so often\ngreen, have you noticed?)-hair color-complexion rundown. Also not necessary, I\nsaid, except when these details are relevant to the story, like six-foot,\nfull-figured Monica Ludd, who uses her size to intimidate (or seduce) in Maggie\nGee\u2019s new novel Blood<\/em>, reviewed\nyesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cited Stephen King in On\nWriting,<\/em> who says a character\u2019s description begins in the writer\u2019s imagination\nand ends in the reader\u2019s imagination. No need for details. Let your readers\nfill in. When they do, they own the character and that\u2019s exactly what you want!\nFor King\u2019s character Carrie White, all he said was that she was a high school\noutcast with bad skin and a fashion-victim wardrobe. What more is needed? We\u2019ve\nall known and maybe sometimes been that person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That led to a discussion of how the movie version of a\ncharacter can become our indelible picture of a character\u2014Tom Selleck as Jesse\nStone, Robert Taylor as Walt Longmire\u2014and what happens when that picture\nconflicts with our internal picture\u2014Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher. Total fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Maass (Writing 21st\nCentury Fiction<\/em>) further points out the paradox that the more unique you\nmake your characters the more universal they are. Readers can latch onto some\naspect of a character and relate to it, almost no matter what. What you don\u2019t\nwant are bland, generalized, two-dimensional characters with no unredeeming\nattributes. Give them flaws! Too-perfect characters are boring and not\nbelievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This excellent panel was moderated by Lynn Marron<\/a> and included the\nestimable Jane Kelly<\/a>,\nD.W Maroney<\/a>, and Dick Belsky<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Tomorrow: More from Deadly Ink)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Very possibly I made an impression on my daughter\u2019s new in-laws last month when I said how, with most women, you can talk to them about their careers or their kids or what they\u2019re reading, but in my case you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Deadly Ink: Characters - nothing like a gaggle of crime and mystery writers to learn about \"character\"! Loved this year's conference!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,60,29],"tags":[1618,588,589,1617,1616,1615],"class_list":["post-8107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-storytelling","category-writing","tag-d-w-maroney","tag-deadly-ink","tag-dick-belsky","tag-jane-kelly","tag-lynn-marron","tag-writers-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Handwriting.jpg?fit=360%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-26L","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8108,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions\/8108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}