We've all heard it before. Depth of character is all-important. Our characters must feel real to our readers.
How?
Well, for starters, you can show the character how he or she is. Then give your readers a scene, or a chapter, which begins to show the readers why they're maybe that way.
Take last night's episode of "Castle" for example. It really threw all notions of who the man is topsy-turvy. We began to see the emotional undercurrent that drives the character we've seen for 1 1/2 seasons now.
It was great. (Well-acted by everyone, btw.)
I guess it's not so much turning on its head as providing depth. But, still.
And that's your blog post for today.
I really need to get back into watching Castle. I used to love it! There's just so many shows, and so little time...
ReplyDeleteBut I agree. Depth is beyond important.
I watched Castle for the first time last night. I'm usually not able to. I loved it. I decided to start recording it.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish I watch TV, but then I'd lose my reading time. I don't know about Castle, but I know the #1 reason I put a book down is because I don't like the main character.
ReplyDeleteI don't watch Castle, but I DO watch Dollhouse and the same thing happened on last Friday's show. Except, what happened, is that it showed us that two characters we thought we knew all about are suddenly something totally different.
ReplyDeleteNot in that unrealistic way when you're like "they totally wouldn't do that" but in a discovery sort of way.
Kinda of showed me that you can spend a whole book showing what a character is and can it all be TRUE (actions, words, etc.,) but sometimes it's really cool to show what they aren't (honest, trustworthy, etc.)
So, yeah. Very cool to show those behind-the-scenes things that really make you go "OH wow. So THAT"s what's been going on!"
Elana, you need to cull the reality! LOL Castle is going to be so great next week. They're delving into a certain case that Beckett got mad at Castle for delving into.
ReplyDeleteSusan, you may want to read up on the past episodes of Castle on Wikipedia before watching next week's. Otherwise, you might be a tad lost.
Stephanie, I know what you mean about losing time to television viewing. Castle is fun because he is a writer and so he's always approaching every case the way he would were it the plot of his next bestseller.
Ali, so totally true. Doing this is one way to make a stagnant story seem fresh.
*keeps eyes down while scrolling through the comments* I didn't get to see last night's Castle yet!
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of things you can do to add depth to a character, but yeah, it needs to be there eventually!
L.T. No spoilers here! Hope you get to see the show soon!
ReplyDelete