Creating Characters One Layer at a Time-Layer Two-He has to Gesture, Move, Breathe in Character



Swept Away -- Fired Up -- Stuck Together

I'm writing a series on creating characters. Don't think of this as me telling you how to do it. Instead, why don't you picture us—all of us—on a journey together. We're all wearing pith helmets. Wandering, and perhaps unwisely, today, I'm the one carrying a map.

Maybe we're all hopelessly lost and you keep looking at me. I turn my back to you so you don’t notice that I keep turning the map side to side, top to bottom, checking landmarks, hoping NOW it will make sense.

Yes, at some point we're all hoping someone will come up to us and say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" And guide us to safety.

Until them, I'm writing a blog and to keep you reading it, I'm hiding clues within (X Marks the spot perhaps? Bwahahahahaha) about a prize in the deepest, darkest jungles of this post.

Clue Number One put something in BOLD in your comment…you do this by using this sign <  and the a lower case b  and after the b use this sign > then type whatever, then this again < back slash /  lower case b and this again > to close the bold area. The opening tag appears at the bottom of each comment box but the closing tab with the back slash isn't there. It will look like this, but when you load your comment those > and the b's will vanish and the words will be in BOLD PRINT.

 

Last time I wrote about How does the Character Looks. You can read about that here.

Today we're talking about how he acts.

And I'm using Matthew Tucker, the hero of my current work in progress, a book so far in the future that honestly it's just stupid to use him.

 

Tucker is a mountain man and if you want to remember how he looked go ahead and click on the link above and read about him, but he looks like Jeremiah Johnson only cuter and younger. Yes, cuter than Robert Redford, c'mon, this is fiction. That can happen in fiction. Tucker was born in the mountains. He's been raised in those mountains from birth. His mother died when he was about three and his mountain man father took him to his friend's house, another mountain man, to be raised by that man's wife, a Shoshone woman named Sunrise.

Now Tucker is about as tough and savvy as a man can be who's a born and raised mountain man who knows every skill an Indian woman can teach him.

So, Tucker, how to explain how he moves, his gestures? the most important point to make here is, how he looks and how he moves...it all has to MATCH. The one has to SUPPORT the other.

 

I start the book off with a crisis that just goes on a long, long time. Tucker and Shannon, grizzly bear attack, cliff, white water rapids, water fall, cave, broken leg, hike to the surface…yes, on a broken leg. Finally, we get home. Tucker is filthy because the cave was full of coal and now finally things have settled down and it's time for………him to take a bath. (did you see that coming?)

So here I found a good example of Tucker acting in a way I guess I'd call 'normal' that illustrates his character. He's done lots of things, little bits at a time that do this through the beginning but it's hard to pull three words out of a sentence here and there to show that for the purposes of this blog.

So I'll use this, Tucker getting ready for his bath. (I know, that sounds silly, stick with me here, LOL) They've got him back to Shannon's cabin. He's got a broken leg and--he hasn't realized it yet but--he's starting to run a fever. Aaron, the hero from Tried & True, book #1 has been assigned to help him limp to the river on his splinted leg. *Note--When Tucker talks about his guns, he's referring to the fact he lost his rifle and pistol in the river.

Now & Forever

He'd never admit it to a living soul, but it was taking about all he had to stay upright. Tucker wasn't about to complain, but if he was alone, he'd've curled up and gone to sleep right where he was. Instead he started shucking his clothes and of course that always took a while.

            He dropped the knife out of his right sleeve, then his left.

            When they'd abandoned the boot because of splinting his leg, he'd tucked the knife he kept there into his waist band. That went next.

            Then he got the one from his other boot.

            He tossed the whip he always carried on the pile.

            Then his powder horn and the big, ugly cutlass he liked everyone to see, the two of them he wore crisscrossed on his chest. They hit the ground together.

            He had a hide-out blade a little wider than a needle in a reinforced seam in his pant leg. He landed that on top of the others.

            The lack of his pistol as he stripped off his holster was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His rifle was missing too. He hated the puny pile of weapons.

            "I feel naked."

            "Your clothes are wrecked, Tucker," Aaron said dryly. "And I don't see anything for you to change into. You're gonna be naked."

            Tucker hadn't thought of clothes, they didn't seem as important as his guns, but he reckoned he had to do something. Ma could clean them up, probably. If not, how was he going to get clothes? He only knew one way. He needed to go hunting. Bring down a buck. Skin it and tan the hide, stitch together some pants and a shirt. By the time he did all that, he'd need another consarned bath.

                And he had to do all that work with no gun and a broke leg. Which brought him right back to where he'd started. "I meant I feel naked without my guns. I need to go shopping for a rifle. It's a mighty dangerous world."

 

Now see, Tucker is a fun character. He doesn't take the world too seriously, for all he's a tough, dangerous man. Anyone who knows Tucker knows to just plain LEAVE HIM ALONE. And that doesn't mean exactly run away terrified of him, it just means, don't mess with him. You be nice to Tucker, he'll be nice to you.

Only an idiot messes with him. But Tucker is also a patient man. He's not 'on the prod' to use a western phrase. He's not looking to put notches in his gun. But when he is faced with trouble, Tucker is ready. He trusts very few people. He mostly stays as far away from people as he can because they confuse him with their strange ways. And especially he finds women confusing.

Especially Shannon Wilde.

However Tucker knows when his fate is sealed. He accepted that when she threw him over a cliff to escape a rampaging mama grizzly. Shannon on the other hand is perfectly fine with fighting her destiny. That makes for some difficult moments.

 

Now in the comments....this leads us to.....

Clue Number 2 In that bold space I told you to create (and I told you HOW to create) put the name of the character you're working on. OR if you're NOT a writer, you get to play, too, put the name of ANY beloved fictional character in bold letters to get your name in the drawing for a signed copy of my December release. Alaska Brides Collection.

Now put your pith helmet on and tell me how do you MAKE YOUR CHARACTER MOVE IN CHARACTER. Think about it. Tucker can't be anything but a mountain man. Shannon is a woman who wears britches. Aaron is a former Major in the Union Army, that affects how he moves and acts. Think about a character you're writing about (or reading about) Put their name in bold to get in the contest, then tell me HOW THEY MOVE IN CHARACTER.

 

Alaska Brides Collection

by

TRACIE PETERSON,

MARY CONNEALY,

CATHY MARIE HAKE

AND KATHLEEN Y'BARBO

I will say here that Alaska Brides Collection is an unusually beautifully bound volume.

It would make a lovely Christmas gift.

My book in this collection is Golden Days, so if you're read that before be AWARE!
This is NOT a new release for any of the authors involved.

 

 

 

Also Out of Control, is FREE ON KINDLE AND NOOK

You could consider 'giving' it to your more gullible relatives as a Christmas gift

and hope they never notice what it cost--which would be NOTHING.

http://www.maryconnealy.com