Including Acting with One's Writing

For this topic, I find both acting and writing essentially go hand in hand because they both pertain to the importance of characters.
For example, when writing about a character, you give them attributes, abilities, emotions, a personality. When acting a role, you would do the same thing.

Let's say, you're a huge Tifa Lockhart fan and you want your descriptions of her to be top-notch and as close to her given personality as possible. Let's also say, that not only are you planning to write a grand fanfic about her, but you also landed the part of her in FF7: The Play lol Just an example, only an example!

Things of interest:


1. Dialogue
Yes, dialogue again, because it's very important! I mean, if your character, in a play, has lines of spoken word, you ARE going to have to READ them ALOUD, right? lol

So, suppose a few lines of dialogue for her from the script is this:

TIFA: Oh Cloud! Are those flowers for me?
CLOUD: [gives her the flowers]
TIFA: [takes them] Someday, I'm going to fill this whole place with flowers! [gestures elaborately, raising her arms above her head and spreading them to further illustrate her ideal]


Obviously, it does you, nor your team, or the audience any good if you read these lines blandly, without any passion at all. In order to make the audience, and yourself, believe you are playing the part of Tifa, you really have to be Tifa. Understanding her way of speech in various situations and under different circumstances is a must. Knowing a character is like meeting and getting to know an actual person; you learn of their likes, dislikes, fears, dreams, strengths, weaknesses and as much as you can about them.


2. Body Language/ Mannerisms


Let's take a gander back up at the short bit of script between Tifa and Cloud. Notice the movements she makes in correspondence to her dialogue to bring her statement more life.
What does this body language say about her character? Is she wistful or is she secretly downtrodden? Is she proud, or is she secretly lonely? Is she strong, or is she secretly struggling inside?


Other ways to help distinguishing personality traits through body language would be through mannerisms.
Since Tifa is an already existing character, and many of us have played FF7 many many times, at least some of us will remember her string of significant animations. In this respect, they become mannerisms.

Like when she positions her arms behind her back, sticking out her chest and standing in the model stance; what does she normally say that goes along with this mannerism? Does she say something coy, snide or nice? Perhaps she is attempting to be nice, but is hiding a hefty fact, believing that she is helping the one she withholds this information from as a type of protection.








Another mannerism is when she smoothes a lock of hair behind her ear/out of her face. What does that detail?
Could she be nervous? Could she just feel comfortable doing it? What are some things she says when doing this animation?

One more example to think of is when she folds her arms behind her back, looks aimlessly off to the side and taps the dirt off the back of her boot.

 What was her attitude when she did this? One particular moment I remember seeing this was when Scarlet was spewing nonsense at Tifa, after she fled from the gas chamber in Midgar when the Sister Ray was moved there. For Avalanche's execution. While Scarlet was talking about how snobbish and stuff Tifa was, Tifa did that motion.
In that situation, why would she do that? To obviously show she wasn't paying attention. lol

When acting on stage, it would be wise to include these motions and their understanding when you act the role of Tifa. When writing fiction, it's best to keep these mannerisms in mind to give a little more depth to her character's individuality. Although, I'm not saying overload your story with these motions, just for them to be used when it counts.

Ever see The Dark Knight? Remember the display of the Joker and his mannerisms (an awesome job by Heath Ledger)? Keep that in mind and study the frequency of these motions if need-be; see how they were done along with what was being said from the Joker and other characters towards him.


3. Music
As we know, Tifa has a theme song. I think it's helpful, for any character you may be portraying on stage especially, to listen to their theme or songs that associate with them. Not only can it help you settle into the role better for a great performance, but it can give you extra insight on the character's role.
For writing, listening to a character's theme can aid you in falling into a groove of thinking more like them from what way their theme sounds.

For both writing and acting, listening to any type of music that relates to the current mood you are aiming to get across to your audience, and nab your creative flow the best, really helps.
If you're trying to act out or write a dreary scene, listen to sad or slow music that matches the sorrow you think must be felt. Remember that emotion for put into your lines and deliver it in house without the music around you, but keeping it in your head. The same goes for an upbeat scene, and the like. For actors, this is during solo or partner rehearsals only, not with the whole cast/house. You don't want to disturb them.


4. Acting
Yes, more acting! You're not acting/writing as yourself are you? No, for this example, you are becoming Tifa Lockhart.
If you'd like to try this for a few hours or so, think of normal everyday scenarios and what you would say.
Say, if your friend calls you in the morning and it's way too early for you, how would you react?
Now think of how Tifa would react. How different or similar are your ways?

Personally I think Tifa would respond with "Mm? Huh? Wh-wha? Mm Barret? It's...4 in the morning...are you sure you dialed the right number?" or something along those lines. I really don't think she'd answer with a "What do you WANT?!" until after she knew who it was, a few lines later, not initially. And judging by the phone they had in Advent Children and the PHS in the game, I doubt they have caller ID! >=3 But even if they did, would they really check the number, unless it was plot-specific???!

You can even play with her mannerisms to see how you feel doing them. That really helps getting into character.

-_- I've been mimicking her moves for years. Most of them are out of my system now but I still remember them.

A word of caution though, in the world of acting and portraying characters, you will end up becoming them in a sense and that can be perilous, meaning their "personalities" can grow on you and become who YOU are, possibly erasing YOU. This can most certainly become permanent, if nothing is done to stop it.
This, is bad. Because you can lose sight of yourself, and so can others. Then you won't know who the real you is. Trust me on this. I've been studying characters for over a decade. I think I'd know. O.o


So! I think that's it for now on this topic.


Mel Meiko Mei Ling

That darn Mary-Sue

This particular topic can work for any type of character creation fancition and original. And that is turning your own character, or alter the behaviors of an existing character, to cause their characterizations to become unbeleivable in the sense of their strengths compared to their weaknesses.

This is dubbed as a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu.
This happens from the indirect act of favortism.


For example say my character that was created for this blog, Lie, suffered from the Mary-Sue syndrome. Let's say she's a perfectly strong, always lucky, never lost a fight, athletic, super smart, telekenitic, super flexible femme fetale with a genius complex. AND she was multilingual with ultra advanced super powers.









Her weakness? She... hates... the... color... blue.

It actually pains me a bit to even joke about doing that to her, but this so you get the idea.


As for an already existing character that can fall into that category easily when writing, is Shadow the Hedgehog. His character is basically immortal/immune/indistructable. He also has a tragic past. Yet, the conflict is he's rather emotional in a sense. But because of his power, and dub of being the Ultimate Lifeform, it's easy to add on elements that make him even more "perfect" and versatile in so many ways, using a plethora of skills that the list could go on forever.






Another existing character example would be Yami Yugi.


You KNOW he's the main character. He hardly ever loses a duel, and when he, by some slim chance and for sake of plot he's about to lose, he pulls a miraculous "I'm-the'main-character-so-I'm-going-to-use-a-card-or-cards-that-ensues-that-I-win-even-if-I've-never-used-them-before-in-a-deck-of-mine-just-for-this-episode-and-occasion!" deal at the last minute (AKA, blatantly cheating), and wins by default.


Well, the show is named after him anyway, so it's like a sure-fire giveaway.




A real life Mary-Sue would be me, in a lot of cases. I could list a lot of positives, yet my main flaw is I tend to focus on the negatives of a situation. Even you may have qualities that tend to be labeled as a flat out Mary-Sue. That doesn't make you a bad fanfic character by any means lol
I'll give a quick example of some Mary-sueness of mine that has frequently occurred. There were quite a few times when me, my fiancee, and our friends would play poker and everytime, for at least 2 weeks straight, when I was about to run out of chips, the flop and river would always match in my favor every hand I played.
Needless to say, I got a large stack back to stay in the game. (But I ultimately ended up losing to my fiancee anyway lol)
The point is, every person, or character, may encounter bouts of extreme luck or seem to have more strengths than weaknesses at different points during their existence, but its how their situations are handled that makes the difference. And avoiding overloading your character with too much unnecessary strengths they don't need.

The way to avoid over-stacking a character's traits in unbelievable favor is to take a look at your own weaknesses.


How many of them contrast with your strengths?
Think of others' faults and weaknesses. What makes a person more accepted and worthwhile to be around because of their weaknesses in contrast to their strengths?
What makes them and their personality genuine? What are their hopes, dreams, and fears? Do any of them fit with your character's build?

Let's use Lie in another example. While her hair and eye color are unnatural and her ears are pointed, does that automatically make her an unhuman figment?

Just another Mary-Sue concept because of her bizzarity?

Perhaps she is classified as a human, but dreams of being more than that. Maybe her dream was to be a supernatural being and she did what she could to at least look the part to herself. So she could have dyed her hair two different colors and ended up with a purplish mixture by accident. She could be wearing contact lenses for her eyes, or false pointed add-ons on her ears to make them look elf-like.
Maybe she has a great, cushy life but it's not enough for her; she wants more, to be more, to know more.
Maybe Lie, indirectly, is visually dishonest to those that observe her in order to be absolutely true to herself?

How does one know of a character's hopes and dreams? Find out next tiiime!

And as for the concept of Mary-Sues, allow as many weaknesses as there are strengths, but make them believable. That's my opinion.

Make your characters/character renditions BELIEVABLE.


Even for Shadow, if you had him in a scenario where he was holding a giant 500 ton boulder over his head, shooting laser beams from his eyes, his body radiating with an indestructible barrier, causing the whole planet to tremble, AND all the while being gentle to the flower on the ground blooming next to his feet, I think that's a bit too overboard. Even for him.

Catch you next time.

Mel Meiko Mei Ling

Fanfiction Character Personality Tips

Ah my faaaavorite character writing topic! What I'm going to share with you is my method for keeping characters in character as best as I am aware of.

1. Dialogue

If you're stumped with character styles of dialogue, what I find helpful to do is to read and/or listen carefully over and over the way a character speaks a line or lines.
Two examples: spoken dialogue and text dialogue. Spoken dialogue is found in shows, audio dramas, video games or in any instances you hear the selected character(s) voice speak while text dialogue is when you can only see text of their words scrolling across a screen. This format is usally found in video games, novels, manga, comics and any media that has to be read instead of heard.

Spoken Dialogue-

Let's take Death Note's L Lawliet (english dubbed version) for this example. The first thing you notice is the timbre, quality type of sound, of his speech.

His voice hardly sounds surprised or amazed and tends to sound rather momotone and flat. It sounds as if he's thinking out loud all the time because he mumbles so much. But because of the knowledge of his characteristics, if you know them, he does become surprised and shocked and experiences other emotions. He just hardly ever 'acts out' those emotions like a normal person would. So, when describing his words in a story, do make mention of his low tones with appropriate adjectives. (Like instead of writing 'L said.' after a line of dialogue, you can replace it with 'L nonchalantly replied, sounding rather uninterested and bored.' Or something that describes how he spoke something or acted out a gesture/motion)

Since L tends to speak rather politely, it would seem very out of character to have him say: "Yo Light! What it is?!" or "Hey Watari, hurry up and gimme some more of them cakes, will ya?"


 >_< that makes me cringe!


Instead, it would be better to utilize phrases such as; "Hello Light." And "Watari, may I have another round of strawberry shortcake and 3/4 as many blueberry cupcakes? Oh, and also a cup of tea, please."

For a text dialogue example, let's gooo wiiith Rouge the Bat and her role in Sonic Battle. Notice how she tends  to leave quite a few dots after her words, meaning her thoughts tend to change mid-sentence and that she contains her emotions, has a habit of trailing off, and sometimes not finishing a complete thought(a sentence, in this case).
Subjects dealing with spying, stealing, technical information or smooth talking, she speaks of them fluidly without hinderance.
But in the instance of dealing with another character she's sincere about, like Shadow the Hedgehog, her words lose that fluidity as her emotions get in the way. A great example would be when in Sonic '06 she declares to  Omega that Shadow is always there to help save the world. "And besides that..." She trails off.

Using both of these methods, observe the games, shows and any other types of media that exploit any parts of personality of the character, more than once.

During my younger years, I wrote  a TON of FF7 and Sonic-related stories and often played every Sonic game that had spoken and text dialogue over and over and over; I even recorded these games to a VHS tape to watch when I wasn't playing.
By doing so, I was able to pin-point the patterns of character speech, body language, mannerisms, and train of thought done by the characters.

Since I'm a born natural actress, I found myself drawing and playing out the character roles. I've even copied their gestures and animations(Aerith, Cloud and Tifa's most of all)!

I became the character, in a sense, then "stepped back" to see them "be themselves" and interact with each other. They "talk" to each other in my head when I think about scenarios to place them in.



I'll let you in on a little secret that I use that helps me get into a character's personality. Acting plays a huge part in this, but since I mostly observe the character and understand how they operate instead of acting like them and only acting like them, I become more like a reporter, asking them questions. Face to face.

The way I do this is by looking at an OFFICIAL picture or screenshot of the character and he/she will "respond" in the ways I've heard them react in a game or show. This even works towards characters I've never "met" or seen in action before, but it's best to know of the character first.





Let's take existing character Claire Redfeild for example, using a Degeneration screenshot. Her eyes and lips stick out the most to me and when she "responds", I can see them moving actively.

References that are good for Claire are Resident Evil: Code Veronica and the cg movie Degeneraion. In CV, there is very strong focus on her eyes. This can be because of the graphics and to show off the Dreamcast's polygon count power, and/or to just show the audience Claire's expressions in a clearer and better light than what could be shown in Resident Evil 2 (since she was a new character, her traits were still developing).

You see her concerned, scared, determined, hopeful, all these things and you can relate to them. We learn how wholesome and protective she can be while kicking butt within the same setting.

In Degeneration, we are able to see the way she moves and behaves when engaged in conversation. She is always moving and is very responsive with her head and features. A good example of this can be seen when the antagonist of the film, I forget his name, is telling her of the WillPharma building they're in and while he's talking, she's looking around fascinated by the location, but still glances to him every now and then and nods to show she's listening to what he's saying. She was not still at all.



So!!  Let's ask her something.


Hey Claire?

"Yeah?" she responds intently, her eyes glistening in such a way that enhances her welcoming smile.

Is it true you find Leon attractive?

Her eyes instantly dart elsewhere in embarrassment and she forces a laugh. Then she rolls her eyes. 
"Ha. Right. Well, sure, I mean, who doesn't? I'm sure he'd like to think he could have any chick he wanted just by giving them that... 'Leon look' of his" she gestures, playfully narrowing her eyes and raising her chin. "Hello. I'm Leon Kennedy. And you are?" she laughs, poorly mocking his voice and shakes her head dubiously. "Please. What kind of question is that?! Talk about your personal life getting snooped into!"

Well, how do you feel about Steve?

Almost immedietely her chipper features melt into a somber frown. In rememberance, she looks away sighing. Her attention aimlessly settled on a mass of nothingness before her. "Steve...was..." she trailed off, shaking her head slowly, "...you know, even to this day I still wish that I could have done something more to help him... But at least he doesn't have to deal with it anymore...yeah. Anyway, he was defintely a friend in a time of need."

That's enough for now!!! Although, one time I asked her, for oneshot purposes, if she'd ever want to roll in the hay with Leon and she responded with a loud "Oh GOD!" while rolling her eyes and explained in...uh... "colorful" words that the answer was yes. Lol

Anyway!

For those that remember the shutdown Shadowed Darkness site, the methods I mentioned were the methods I used to get the characters to, hopefully, sound as close to their displayed personalities as much as possible.

But keep in mind, that to my knowledge and unless without legal permission, there is no money in fan-fiction. Yet, to me it's still a favorite hobby/pastime.

If you run out of ideas with having the character sound written right, remember to at least look at a picture of them. Imagine what you may want them to say or do and them doing it. If it seems "right" then it should be tested.


In-depth character analysis will be done in the future! The first one just may be Rouge the Bat.


Mel Meiko Mei Ling

Writing original chars part 1

Your original character's creation and development depends strongly on the story and plot you plan to place them in.
For the creation of a character, there are a series of questions you may want to ask yourself.

First Question:


 How should the character look?

While it may seem like a primitive and shallow question, it is quite important. A character's outwards appearance can explain a great deal. I'll make up a character named Lie. She has a short bob of hair in the back of her head with two waist-length locks on either side near the front, narrowed eyes and a carefree style of dress.

Let's start with the hair. The short and long parts show a contradiction. Why is her hair this way?
1. She was born that way
2. She cut it
3. It was just designed that way by her creator >=3














Now, what could the reasons be for why she cut it?
1. Her hair was initially too long and she wanted a change





























2. She got into an accident that resulted in her long tresses to be ensnared,  needing to be ripped or cut free and disdainfully decided to cut it the way it looks presently, to hide the damage.


4. Cutting her hair was a way to seal off a part of the past she'd rather not remember.
5. More compliments to that darn creator





Think of already existing characters that have hair specific traits, like Aerith Gainsburough of Final Fantasy fame and Raven from the animated Teen Titans. What plot-related facts are linked to how their hair was portrayed? Aerith preferred to keep her hair tied back in a ponytail while Raven chose to always cut hers short. What did these characters protect/try to hide because of this?

The next trait to look at are the eyes. In accordance to Lie, what stories do the eyes tell? Why are they shaped the way that they are? Could these eyes hide some type of pain? Perhaps they appear threatening as a defense mechanism, to protect her from emotional harm. Or maybe she just had them sown that way.
Or the randomly chosen whim of her creator.



Take her clothes into account. 


Why does she dress so sloppily? Maybe she wants to trick people into thinking she's something she isn't so they don't bother her. Or maybe she really doesn't care much for what she wears as long as she isn't streaking.

See how much goes into such simple traits?! Other questions dealing with appearance, such as body language and mannerisms/personality will arise.
Everything about a character concept should go hand in hand with their other traits. Unless you're making a bare bones character with just a face and name, period. Obviously, I like going into the depth of a character!!

After all, the best ideas and concepts indirectly come from the real life around us. I believe every character is based off of a person or persons that already exist within the real world.

Second question:
 What is the character's background? Where did they originate from? How does it tie in with the story's setting? Does it clash or flow with the plot/setting? What is their personality?

An example of clashing would be, let's say Lie is an extremeist and loves going sky diving on a board while giving herself a nose peircing at the same time, exploiting this attitude every chance she gets throughout the setting of living in a town where everyone is quiet, mousy and sees such things as abominations. Does she find a way to live with it and make friends or will she be forced to succumb her wild attitude to their conformity?

An existing character example would be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. 


Her personality was strongly clear towards wanting advenutre, something outrageously more than her quiet small town could offer her.

Character plot clashes aren't bad and shouldn't be avoided; instead they can add an element of depth to your story and encourage fuller character development; how the character changes/grows overtime.



Character names can play a part as well. Your character can have a simple name like everyone else ( Tyler, Ashley, Cindy, ...), a made up name (Lescyrie, Ocealana, Erana,  Shaquallaqueeta, ...), a synonym name (Lumina-light, Ubiquitous- ever-present...), an acronym name ( Xemnas-Ansem, Roxas- Sora x, Ashan-Shana, ...), a backwards name ( Susan-Nasus, Lem-Mel, ...), even an 'opposites' name. An existing character example of that would be Light Yagami from Death Note. 

His first name has a sense of purity and gloriousness to it since when you think of the word light, you think of things that are bright and positive. However, his character traits exhibit a rather corrupted and deluted "soul'. His true nature and behavior are clearly the opposite of what his name represents. 

As for Lie, what does her name fortell? Can she be trusted, or does she really live what her name portrays?

That's basically it for part 1!!





Mel Meiko Mei Ling

Currently!

Under construction!!


Mel Meiko Mei Ling