Five Traits
So Pirate Boy's teacher is going out on maternity leave and the substitute sent home a note asked me to "describe" my child so she can get to know him as she takes over for the next few weeks. Yeah . . . long-time readers, pick yourselves up from the floor. DESCRIBE Pirate Boy.
Well, she must have caught me in a mood. Because I didn't FEEL like describing him. I mean he is EVERYTHING to me. He is infuriating and wonderful and a maniac and a wild man, and how can I POSSIBLY sum him up? So, poor woman, this is the gist of what I wrote:
I think of my child as an iconoclast. He is cautious about strangers until he gets to know you, and then he is wickedly and subversively funny with an extraordinary vocabulary. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. He is a lefty--he has terrible handwriting. I love him.~His Mom
Yeah.
But I got to thinking. We all "sum up" in life. Our characters, our friends. In a group of pals, who's the loud one, the funny one, the serious one, the . . . .
I also stepped back and looked at the sum total of my characters--seeing the common traits. Nearly always, it's courage. I didn't realize how important that was--not when I was a kid. I think I thought "real life" was fairly ordinary. But live a while, bury a few loved ones, survive an illness, survive other things, and you realize it takes a fair amount of courage to get through life, to get back up when you get knocked down. The other shared trait is a sense of humor (often but not always).
So I tried to think of five traits I would use to describe the hero in my work-in-progress.
- Courageous
- Brilliant
- Dedicated
- Devoted
- Enigmatic/difficult to read
23 comments:
Loyal
Scared
Creative
Pragmatic
Maternal
Thanks -- this was a great exercise. And I don't think PB's teacher is scared, I think she doesn't believe you. Yet. ;-)
Amy:
ROFLMAO. Yes, my guess is she is simply scared of ME, a mother who would write that. :-)
GOOD ONES.
I have something to add. One thing I've learned, absolutely, and it's an upcoming blog, I think, is COURAGEOUS doesn't mean FEARLESS. It's not the absence of fear. It's being afraid and doing it anyway. So scared . . . yeah. I embody that a LOT. Deep down. I'm not afraid of the word scared. But COWARDICE is different. I bring it up because I love exercises like this too. It forces you to choose words VERY carefully.
Erica,
Courage in the presence of fear is an amazing thing to realize about a character (or oneself) When I wrote that the mc in my WIP is scared and then I thought of the word pragmatic, that, to me, is her form of bravery, if that makes sense.
To me, real courage is often coupled with fear. And yes, cowardice is a different - and nasty - thing. I think of it not as being afraid "to do" but being afraid "to be".
Amy:
One thing the last difficult year, beginning, actually in December of 2009, has taught me is courage is NOT the absence of fear. And that I loathe cowardice. I thought I would have more sympathy for cowards, but I don't. I have sympathy for people very afraid, but not for those who choose the easy way out via cowardice. I would rather people even admit, "I am too afraid but I see truth for what it is" than to not even acknowledge it, if that makes sense.
I have been more afraid this year than any time in my life. There were times this Christmas that I locked myself in my room and sobbed because I didn't think I could handle what life was throwing at me. But in the end, I opened the door and walked out.
And now that I have jumped overboard, it is rather liberating.
--E
P.S. I think I am an idealist with a LOT of pragmatism. I am still hoping beyond hope people will do the right thing, but in the end, all the disappointments amount to "it is what it is."
Derek--stubborn, dependable, independent, obsessive, neurotic
Ah, in Crystal Storm, my other wip, Doug Shepherd, I would say: complicated, impatient, unpredictable, obsessive-compulsive, heroic
Which is interesting. Another wip, the SF novel I haven't worked on in a while, Con Torres--reliable, stable, passionate, resourceful, persistent
Loyal
Funny/Ironic
Courageous
Righteous
Resourceful
'And that I loathe cowardice. I thought I would have more sympathy for cowards, but I don't. I have sympathy for people very afraid, but not for those who choose the easy way out via cowardice.'
I agree. Cowardice and lack of personal responsibility are the two traits in a person I just can't abide.
I have two heroes in my WIP.
Aidan:
Noisy
Stubborn
Intuitive
Overwhelmed
Loving
Kaelin:
Enigmatic
Violent
Silent
Dangerous
Loyal
Looking at these I'm not sure they're all traits but it is what drives them. and just five is hard!
Derek:
It really is interesting, once you have a "body of work" to stand back and see similarities.
Bath:
Loyalty is a big one in real life--and in my books.
Starbucks;
When you list their traits like that it is amazing to see the differences between your two characters.
Did Pirate Boy's former teacher leave any clues/warnings, or did she just hit the pavement running? :-)
My main character is a strategist, but his heart speaks otherwise. He's self-reliant, yet unconsciously leans on others. He'd like to mind his own business, if only he could ignore that which is inherent in his heart.
Kath:
Interesting. I love the contradictions in people!!! Could be a blog post for sometime soon.
And actually, Pirate Boy is VERY well behaved at school, though when I volunteer, I see him lean over and whisper subversive and wicked little comments. Like they were watching a movie about baby birds, and there were these hairless baby birds in a nest and all the kids were cooing, "Awww!" And he leans over to the kid next to him and says, "Looks to me like a five-headed zombie looking to eat your brains."
And they're identical twins! :)
Starbucks:
VERY cool!!!
I'm waiting for an erotica writer to list horny as one of the traits. ;)
Kim Journey is:
Loyal
Courageous
Tomboyish
Dependable
Passionate
Everything a flight nurse who ends up investigating murders should be. :)
Journey Into Darkness: A Kim Journey Thriller
A really exciting exercise, thanks. For Shirley: Brash, Guarded, Thrifty, Persevering, Angry. For Judy: Determined, Controlling, One sided, Meticulous, Crafty. And by the way, picking five was a tough challenge.
Interesting discussion about having courage and being a coward, it makes me think about The Wizard of Oz. Remember the Cowardly Lion; he was the one searching for courage. I think for some people, they haven’t realized what they have inside of them. And certainly, some people will never know and will remain the same way for the rest of their lives and I think it’s quite sad. Makes you wonder what the difference is between the two, an experience, a traumatic event, tiredness, or inspiration.
I wouldn’t have thought of myself as courageous. Whenever I hear that word, I think about the fireman who is running into a burning building, while others are running out. But I’ve buried loved ones, I haven’t had to survive an illness, but I do have to deal with a condition, and I’ve had those moments where I couldn’t find an exit door. So could I think of myself as courageous? I’m not sure I could, but I like what you said and will definitely think about it for a while. Most of the time, I just feel like I’m trying to survive, with some really wonderful moments which keeps me rocking on.
Loyal
Quick witted (often dark, but still funny)
courageous
resililient
a great judge of character (he'd just call it street smarts)
As for pirate boy and his teacher, I have a pretty strong suspicion that that Jack-Jack she gets is a different one from the pirate boy at home... he's too brilliant not to have learned to adapt in order to make his life and surroundings more palatable... and most people won't find him as charming as you do with frogs in their coffee cup or water cascading from the light fixtures.
HAHAHAHA! I wrote a letter to my Pirate's teacher before the school year started. I didn't want her going into a gun fight armed with a toothpick. She was appreciative and absolutely stepped up to the plate. I believe she is my boy's first crush.
Okay, now for the homework portion:
Independent
Needy (Yep. She is independent to her detriment and needy even though she doesn't want to be.)
Smart
Practical
Protective
SJ:
Good ones. Fit her career and so on, as you say.
Lisa:
You know, I often say, I would never have PICKED my journey in a million years. Just one aspect of it--Crohn's disease--sucks. There is no getting around it being a lousy hand to be dealt. But I really DID learn what I was made of. I wish it had come about a different way, but I wouldn't trade who I am.
This year I learned, from the famous quote about success, "to endure the betrayal of false friends." Again, not sure I would have picked that journey. But in the end, my circle is smaller but that much tighter.
Merry:
They say he is very reserved and quite, the "model" student. His pediatrician tells me he's a genius--and adaptable. She also says he should thank his lucky stars he got a creative novelist for a mother instead of some other kind of mom who would be far less amused by worms in the champagne.
But I guess the universe knew what it was doing when I got him.
Laurel:
Again, so interesting to see five traits that contain contradictions (or seeming contradictions), but that's the human condition.
I fear if we ever get our Pirates together, by the way. :-)
I wandered on over to your blog just for a little space between you know..things! I could stay here all day like a cat in the window. But all right, my five:
Observant
Skilled
Determined
Strong
Unsettling
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