I've almost watched the Gilmore Girls season finale. I've watched everything leading up to it, and, not to be overly dramatic, but it feels like all my friends are dying. *sigh* So I have something of a mental block against watching the last episode.
So I've been pondering how it is that Luke and Lorelai are such well developed characters, that it feels like they live and breathe and walk around. It seems like Stars Hollow is *somewhere* and that Taylor's holding his town meetings and Luke is ranting about something and Lane is struggling with her babies somewhere, whether I'm watching them do it or not.
There are other shows, books, characters that are really entertaining and interesting, but not real in the way this is real to me. I talked ini a previous post about other characters that feel like real people: Rhett and Scarlett, Darcy and Elizabeth, Jay Gatsby, Catherine and Heathcliff, all the Amelia Peabody characters, Sherlock Holmes - to name a few.
For instance, when I read the Amelia Peabody books, I wanted Nefret and Ramses to get together so badly I could feel it! Why did she marry someone else! Why didn't he just SAY something! I wanted to scream at them. But, I'm reading another very good series right now with two characters that clearly want to be together, but aren't. And I'm not that upset about it. I'm sure they'll work it out eventually, but it doesn't keep me up and night -and yes, Ramses and Nefret, Rhett and Scarlett, Luke and Lorelai have ALL kept me up at night.
So I'm trying to figure out what *it* is - what that secret ingredient is that makes some characters leap off the page and take control of my imagination, while others stay peaceably on the page or screen.
Any thoughts? I'm sure it's more than one thing- but it sure would be nice if there were one secret key to this!
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6 comments:
Hmm...very interesting topic. What does make them larger than life? There was a quote from another blog that I read today that really resonated with me. The author, Mark Betrand, is talking about his characters and what one professor told him after he read one of his short storeis. His reaction:
"I didn't write about these people as if they were real, as if they were people I was acquainted with. I couldn't tell you what they were like, because all I had was head knowledge, not heart knowledge."
You can read the post in its entirety here: http://tpr.typepad.com/themastersartist/2007/05/bluffers_guide.html#more
definitely worth it!
Ok, I don't think that cut and paste right:
http://tpr.typepad.com/themastersartist/2007/05/bluffers_guide.html#more
Your Amelia Peabody story reminds me of how I felt when I read Under The Rose and The Rest Falls Away. In both those books, I desperately wanted the heroine to get together with someone she ultimately did *not* get together with. Oh, the reader angst! =)
When you figure it out, let me know too!!! Great post. :)
That Bertrand quote Melissa referenced seems to get at the answer, in part: we empathize when we witness a character's emotional actions and reactions.
The other part of this "secret" is the use of concrete, specific, realistic details in the storytelling. When you can see, smell, feel, and sometimes even taste the world you're in, you believe in it and are affected by it.
Cool, huh?
That was a great link, Melissa! Thanks for posting that!
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