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Creating a fictional character can be a very simplistic task. However, creating a realistic fictional character requires a little more effort on your, the writer’s, part. It is more than just a matter of giving a character a name and description of his or her looks. It is a matter of giving a character personality, and working to make that personality come through the paper, so your readers can easily visualize the fictional person you have created. A well-developed character can either be liked or hated by your readers, depending on the characteristics and attributes given. If you can evoke strong emotions from your readers about your character, you have done a good job.

#1 Create a History

Every person has a past, so it is important to create a past for your character – even if you do not share the entire contents of that past. People evolve over the years because of their experiences and surroundings throughout their lives, and your fictional character is no different, so you need to develop a fictional past for him or her. When you are initially developing a new character, you are getting to know that character, just as your readers will get to know that character when they read your story. It is important to understand why your character will react or make decisions the way that he or she does, so it is important to have a back story that goes along with the personality that has been created for that character over the years.

#2 Show (don’t tell) His or Her Emotions

If you have not heard the phrase now, you will a lot throughout most of your English related courses: show, don’t tell. Simply saying that your character is feeling sad is not a proper description of a realistic character. People don’t feel the same emotions in the same way. Some people cry when they are sad, while others scream or go completely silent. You need to show how your characters are feeling, rather than just say how they are feeling.

Bad Example: Nora became angry after reading the letter. She just couldn’t stand it anymore.

Good Example: Nora’s face became hot after reading the letter. She viciously began to tear                       apart the envelope when she couldn’t look at its content any more.

Showing a character’s emotions through actions lets your readers get a better idea of what kind of personality someone like Nora has.

#3 Give Your Character Habits or Quirks

People are remembered for the little things they do that are different from anyone else, and everyone has something peculiar them that seems unique. Giving an interesting habit or strange quirk lends personality to your character. It can be as small as eating M&Ms all the time, but refusing to eat any other kind of chocolate. Or as big as having your character insist on eating at the exact same restaurant every day, and is thrown off if something disturbs this regimen. Whatever habit or quirk you give your character will allow your readers to get to know him or her better. Sometimes you can give an explanation for the behavior, but you don’t always have to. Either way, your readers will have another reason to think, “Hey, this character is interesting.”

#4 Show Relationships

We can learn a lot about individuals by the way they interact with others. If your character is very sociable, then you should show the character interacting with a lot of random people at work, talking on the phone, and even chatting with strangers on the street. But, if the character is more of a recluse and only has one or two friends, show the bond between those few characters, and maybe even show the uncomfortable feeling that character gets when dealing with new individuals.

#5 Reveal Character’s Hopes, Dreams, Aspirations

People live their lives with a particular purpose. They don’t just go through the motions of school or work without having some reason to do so. If you are going to show that your character is unhappy with his or her job, then be sure to explain why that character continues to keep that job – what is his or her motivation? Is she saving up for a car? Is he trying to pay off a loan? These are the kinds of questions that readers ask about characters who are interesting. And, if you are answering those questions, then your readers are going to enjoy your character and your style of writing that much more.

Although many students don’t like the idea of doing extra work before they actually start their homework, writing an impressive essay actually requires putting in a little extra effort prior to putting  together a final draft. Prewriting techniques involve warming up your – the student’s – brain, organizing ideas, and setting up a plan before diving straight into writing a composition. It may take just a little extra time, but you will find that if you practice some prewriting  before every essay you write, your papers will be better written overall, which will in effect give a better overall grade. Ten or fifteen minutes of extra work may be the difference between a B and an A grade for your paper. And, with all of the different techniques you can use to prewrite, there really is no excuse not to use at least one of them.

Brainstorming

Writing down every idea that is related to your topic in a list form is one of the simplest forms of prewriting, which is called brainstorming. The great thing about brainstorming is that you can put anything in the list that pops into your head. If your topic is on birds and you have random thoughts like,

-They fly

-They’re pretty

-They squawk

-They poop on people’s heads

All of those things would be fine because your brainstorming ideas are related to your topic on birds.

Mapping, Clustering, Bubbling, Webbing

It has several different names, but whatever you want to call it, it is one of the quickest ways to organize ideas in a fun manner. Circling ideas and linking the related ones that surround your main idea is a messy way to be organized… which ends up feeling a lot more enjoyable than most homework does. And, since your related ideas are clustered together, your separate body paragraphs are already prepared for you. What’s better than a prewriting technique that’s fun and easy?

Free Writing

There is nothing more freeing than knowing you can write whatever you want without worrying about grammar, spelling, structure, or coherence. That is the joy of free writing – you are free to make mistakes and write whatever you want. The trick is to force yourself to continually keep your pen on the paper and write whatever thought comes to mind, while trying to think of your essay’s subject. You may go off topic at times, but that is okay. You do not want to stop or correct your free writing because you may lose a train of thought that could be useful to you later. Just force yourself to keep writing, and you will eventually have enough material to use in your composition. By reading over your free writing afterwards, you should highlight or underline any ideas you find useful to your essay.

Outlining

Although outlining is more structured than other forms of prewriting, it is a very useful format to use in order to have your essay organized prior to writing your essay, which was explained in a previous “how-to” (see “Writing Outlines”). Outlines also help your essay stay on topic. By outlining your body paragraphs with their specific points, it is easy to just refer to your ideas written in your outline before you begin writing your composition.

Asking Questions

Sometimes the only way students will work is if they feel they are being forced to. Asking yourself questions is a way to make yourself feel forced into coming up with ideas for your essay. The standard reporter’s questions – Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? – are great ways to begin asking yourself questions about your topic. If you are still writing a composition about birds, ask yourself, “Who likes birds?” or “What kinds of birds are there?” or “Where do birds live?” Obviously, you can bend these questions to your own needs; these are just ways to force yourself into coming up with answers that will inevitably lead to ideas for your essay.

By Julia H. Jackson

A 16-year-old African American girl stands atop a staircase, looking down as her mother hurls insults and frying pans up at her.  A South African rugby team seeks to unite whites and blacks with one anticlimactic game. A middle-aged man makes his life out of the skies, reinventing himself every time his plane lands.  The ghost of a murdered girl peers down on the world below, wondering how to protect her family. And perhaps most fantastically, a family of foxes and their woodland friends fight back against a tyrannical trio of farmers.

Where do these stories come from? And why do they seem so familiar?

This year’s Academy Award season features a whole cache of films based on popular novels. These adaptations take risks by modifying subtleties in plot or character, and, sometimes, adding entirely new meaning. These changes reflect the transition from one media to another, which means that the director, screenwriter, and producer make creative decisions. The implied risk when adapting a book to a movie is that the director might anger fans of the original by changing the story or character to make it more appropriate for cinema. Just what is that line between adaptation and revision? We’ve compiled a list of 5 Films Adapted From Books that you can see during the winter holidays. Judge for yourself how closely each film mirrors the original book, and let us know what you think.

5. Precious

Inspired by the novel Push: A Novel by Sapphire (1996)

Claireece Precious Jones is a 16-year-old African-American girl growing up in Harlem during the 1980s whose journey begins from the darkest of places. Impregnated by her father for the second time, Precious endures the verbal and emotional abuse of her mother while struggling through school, all the while harboring a secret: she is illiterate. Her story begins to turn around when she discovers the Each One / Teach One alternative school, where she meets a classroom full of young women who, like her, are creating resources for themselves where there were none. The 1996 novel was adapted by screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher and directed and produced by Lee Daniels, who discovered Gabourey Sidibe, the New York native whose performance as Precious has already earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

4. Invictus

Inspired by the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin (2008)

Nelson Mandela was released from 27 years in South African prison in 1990. His work to end apartheid earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and in 1995, he decided to link South African unity to its most popular sport: rugby. Carlin’s book examined Mandela’s efforts to bring blacks and whites together in the critical 1995 Rugby World Cup against the New Zealand All Blacks. The film, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, weaves the traditional sports story with the themes of racial integration and social movement.

3. Up in the Air

based on a book of the same title by Walter Kirn (2001)
Walter Kirn met a passenger on an airplane who reportedly traveled 300 days out of the year, and spent more time with flight crews on planes than he did with his own family. This later inspired the character Ryan Bingham, a 35-year-old man whose job it is to fire people for large companies. Bingham (played by Oscar winner George Clooney) lives a seemingly relationship-free life, until he falls for a fellow traveler, and his employer’s efficiency expert (played by Anna Kendrick) starts questioning him about his lifestyle. The film is directed and produced by Jason Reitman, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sheldon Turner. Given the current economic climate and the film’s central theme, Reitman and his crew decided to cast non-actors who had recently lost their jobs for 22 of the extra roles.

2. The Lovely Bones

adapted from the novel of the same name by Alice Sebold (2002)

Susie Salmon is this story’s chilling heroine, a teenage girl who is murdered by her next-door neighbor. She finds herself in a Heaven-like limbo where she peers into the lives of her grieving family and the killer as he prepares to kill again. Director Peter Jackson is best known for his blockbuster book-to-film hits, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. The cast includes Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, Rachel Weisz as her mother Abigail, Mark Wahlberg as her father Jack, and Stanley Tucci as George Harvey, the killer. Jackson is known for his visual effects, and so it will be i

nteresting to see how he interprets Sebold’s vision of “heaven.”

1. The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Adapted from the story of the same name by Roald Dahl (1970)

Roald Dahl was famous for creating magical worlds for children to lose themselves in, many of which were transformed into movies (Charlie Chocolate and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, to name a few). In this most recent Dahl adaptation, director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) employed a team to recreate the family foxhole using stop-motion animation. Jason Schwartzman, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray were among the actors to embody the voices of foxes, badgers, rats, and, yes, people.  Anderson reportedly added a first and third act the original story.

This list reflects a tiny percentage of the amount of books-to-movies in Hollywood. Think Harry Potter, Twilight, The Chronicles of Narnia…and that’s just fiction. The argument could be made that there are only so many stories to tell, but many ways to tell them. What do you think? Does a book lose something when it becomes a movie? And what about the conversation that happens between an author and a screenwriter? How might that affect which direction a film goes?

Let us know what your favorite film adaptations are before the awards season starts!

As the man in charge of tweeting a memorable daily quote from @EduifyQuotes I scour the internet in search of brilliant quotable gems.  Many quotes I save come from beyond the grave.  The German Author Fredrich Nietzsche has some of the most famous of all time. Nietzsche is perhaps most famous for his bold declaration that “God is Dead” from the novel The Gay Science.  Benjamin Franklin is responsible for many famous quotes, that often find themselves as tweets.  One example is “If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.”  Mark Twain was another famous author, very skilled in diction, with such insightful quotes as “Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.”  Many great quotes such as these live on Twitter, and I tried to accumulate some of the more memorable ones below.  Follow our Cool Quotes List for quotes by the people below, and other quotable people who will be added as we discover them. Enjoy!
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