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If you’ve hung around long enough you’ll know I like to draw inspiration from all branches of the crazy tree.

Today, I’ve pilfered methodology from a thespian.

I know. I know. *Gasps dramatically* “But we’re writers. We’re introverts.”

*ahem, technically I’m not. Something about a mix up at the sperm bank, don’t tell anyone.*

But whether you’re introverted or not is irrelevant. It’s the methodology that’s important, not the acting itself. Although if anyone fancies throwing a little skit at the Bloggers Bash, I’m more than up for whipping out my inner diva…

Constantin Stanislavski was a Russian actor, director and all round smarty pants. He developed a model to train actors to act. Specifically, to improve their characterisation in order to make their portrayal of the written characters more believable.

There’s nothing like a bit of reverse engineering to sharpen your pencil…I think there are three key lessons we can take from Stanislavski to help us improve our written characters.

Stanislavski’s entire system was built on the principle of embodying characters to the extent that the actor becomes not the character, but himself, as though the character were real.

In essence, Stanislavski wanted realism. Natural performances that made the audience believe it was real.

Writers get stuck behind their desks. A LOT. These lessons aren’t new, so much as they encourage you to step away from the keyboard, and be present. Mindful. Experience shit.

Lesson One: Experience

The driver behind Stanislavski’s system was emotional memory. The ability to draw on ones past experience. I mean, sure. Don’t we all do that as writers?

But memory is like dementia. And yes, I meant the pun. It’s foggy at the best of times. I can’t remember this morning FFS, let alone the intricacies of an emotion I felt last week. Yet, that’s exactly what we’re trying to replicate when we write emotions in our novels. If you’ve ever struggled to convey emotion then put down the pen and step away from the computer.

Start a fight, tell your partner you shagged the secretary at work, book a trip to a strip club, buy the book on sheep droppings you’ve wanted for ages. Whatever. Just ‘feel’ for real, the emotion you’re trying to write about.

Next time I feel jealous, or excited or get that familiar bubbling of rage, I am going to stop. Mid fight if I have to, and take notes. I mean, fuck it. Everyone knows I’m a writer, I’ll call it research, it may even stop a row!

Lesson Two: The ‘Magic If’

Writers use this one all the time. What if, the sky was really a hologram? What if my protagonist got hit by a car? What if aliens invaded Earth? We ask questions to drive conflict and create plot.

But what if we made things a little more personal?

Stanislavski, believed actors should ask themselves what if they were in the same situation as the character they were portraying, or what they would do if they found themselves in the same situation as their character.

Although it’s a good question, we can’t wield lightsabers all day. Besides, most of the characters in fiction are exaggerated. And I mean that in a good way. In order to make the written word come alive, we have to describe everything from, feelings to smells, sounds and the scenery.

When I sit there writing scenes for my main character, I do actually ask myself that question, but I’m not really answering as me, I’m answering as them. Maybe we have already achieved Stanislavski’s system. Perhaps writers are really just actors.

My point is, maybe I should actually just stop and check, would I really knife that person in the eyeball? Probably not. If I wouldn’t then would my character really do it? It’s a stop and check kind of question, but what it does is serve to ensure you keep the realism to your characters.

Lesson Three: Motivation

For Stanislavski the last and possibly most important aspect of characterisation was motivation. He  believed actors were influenced either by their minds or their own emotions. So he would make actors analyse characters in the script to find the source of their motivation.

But the same method can be applied to us and characters. We’re writers for god sake, we’re meant to introspect.

Try and think about the last time you were jealous, or angry, or bitter. Why were you feeling like that? What did it feel like? Let me know in the comments. What did you do? If anything? Was doing nothing an action in itself? And if you did nothing, why?

Motivation is at the core of every character. Readers see through characters without a motivation faster than they can turn the page. It’s because motivation is a characters ‘why’. It’s the reason they exist. The reason they push the plot on to achieve their goal. Without it there’s no meaning to their actions. Stanislavski was right. It’s not just actors that need the know the motivation of their characters. We writers do too.

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The post 3 Lessons the Great Stanislavski Taught Us About Characterisation appeared first on Sacha Black.

Ok, so I promise that I won’t constantly talk about Myers Briggs, it is only because I wrote that first post, and then found this blog by Mandy Wallace, about traditional ‘evil’ characters and that they are often INTJ’s, but that writers often mistake what an INTJ is really like. I strongly advise you go read the whole blog – it is fascinating.

The blogger names a lot of typical evil INTJ characters such as: Professor Moriarty, Lex Luther, Emperor Palpatine and Khan, INTJs are the personality type that people love to hate. Which concerns me greatly, because as an ENTJ, I share a lot of similar characteristics! *worried*

The blog also goes into detail about why they are perfect as villains, from their arrogance, to their social awkwardness, and subsequent withdrawal. However, the blogger also notes the following points which are very poignant for any writer of villains:

• “INTJs are extremely unconventional by most other type’s standards.
• The INTJ doesn’t care about social rules or the standard way of doing things. He cares only if something works.
• INTJs abhor going along with inefficient or ineffective tasks just because they’ve always been done that way. And the social conventions that keep the outdated in place have zero effect on the INTJ.
• The INTJ will work tirelessly to change flawed methods, moving quickly and without “permission.”
• Since INTJs aren’t always great at explaining their methods, nor do they understand that other people can’t see the patterns and problems that seem obvious to them, their actions can sometimes appear unpredictable and lacking good cause to outsiders.“

Finally, I think the paragraphs that really sums up why INTJs are perfect super villains is:

“All of this analysis, coupled with an inability to explain these processes to others, plus their ultimate need to create systems that work means that the INTJ takes confident action while ignoring complainers, naysayers, and doubters. So what you have is a man who knows what he is doing and doesn’t care what other people think about it. “Smart” doesn’t really explain the INTJ’s thinking, though. Because they don’t just memorize data. They break it down to its principles to understand how it all works together and what it implies about every other fact. This makes them incredibly insightful by other people’s standards. Objectively, INTJs have the highest collective IQ of any other type.

This magic elixir: perceived arrogance + perceived lack of emotion + perceived unpredictability + intelligence = prime fictional villain. “

Here are several links to useful information about INTJs

INTJ Description

List of Famous INTJs

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I am a real proponent of Myers Briggs (MB) at the best of times, I have done the test twice, and come out with the same profile. When I first learnt about MB it kinda blew my mind. If you do the official test you get all kinds of information from it, like – how you react under stress, how others perceive you, and what your weaknesses are likely to be. I know I’ve said it, but it really did blow my mind! It was how others perceive me that had the greatest impact on me. My point – is that it got me thinking about how my characters might be seen by each other, or by the readers, or by anyone really other than me. The MB types kind of give you key personality types and I really like working out which types my characters are. Above should be a picture explaining the key characteristics of each type, and a quick google of Myers Briggs will give you countless websites where there are free tests – you could even do the test in character to give you their profile, and obviously google will give you lots of info about the types.

Let me know if you think this is helpful

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