Thursday, October 14, 2010

Characters in a Good Book

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Today’s Blog Post

Characters in a Good Book

I am sure that you have read a really good book.  Can you remember the characters of that book?  How many main Characters were there?

Now take just one of the Characters and read the book up to say… page 25.  Now what would you have that Character do – if you were to take the story over and complete the book?

I asked that question of a group of senior folk in yesterday’s “New Friends” get together.

The reaction was amazing as they pondered what the imagination had to do in order to write the rest of the book.  To fathom what the author is able to do with the characters is almost too much for most people.

I am reading a story now for the second time. The one character is Phillip and another is Jack. The wretched one is William and his mother Reagan.  After more than a week of slow reading and totally enjoying this book… I wasn’t able to pick up the book for a few days.  I sat and thought the rest of the story out for the one character named Jack. Before I came back to the story, I had worked out a whole better life for Jack in that I knew what he should do.

I came back to the story and found out that the author didn’t think the way that I had.  His character Jack went in a totally different way from where my imagination took Jack.  I had a whole better way for jack to live and be.  But if I had written the rest he would never have found his family… which was a delightful twist in the story. Sorry you have to read the book “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett.

The other part that was kind of weird in this reading… more than half of the book I do not remember reading. It was a like a brand new book.  It is delightful the second time around.

Maybe that is age related memory issues. Yikes!

I have come back to the wonder of the imagination and how it is working all the time.

We can imagine good things as well as the bad. And it appears that most of the time with people that I know they are imagining the very worst that could happen.

And that imagination is the one thing that separates me from my pet… or the chimpanzee at the zoo.  Though they show some signs of intelligence – they can not finish the story from page 25 on.

I am blown away by the authors that I have read.  And the fact that each book is different from the next totally mystifies me.

Now consider giving what you write a Title… now that is a whole new thought. WOW!

What is the title of your book?  What will your characters do?  And why?

Here is to all the great writers that we read!

~ Murray Lincoln ~

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