How to write like Stephanie Kallos (May 11 at 826 Seattle)

(http://www.stephaniekallos.com)

Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You and Sing Them Home,  compares writers to actors. Both must imagine other lives, embroider them in the fullest way possible.  Whether it be a play by Tennessee Williams, who gives detailed description of what his characters are like, or a more cryptic allusions by Harold Pinter, actors, like writers, must read between the lines, understand what happens to a character before, after, and between each scene.

Kallos says characters start with a person, a real person. "I hope you're all people watchers."  By which she means observing real people is valuable fodder for imaginative characters.  Sometimes, the character is "downloadable from a dream.."  A line someone says, that is so compelling you write it down.  "Be open to business," Kallos explains, at all times, as the most unlikely person or situation can give you ideas.

Then in order to develop a full character, first assemble all the givens, the facts, says Kallos, the common ground.  As in, what do you share with the character?  Kallos gives an example. Take Juliet, the famous one from Romeo and Juliet.  What do you have in common with Juliet?  A mom who wants to tell you how to dress and who to meet and what to say?  A dad who doesn't like your boyfriend. Falling for a bad boy.

But the writer, Kallos cautions, has to elevate the character, make the leap to something else, or you will only write "thinly veiled versions" of yourself. 

How do you do this?  How do you foster a connection with someone you develop different from yourself?  She explains that you must pull yourself into the life of someone else with what she calls "assists:"

• do research
• watch a movie
• observe
• interview people
• wear different clothes
• find a sensory connection, the smell, the sound, the taste
• shadow a professional

Then, you must find an emotional connection with your character.  So for example, even if 99% of the time, given a situation, you wouldn't possibly respond in the way Romeo does by killing a person.  But if you could locate one moment in time you were mad enough to kill someone, and you can imagine what that feeling and that moment was like, you have found the emotional connection you need to understand your character.

Finally, there is the "What if?" Kallos explains this question will take you to places to imagine what the character would do if something unimaginable happens.  "You dive off the cliff," Kallos explains, "you take the leap" needed to create a character.

So, in order to reinforce these points, Kallos says you have to know who you are so you know what attributes to cast off  in your characters. She extolled the virtue of laundry lists for this purpose:

1. List stats, like the kind of information you would find on your driver's license or an application form
2. List distinguishing marks, like a close friend might identify you to a police officer or how a mortician would look dispassionately at your body
3. List words describing your demographic group, such as the marketing ads on Facebook
4. List relationships, specific ones like father, daughter, sibling, wife, and more specific ones, too, that delve deeper into relationships such as garbage-taker-outer, dish washer, counselor, sugar mama
5. List adjectives that describe you, how your mother or a best friend would describe you
6. Then write the opposite of these adjectives, take each adjective and write its antonym

Then she led an exercise called "Never Say Never," which she keeps and adds to on her own desktop at home.

1.  Three magazines you would never buy
2. Three things you would never wear
3. Three professions you would never have (not because you can't but because you wouldn't)
4. Three groups or organizations or affiliations you would never have or take on
5. Three things you would never eat
6. Three things you would never say
7. Three things you would never do

Notice in these lists that  there are some related to moral framework, others that are less personal.  But in writing, hopefully, she said, you will find what's "juicy."  And in writing these, you also discover where you need to push yourself more as you develop characters.

The next exercise cultivates compassion.   She gave the example of Malcolm McDowell, who is often cast in the role of a villain. He says never think of your character as a villain.  Because if you did, Kallos explains, you will otherwise stand outside of your character and judge them. You must learn to "stand in their shoes. Writing character is a form of cultivating compassion."

The exercise: First write a short character sketch of a person you strongly dislike in a specific situation, told from your point of view.

Then take that person's point of view in the same situation and tell the story from his or her lens.

Finally, look at the "never" list and write a character sketch of someone that is completely unlike you.  This sketch will stretch your self into places that are uncomfortable. The character sketches must be "rich, evocative," with details and lots of possibility. She says, we as writers "have to learn to lie with authenticity, step outside our own boundaries." We can't always write from our default selves.

A woman she met at a conference puts together a scrapbook for each character.  Kallos writes letters to her characters. In essence, Kallos says you have to know "way more" about your character than will ever go on a page.  But what you do know will enhance the sense of the character as a real person. She recommended Elizabeth George's Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life as an example of what one writer does to develop character.