Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Character Channeling...

...is something I've found myself doing quite a bit recently. Somewhat annoying, since I do it without realizing it, but useful.  The way I character channel is hard to explain.  It's kinda like I become the character, only not.  To put it less confusingly, I pick up the character's physical behavior (walk, gestures, etc.), their way of speech, and their most prevalent emotion (which can be a problem if the character is depressed), but I still think as me.
For me there are three stimuli for character channeling: 
  1. Wearing an outfit s/he would. I put purple highlights in my hair when I got home this evening, and I noticed myself dancing to the music on Pandora more like my character Tori would (she has purple highlights too.  She's the reason I put the highlights on in the first place.)  I have this one pair of leather boots that I can channel three characters from.  Yeah, they're that cool. 
  2. Thinking excessively about the character.  This is when I don't notice channeling.  I'll unconsciously pick up on one of their traits, and start walking around the house like them. 
  3. Listening to music that reminds me of the character.  This one is mostly conscious, since I can feel my imagination slip from me to them.  Kinda like a car changes gears.
I channel characters on purpose as well, of course.  Doing that helps me brainstorm and write.  And sometimes even doing it unconsciously gives me insight into the character.

Do you character channel, or some variation thereof?  How do you do it?

3 comments:

  1. I've never tried character channeling, mainly because of my wardrobe. Do you realize what Percival wears on a day-to-day basis? At the very least, a greatcoat for outdoors and a suitcoat for indoors. I make my characters people that I'd like to imitate, not the other way around. Except a few people like Isaac, Feiron, Steve, Phume, Sebase, and quite obviously Gologer. If you've never smelled his breath, count yourself lucky.

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  2. I knew that Percival dressed extravagantly, but I didn't know that extravagantly. I tend to character channel more from excessive thinking than from clothing.
    Hmm, I'd never thought of creating characters I'd like to imitate. Pretty much all of my characters are their own people, and I would not want to be any of them. But I sure to enjoy writing about them.
    I count myself lucky. *makes a face worthy of a gargoyle*

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  3. I've started planning for a new novel... a very complex new novel that even the almost author if it (me) does not entirely understand as of yet, but a new novel, and the character channeling is deff. in action over here. I've been doing 3 a lot lately.

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