13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Explore your characters - Explore yourself, March 2, 2007
This review is from: Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious (Paperback)
Where do your characters come from? Who are they? What do they want and why?
In the 3rd week of my Beginning Screenwriting Class at Seattle Central Community College I ask these fundamental questions of my students. And, well, often times they stare back at me, blank faced. They don't really know.
What about the characters in YOUR story? Where do they come from? Who are they? What do they want and why?
Before you start any screenplay, whether it's about talking sheep or space monkeys you need to ask yourself these fundamental questions. "Archetypes for Writers" gets you asking those questions about your characters. And, better yet, it gets you exploring your own mind.
"Archetypes for Writers is an approach to writing that enables writers to discover and use their own, intrinsic character and study archetypes." Writes Jennifer Van Bergen early in the book (page four) and then she goes on to includes six chapters exploring where all this comes from. This is then followed by a handful of chapters than include exercises on how this all works in a practical writer setting.
I had initial problems with this book as the first couple chapters are filled with all sorts of "new agey" type lingo: "Author Self" v. "Core Self," "Universes of Discourse," "Ectypes" and "Isotypes." You can get lost in these pretty quickly (which I did) and it may take a while to claw yourself out. But once you get to the exercises, that is where you master these skills.
First and foremost, you have to observe people. You have to explore. Go beyond the image to the core. What is it about them? What makes them tick? Your co-worker, the mail carrier, the barista?
Then it is a process of drawing them out. Looking at them from a writer's point of view. In other words, detach yourself. Do not prejudge. Listen. Do not give advice. Listen. Be in the moment.
And, while being in the moment, observe yourself. What is it about you? What are you bringing to the table? What are you bringing to your characters? How do you show and not tell?
Then, from there, it is to the "Universal Drives" - what drives people. What do they want? What drives you? The co-worker, mail carrier, barista?
Other than the beginning chapters, the only other issue I have with this book (and it is a common theme in a lot of my reviews) is when do you put the book down and write? At what point do you put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard and explore what it is that makes you (and your characters) tick?
Bottom line: This book goes beyond the nuts and bolts of standard books on screenwriting to a deeper, subconscious level. Allowing the writer to truly explore the world they are creating.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A journey worth taking, July 7, 2007
This review is from: Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious (Paperback)
It has now been about six years since I first signed up to take Jennifer Van Bergen's class 'Act to Write' - an earlier incarnation of Archetypes for Writers. The class was online and so I went into it without being able to meet Jennifer in person. At the time there was no book and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I certainly had no idea of the impact that this work would have on my writing and in fact, my life.
Immediately I found the material and the class to be riveting. We started with Character Facts and it became clear very quickly that I was not used to separating out what was observable in someone from my own subjective impressions. I was used to describing a person in terms that assumed everyone sees and thinks the way I do. Along with the humbling quality of this discovery, it was also a relief to realize that there was a truth to see when observing people - and that I was being given tools and a framework with which to find that truth.
After that class I went on to do advanced work with Jennifer, both in a small group and individually. I am so glad that there is now a book that encapsulates this work and makes it accessible in a way it was not before. The book is set up to guide the reader through the steps of acquiring the necessary tools and then learning how to use them. What also comes across loud and clear in the book is the generosity and excitement that is always a part of Jennifer Van Bergen's teaching method. You can almost hear her talking to you, explaining things and encouraging you.
Archetype work not only informs my writing - I read differently, I see people differently on the subway and in the grocery store. It is impossible to forget for one moment that everyone has a story. For me, that's where the life-changing part of this work comes in.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
it's not about character creation, March 26, 2007
This review is from: Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious (Paperback)
The great jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler sometimes dismissed other musicians whose skills outran their motivations by saying, "He thinks it's all about the notes!" I thought of that as I read this book. This book is a guide, yeah, and it's a guide to creating characters in your writing, but it's not just about that. It's about a technical aspect of writing -- who are these figures that populate the work? -- but its emphasis for me is on something much deeper: Who are *you*? Right now, honestly. What is your history, what are your patterns, your habits, your loves and hates? Only if you can learn - and it must be learned -- to see yourself honestly can you learn to see others honestly. And by doing this you do nothing less than come to life, you wake up. Most of us, most of the time, are asleep.
This book helped nudge me out of that sleep, and may point me toward more consistent wakefulness, so that I might see myself without judgement, see others without judgement, and thereby come into a clearer vision of the world. It's that clarity that Van Bergen is so good at cultivating, all the while helping writers use that newfound clarity to help midwife an existing truth (the *characters* inside you) into the world. She uses terms that those who have read a lot of writers' guides or self-help guides might find strange, even uncomfortable. She writes plainly, and uncompromisingly, because finding your characters and helping make them real through writing them is a matter of life and death. It's not to be taken lightly; it *matters*.
Writing uses words, but in the end it's not *about* words. It contains characters, but it's not merely a field where some arbitrarily chosen personal attributes have been haphazardly thrown together to appear real. Writing is reality. And Van Bergen's book is, in the end, a guide for us to travel through that reality without losing our way.
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