Characters – F.C. MALBY

What Portrait Photography Can Teach Us About Characterisation…

I enjoy spending time in galleries and, whether it is a collection of paintings, sculptures or photography, I can while away a few hours looking at art. Photography stimulates ideas and sparks my creativity perhaps more than any other art form. I used to spend a lot of time at the Portrait Gallery in London and Vienna has an equally impressive collection of galleries. I was thankful to find that the World Press Photo Awards made a stop here each year, so I haven’t missed out!

I particularly like the work of David Bailey, Mario Testino and Annie Leibovitz. This week I discovered a portrait photographer who was new to me: Michel Comte. Based in Zurich, Comte is a trained art restorer whose first photography contract was with Karl Lagerfeld. He has worked for Vanity Fair, Vogue, Armani, Ferrari, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz, to name a few, and has photographed Miles Davis, Jeremy Irons, Mike Tyson and Michael Schumacher, with whom he became good friends.

He is one of the few professional photographers I know to have photographed both for international advertising companies and for documentaries covering war zones. Comte has increasingly moved towards a more reportage and documentary style of photography, and has travelled to unstable areas in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Sudan and Cambodia. If you are interested in his work, the video below shares some of his thoughts on what makes a good photograph.

So, what does this have to do with writing, I hear you thinking? Comte got me thinking about the idea of how much of a person’s soul and character can be captured in a split second, and how so much of what you – the viewer – see forms an impression of who they are as a person. Very quickly you form a judgement from the eyes, the body language, the clothing, the expression and the feel of the picture. This is what Comte says, ‘the person projects.’

As a writer we have the exciting and difficult job of ‘capturing’ each character almost as a snapshot, and portraying who they are through their movements, body language and expressions. Writers have the advantage of using dialogue, actions and the responses of other characters, but the essence of character description comes down to much of what is captured in a moment with a lens. Comte talks about Catherine Deneuve, and the way that a normally confident woman shows a moment of unusual vulnerability in the his photographs. These are the moments which, as a writer, need to be drawn out and put down on the page.

Have a look at the video, if you haven’t already, and think about what strikes you from each image. Think about how you would describe the person and why. Ask yourself what it is about one person that stands out and makes them unique or memorable. It might be a look of vulnerability or mystery, it could be the stance or the eye contact. Sometimes what people wear or how they stand and move, dictates your response to them as a person.

What do you think about character description? How has art or other media inspired your work?

The Power of Words

In losing a great man, a human rights activist, a disturber of the peace to some, Nelson Mandela is remembered across the globe as a leader who endured twenty seven years in prison for the sake of his people, a man who fought against injustice and stood for what he believed to be a better way. He became the first black South African to hold the office of President, focusing on the dismantling of apartheid through tackling racism, poverty and inequality. I am reminded, as I read more of his life and his influence and words, that words hold great power in people’s minds and lives, words have the power to influence, to change and to move barriers in our society, our political systems and in our hearts. Words both written and spoken have the power to create change.

In losing Mandela yesterday, I can’t help thinking of a recent loss of a man remembered for a similar struggle, a man whose integrity and perseverance won the hearts of many in a country also affected by great political change and a turbulent history. I am reminded also of the power of his words and his influence. Vaclav Havel died on 18 December 2011: Playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician, his prominence as a participant in the liberal reforms of Czechoslovakia in 1968 were followed by his plays being banned during the totalitarian regime. His words continued to hold power through that time and he became president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, becoming the country’s first non-communist leader since 1948.

Both men spent time as political prisoners, incarcerated for standing up against powers that threatened to crush their countries. They believed in justice and equality and had the strength of character and tenacity to keep going in the face of great opposition because they believed in a better future. Both men spoke words that hold great power today, words which helped to shape their society, culture and politics. Their influence in the world and their contribution to their countries cannot be underplayed. In sharing these two incredible lives I want to remind us that the words we read and the words we write can have the power to shape, to heal, and to influence lives, to change the way people think and see the world. With this in mind I want to leave you with some of the great words that have become the legacies of these men.

NELSON MANDELA

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

“I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles.”

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”

“A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”

VACAV HAVEL

“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government.”

“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

“Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties?”

“None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population.”

“The period you grow up in and mature in always influences your thinking.”

Writing Advice And Inspiration

‘A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn’t spin a bit of magic, it’s missing something.’ Esther Freud

‘Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.’ Will Self

‘I always have to know my characters in a lot of depth–what clothes they’d choose, what they were like at school, etc . . . And I know what happened before and what will happen after the part of their lives I’m dealing with.’ Alice Munro

‘Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. This sounds easy, but in practice is incredibly difficult… Common phrases have become so comfortable that they create no emotional response. Take the time to invent fresh, powerful images.’ George Orwell

‘Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.’ Zadie Smith

‘Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.’ Elmore Leonard

‘Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.’ CS Lewis

‘Be daring, take on anything. Don’t labor over little cameo works in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.’ Joyce Carol Oates

‘My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.’ Anton Chekhov

‘Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.’ Margaret Atwood

‘Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.’ Franz Kafka

‘Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted.’ PD James