Welcome to Day 4 of my personal month-late NaPoWriMo challenge. You can check out my previous post here, or click here for Day 1.
I’ve been thinking a lot about people lately. Today, I learned some interesting (and very positive) things second hand about someone I had only met briefly, and I couldn’t help but think about that form of character development: what other people say about the character. Sometimes it ends up teaching you more about the person speaking than it does about the subject of the conversation, but either way, it’s a form of knowing.
Even though it’s in third person, descriptions like that can be very absorbing if done right. The photo in this post is a perfect example. It’s pulled back enough to be third person, but it’s a very close third person. The camera is a short distance from the woman’s back, allowing us to see basically what she is seeing, plus her. It feels somewhat intimate.
Then there are more distant, withdrawn descriptions. I finished The Great Gatsby earlier this year, and the descriptions of Gatsby early on are pretty distant, especially when it comes to what others are saying about him. He’s a bit of an enigma, and frankly many of the guests to his dinner parties have no idea who he is, even though he’s their host, yet they go on about him, making wild guesses as to who he is and how he came to be that person, and the guesses take on a life of their own.
All this brings me to Prompt 4.
Prompt 4: Character
Write a poem about a person. It can be anyone, real or imaginary. But here’s the challenge: describe them using only things other people are saying. No narrator, no first person. The goal is to paint a picture not only of the character himself/herself, but to also build an environment around them through the tone of these other people’s comments.
I might actually do found poetry for this one, and write about myself using old yearbook comments.
If you try this or any of the prompts I’m sharing throughout this month, let me know! If you try a prompt on your blog, share the link! I’ll check it out.
I also love to read any thoughts or writing tips you may have. Feel free to share them in the comments!
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