Sketching the Thoughts
A little musing on my mind today: in the case of fiction (since I assume that it’s not really appliable to non-fiction works), do some of you also happen to sketch their characters, or even landscapes, actions, and so on, instead of directly describing them in your books? This is regardless of style and skill, and only as a personal way of fixing your ideas, not as artwork in itself.My own style isn’t what you could call “realistic” (my influences mainly come from comics and manga, as well as a certain type of vector works), but I’ve found that more often, sketching helps me to write better descriptions, as what I want to show is clearly pictured in my mind already. Moreover, in the case of action scenes, it’s also a good exercise for me to see if said action can be performed by a human body, or is just looking nice in my own perception. If the latter can seem laughable, sometimes it really isn’t, and has already allowed me to avoid… many mistakes.
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Elvira Black
Since I don’t write fiction, and I can’t draw a stick figure, all I can say is I love your sketch.But on a related note, my boyfriend is an artist, and sometimes he will draw a funny illustration for one of my posts, or I will write a post about the subject of one of his paintings (he does expressionist portraits).But I think I can see where you’re going with this…interesting!
Yzabel
Thanks, looks like my little two-minutes doodle isn’t that bad in itself then ;)Come to think of it, I’ve already turned what I was considering doodles into full-fledged pieces because they looked worthy of it, but I don’t think I’ve ever drawn an illustration specifically for one of my posts. It’d likely take too much time, what with translating my entries on top of it. Ah, well.
melly
No. I’m a complete disaster when it comes to drawing. I think (hope) the vision in my head is clear enough.It’s great you can draw and if I were in your position I’d probably do the same. It doesn’t hurt to put things down on paper, ever, no matter the format. So while I may write little notes, you draw. Even better.
Shirazi
Yes, I do the same. Honest, you see my workpads, notbooks and even books that I own.
Yzabel
Ah, you beat me on this: I don’t have notebooks full of sketches yet, or at least, when they get full, it’s not only with sketches for my writing. I suppose I should soon reach this step, though. Even if I later on change details on a character or a scene, I can never get rid of the former doodles.
raj
Yzabel,That’s a cool idea. I draw “timeline relationship” charts between my characters: who knows whom; when does A meet B, etc. That way, I never have character C mention character D if they’ve never met. But I never thought about sketching my characters.Many fiction writers actually believe that their characters should not have their physical looks described because this alienates some readers. These writers suggest, however, that some broad descriptions could be given. I.e., long, dark hair instead of long, brown hair. (This is obviously a personal description. I mean, if a book gets made into a movie, a look for each character has to be determined at some point.)
Shirazi
The idea is indeed cool. I am going to give it a thought.
Yzabel
I’m not sure about the looks thing myself. I try to not make my descriptions too heavy, and to distillate them in the action instead of in one or two huge paragraphs, but I think that at least some description is needed, if only to give a basis for the reader to imagine. (I must admit however that at times, I’ll have problems with clothes notably: some things such as traditional costumes are harder to describe than just writing “she wore a white blouse and dark trousers”.)Timelines are a good idea, too. It’s easy to forget that our characters don’t know everything, while we, the writers, do!