Good morning, it’s Thursday, and that means I’m going to post a throwback from my earlier posts. Essentially a re-post of an old archived post with new notes and observations.
Anything added(except grammar and spelling corrections) are marked in blue within the original Post’s text.
The next post I’m going to revisit is Silliness And Seriousness . Originally posted on . The reason I’m revisiting is that it’s easy to forget to let a character in a crap situation have some fun.
Silliness And Seriousness
She envied their innocence, longing to go back to when a scraped knee was the most stressful part of the day. ‘Don’t rush to grow up.’ Her mom had said it often. As a young adult, she understood the wisdom of those words too late.©
This character is often being silly and doing things that are typically something a child might do. Why? because growing up doesn’t mean dismissing the essence of Youth completely. She herself is young, yet old enough to see and understand the worldly restraints of adulthood. Life will punch her in the teeth and kick her when she’s down, yet she will hold onto the things that make her and others smile. Joy in life, the shadows of youth that keep her from losing herself in an already too serious world. She doesn’t see herself this way, but others in the story do.
I wrote her this way to allow for a humor break from the drama, danger, and violence. It gives a great opportunity for character interaction. The overly serious and stoic friend might find her enthusiasm annoying. He may or may not comment on it. He could find it charming and pay more attention to her. Or it could get her into trouble when she needs to focus. (Having a strong personality trait is important for the main characters IMO, it allows for growth one way or another.)
In my life, I have come across adults who range from silly and carefree to starchy and unendingly serious. The diversity of maturity is present in the real world so I put it in my characters. (People watching is a wealth of information. People are random. I love seeing how different people react to the same thing.)
My advice about being silly or serious.
Everyone was young once, even an adult character in a book. Who they were is who they are. Silliness and seriousness have their place, I don’t think it always has to be the obvious one. (Still true, I would add that every character needs a sliding scale of silliness and seriousness. Nobody is 100% one way. A man who never laughs at jokes or silly antics may howl at puns or “Dad jokes.” Don’t forget to have some fun.)
-Sheryl
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