
Tin House Live : “From First Draft to Plot” with Alexander Chee
Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry
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Character Building Exercises - Adapting Tarro Cards
The tarro card reading is one of the most popular character building exercises. It asks questions like, what does this person look like to the rest of the world? What has just happened that is leaving their life? What is about to happen that is entering their life? Ah, what is on their minds? What is in their unconscious who are the friends that they are not aware of? What are their hopes and fears? These are very basic questions. You have to be willing to know the things that they aren't even willing to tell themselves. The other big problem i find with student drafts, besides unmade decisions, is that implications in the initial scenes have not been dealt with. And
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