Source Pixabay
For reference, head over here — #fastandfurious | The Ink Well Fast and Furious Festival - Day One
The characters in question
The first woman is a gossiper. She is in her early 30s and single after numerous bitter breakups. When she was in high school, she was an enthusiastic, pretty cheerleader. She was also the most popular girl around. She thought getting the attention of boys is the most important thing in the entire world. Now she is doing a small-time job with no ambition or future prospects. She finds it amusing to look for subjective imperfections and deformities in others to validate her existence.
Her friend, the other woman was a timid follower of the first woman in highschool. She's not that serious about anything and wanted to take it as it comes. She is easily delighted and marveled. But she was prudent enough to break away from the first woman's influence and learned to look after herself in college. However, she still maintains a social relationship with her. She's a banker now and engaged to another banker. They are likely to be married in 6 months.
The third woman was a nerd in high school, often mocked and ridiculed for her love for books, art, and philosophy. Her public treatment made her a bit insecure about how she composes herself. She understood early on that while the world does favor merit and intelligence, it also likes to gaze upon anything flashy even if it's superfluous. As soon as she was done with her studies, she actively took part in various social and cultural activities. Now that she is running for a serious office, her insecurity about her outward appearance came back. But like everything else, she will overcome it eventually.
A dialogue between the perplexed
Two readers are loudly talking in a library while the librarian is calling the security—
"Shallow? Superfluous? I can't believe we're talking about the same person!"
"Oh, we are. You heard right what I said."
"But Ernest Hemingway is the epitome of American literature! You can't just brush him off like that!"
"Don't kid yourself. His prose is too colloquial, articulated like it was written by a schoolboy for his literary term paper."
"He won a Nobel in literature! Everyone likes his books!"
"That's another point in my favor. If everyone likes something, it can't be good."
"That's nonsense!"
"Perhaps." (100 words)
About Me
Hello @notacinephile. I liked quite a lot the description of the characters 1 and 3. Especially, I liked the third character because you give all the data about her physical appearance, psychological aspects, interests, and fears.
As for character 2, I think that with less words the description would have been better understood.
As for your dialogue exercise, you brought a smile to my face. They talk about a dead person who will be judged by time as a man and by his work. Hemingway will only be able to defend himself with his literary work.
Thanks!
About character 2, I wanted to establish the capacity she dwelled in. She is an everyman in this case while the other two are deviants of two opposite ends.
I'm glad you found the dialogue amusing! :) And you're quite right, Hemingway can only fight back through his work.
I think you done the exercise very good! Greetings.
Hello @notacinephile I liked your descriptions of all three characters. In your third character, you mention she was insure about her outward appearance; however, I don't see the description of her appearance. You're telling us but not showing us with details of how she thought she looked or how others viewed her.
Thanks so much for the descriptive characters.
I thought her appearance is implicit through the two women discussing her. They mention that she has drastically changed how she looked like as a preparation to engage in a political sphere. This suggests that she felt uncomfortable with her natural appearance, hence, insecurity.
Thanks for stopping by. :)
Thanks for the response.
Hello @notacinephile, welcome to the Festival!
Have you read and commented on other posts in the Festival? If so, please link the comments to this comment on Day One of the Festival.
Thanks for the festival! Yeah I will look through the other posts soon.
Glad you've joined the festival, @notacinephile. It's all about skill building and engaging with other writers' content with comments and feedback.
I enjoyed your post. The argument about the quality of Hemingway's writing is inspired!
Thank you! @jayna
I know and appreciate what you guys are trying to do here. This is really great. I will take some time to check out the posts and engage accordingly.
Greetings, @notacinephile.
I always find it strange when a character doesn't have a name to associate its particularities to. I think a character is like a child. I take time to decide the names of my characters, I do it based on how I will see it grow, as far as possible. About the dialogue, I must say that it tells me more about the fatuity of the importunate dialogue partners than about the third character. Yes, it provoked me to take them out of the reading room.
Hello @gracielaacevedo
Thanks for the comment and appreciate your feedback.
I do not find nameless characters strange though, for all of us humans are quite the same, save one or two characteristics. I'm also not much of a fan of character-driven stories. I don't think I would treat my characters in any other way.
Interesting response. You made me think @notacinephile . I don't think we humans are very different either. -Of course !, with the subtle differences that have been shown by the geniuses of science (anonymous and recognized) of art (anonymous and recognized) and all those who made humanity vary from the paleothitic to today -But, we all need a name. So far no one has been denied one. I will be looking forward to reading you.