CST Talking Practice
Aug 6, 2016 0:29:04 GMT -5
Post by I A A S H A D O W on Aug 6, 2016 0:29:04 GMT -5
CST Talking Practice
So people have trouble making conversation in CSTs... That's fine!
Talking as someone who's not you, to a block of text that doesn't have inflection doesn't come naturally, and can seem awkward and strange. But it's an important part of any story (well most of them).
Characters need to talk to one another in order for the reader (or the other writers) to figure out more about them and to make them more human and become more than just a bio or personality description. Characters talking also establishes unique relationships between them, creating a cast with not only distinct personalities, but distinct thoughts, feelings, and actions towards one another.
Got it! Let's practice!
So how does this work?
It'd be difficult to have multiple 1 on 1 conversations going on in the main thread, so I have created a child board for this very purpose!
You'll make a thread and set the stage. Where are the characters? What is there situation, if any? Is there any information they need to know?
Then you and 1 other person will have a conversation between a character you make privately and a character they make privately. It's important that you don't spend a lot of time constructing your character You and the other writer will learn about them in conversation and in what they say and how they say it.
However character identity is important. More than appearance and personality descriptors you need to know a few things about your character.
What do they want?
Why do they want that?
What past experiences affect the way they communicate?
And how is their communication affected by these events and other factors?
You don't need to write out the answers to these questions or even spend 5 minutes thinking about them, but you need to know these things.
Great, got it, good. Let's go!
Cool! Made your character? Have a scene ready? Maybe join someone else's scene! It's probably a good idea to pre-arrange these things.
A couple tips:
- Conversations have no required length, and they don't need much prep at all. (10 minutes at most)
- Don't overthink things, the focus is getting words down, not making a CST character.
- Make sure you're learning things about the other person's character, and actually say some things. Menial questions, and 'yes/no' don't help anyone here. Make sure you're typing a fair bit for each post (Like a paragraph, tags and descriptors included.) Again though, the focus is getting words down.