Category: Characters

  • Themes of Strength and Weakness

    Robert Baratheon, Eddard Stark, Jamie Lannister, Tywin Lannister… What do all of these characters have in common? Power and strength. These are the guys who have the guts, the glory, and/or the gold. Arya Stark, Tyrion Lannister, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen… Here are the underdogs. They don’t have the strength, they don’t have the political…

  • When the Learning Curve is Steep – Sometimes HBO Can Help

    Confession time: I watched the entire first season of the Game of Thrones HBO series before I read the books. I know. I know. It was very Impure Reader of me. I should be thrown on the hellfire that awaits those who use CliffsNotes to write research papers. (Yeah, I know! There are people out there that do that!…

  • Giving Characters Their Arc

    I’m always hesitant when it comes to a Dramatis Personae list anywhere in a book. What it means to me is this: there are too many characters to handle. It means there are too many threads to follow through to a full conclusion. It means that there is so much information gathered in the text…

  • Character Twist

    In honor of George R. R. Martin’s complicated characters, this week’s writing prompt is all about character twist. One of the my favorite characters that I love to hate is Jamie Lannister. He starts off as a total creeper and then you see a few more things that really make your skin crawl. I mean,…

  • World Building vs. Character Building

    Today I’m going to follow up on my earlier post about The Year of the Flood. I had talked about Atwood’s world building, which is immersive and draws me right in. She doesn’t info dump, but rather, she gives little glimpses to draw you in. It’s like the world-building peep show. On the second page…

  • How to Avoid Being Too Dark?

    On Monday, while discussing young adult literature, I utilized a ‘bedroom’ dark metaphor. The argument being that you can see in the dark if there is some light trickling in. In my opinion, all young adult literature – all good young adult literature – has that little bit of light trickling in, even if it’s…

  • Two Different Ends to Two Different Series

    I just finished reading Curtain, Poirot’s last case. (I promise I won’t give away the end.) And recently I’d also read Sleeping Murder, which is Marple’s last case. In both cases the books were written years (decades) before they were published. Also in both cases the sleuths are still sharp, still the same old human-observers,…

  • Those Little Bits of Insight

    “‘I was thinking,’ I said, ‘that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.’”~The Vicar Leonard Clement in Murder at the Vicarage, discussing the necessity of mercy when considering a…

  • The Observant Character

    The key to Miss Marple’s sleuthing is her insight into human behavior. Regardless of the violent act that has occurred, there is a simple, human reason/motivation behind it. By observing people and comparing those observations to other observations of human behavior in her history (which Miss Marple has quite a store of….), Miss Marple manages…

  • The Character Who Got Away…Maybe

    The first Miss Marple novel is Murder at the Vicarage. It’s narrated by the Vicar Leonard Clement and the entire story centers around a murder that – as the title so elegantly shows – happened at his vicarage (a.k.a his home…talk about a rough night!). The reader is introduced to his family, spends time with…