I invite all of you to take a turn at this little exercise. Ask someone to give you a situation to consider. Then take your own books' characters or characters/figures from history. Write about what they would do in that situation. I hope you will share at least some of what you came up with.
The situation we had here at my house was that my husband, Jim, completely rearranged his home office. This is a real Augean Stables situation since he has dozens of shortwave radios and much furniture. I told him I did not offer to help because I figured I would just get in the way. For some reason we got talking about what my An Involuntary King characters would do if they saw the mayhem, in his office. Here is what we decided.
Lawrence, though king, would offer help, probably calling for servants to do it.
Josephine, though queen, would pitch in quietly and efficiently.
Elerde would raise an eyebrow then turn and leave.
Rory would definitely pitch in cheerfully and offer a song to make the work lighter.
Shannon would take one look at the chaos and whislte. "God be praised, I need a drink. Shall I be bringin' ye one as well, Jimmy me boy?"
Gadfrid would, of course, come into the office and start kicking the pile of books on the floor in all directions.
Sort of Balzacian, no? It's actually a great character development trick. While I was writing AIK I would stop when I was stuck in the plot and write up a character panel to discuss the situation. If lawrence and Elerde would have just knocked off the snide remark exchange, the panels would have been even more effective and useful.
Shall I offer you a situation to apply your characters or historical figures to? How about this:
Your character/historical figure received a box wrapped up in linen with a seal s/he does not recognize. Upon opening the box, s/he finds it empty. S/he turns it upside down and shakes it, and a small bit of vellum falls out. On the vellum are written the words, "Do not turn box upside down."
Go for it.
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