GCSE Creative Writing Tips (Bolton English tuition) Hot-Seating your characters.

GCSE English Creative Writing- ‘Hot Seating’: Tips for the Development of your Characters. 

This technique is touted widely as a powerful yet simple way of deepening your characterisation. It is always revelatory when you apply to your GCSE English Literature Texts too! 

Think about stories and how they depend on compelling characterisation. In other words, stories need characters whom we love or hate. 

For example, Scrooge’s meanness is so extreme that it has become pathological, yet his past gives hints to his possible redemption. Hence Dickens’ wonderful device of the visiting ghosts who unlock his memories, destabilise his present and offer a transformative future. I am sure that Dickens knew that the process of ‘asking’ some core questions about Scrooge’s buried past would ultimately liberate his protagonist. 

Dr Jekyll in Stevenson’s uncanny novel, demands answers of his protagonist through the use of Gabriel Utterson friend, detective and avenging angel( as suggested by his name). 

Jekyll’s confession reveals the backstory that created Hyde, yet still leaves the reader uncertain. Hence, the ‘uncanny’ nature of the novella. 

Remember: What is past is only ever finished, never finished within a powerful story! 

Workshop.

Use your imagined, established character or create another. Then spontaneously answer these questions as your character. Remember they might lie! Avoid censorship! 

1. What sort of house were you brought up in? 
2. Who lived there with you? 
3. Did anyone desert you? 
4. What ambitions drove you? 
5. What did your school reports say about you? 
6. How would your friends describe you now? 
7. What makes you angry? 
8. How do you travel around? 
9. Do you like food? 
10. If you had a ‘spirit animal’ accompanying you on this life’s journey what would it be and why? 
11. Tell me something that people might be surprised to learn about you? 
12. How would you like to be remembered?