Stop for a second and listen. Birds call, silver. Their wings catch wind and the swoop overhead creates wind. Leaves applaude the breeze. Can you hear it? Look around. Clouds swell purple and light erupts from breaks in shadow, outlining curves of fairytale rainbows. Can you see it? Lay on the grass. Let it make a pillow, soft, fresh and new. There's a cathedral built of stars. Jupiter forms the apex. The black canopy stretches dark. Stretch your fingers over the earth. Feel His pulse. Can you feel it? Do you hear his love song? All that beauty that God placed here as a token of how he loves you? He's weaving a sympohny of affection. A tapestry of love. He whispers through the trees. Carresses your fingertips. Paints a masterpiece. For you. The one who loves is Elohim,
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What do Finding Nemo, Spiderman and Maleficent have in common? I know, a total cliche to opening a blog post, but I couldn't help myself. So, think away readers, and contemplate my deep question... Hint: The title has something to do with it... Each of them have exceptional character motivation that we all can learn from. I'll make sure to warn you if there are any spoilers in case you haven't watched one of them. A couple of types of motivation for characters that are believable: 1. Fear, with a legitimate root. In Finding Nemo Marlin is afraid of two things. The ocean and losing his only family, his son, Nemo. Why? At the beginning of the movie in a prologue of sorts, Marlin is a newlywed moving into his new home with his wife, Coral, and his four-hundred-plus eggs. As they're watching their babies sleep, Coral remarks casually that she wants to name one of the fish Nemo. Mere minutes later, a barracuda attacks, knocking Marlin out. When he comes to, Coral and all of his children are gone, except for one egg that got knocked to the ocean floor and forgotten. And he names the fish Nemo. As a result, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo and doesn't let him do anything that could be possibly risky. 2. Being too sheltered: This one's also from Finding Nemo. His father's overprotectedness prompts Nemo to chafe under the short leash. After his dad yells at him and embarrasses him in front of his friends for almost doing something against what his father had taught him, he break the rules, resulting in him getting captured. 3. Revenge: Sometimes this can feel forced, unless you do it right. Maleficent does this incredibly well. Maleficent has been betrayed by the person that she thought was her true love. So, as a result she storms the castle that he lives in and casts a curse on his firstborn daughter, Aurora, that "before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she'll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a sleep like death." 4. Power hungry: Again, be careful with this one. This can be super unbelieveable and cliche if the character doesn't have a good reason for wanting power. This one is again, excellently shown in Maleficent. Stefan meets Maleficent when they're both young and points out the castle that exists where he lives. "See that castle?" He says. "Someday I'm going to live there." Maleficent asks him where he lives now. He looks down for a second and finally admits, "A barn." After a bit more prompting she gets out of him that he's an orphan, and homeless, but someday he wants to rule. This later prompts him to betray Maleficent's trust in order to get the throne. 5. Something wakes them up: In Spider-Man, after Peter finally figures out about his powers, he intends to use them to get the attention of the girl he likes. He goes to a wrestling match with the hopes to win $3000 to buy a car that will impress his lady. He knows he can win. Right before he goes, his uncle pulls him aside and gives him a talk about using what you have to help people. "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter yells at his uncle to stop acting like he's his father and leaves. After the match the man refuses to pay him the amount he feels is due to him. "I fail to see how that became my problem," he says. "Now get out." So, Peter stalks out of the office. As he is walking away, a man walks into the office and holds the man at gunpoint, demanding all the money. The thief runs past Peter, and he has an opportunity to stop him, but he doesn't. Just lets him go. When the money man asks him why he didn't do anything to stop the thief, Peter simply says, "I fail to see how that became my problem." And he leaves. SPOILER: As he leaves the building, he sees a crowd of people and pushes through it. His Uncle Ben is on the sidewalk, bleeding from a wound in his chest. A man had shot him and stolen his car. Later Peter realizes that it was the theif that he had let pass at the wrestling match. If he had only stopped him....SPOILER END In the end, he remembers what his uncle had said, and begins to do things for people to help. I'd suggest watching these movies and noticing different character motivations. I haven't nearly covered all of them. Are there any movies you've seen that have exceptional character motivation? Her feet trip over the flowered carpet point, spin, leap. 'Tryna make the moment last.' Arms curved, toes pointed, she dances.
The ladybug tickles over his nose, and he scrunches his face, grinning. He's named it Nemo. I lead it into his cupped hands and it crawls up his arm and he giggles, begging me to get it before it goes up his shirt. Walking to bring Nemo home and he leans his face close, whispers, "We're bringing you home. I love you, Memo." And I want to freeze this moment before it disappears. 'Make it last for a hundred more years.' His training wheels churn the cool pavement and the wind rushes against us, blowing through hair and cooling hot faces. Beautifully strong. “I had my eyes closed,”he informs me later. I ask him why. He replies, matter-of-factly, “I was enjoying it.” Sometimes you just need to close your eyes and enjoy the wind. *Note: The songs used here are Tell the World by Lecrae and Hundred More Years by Francesca Battistelli What's the definition of hope? It's not, "I really hope my favorite team will win." Or, "I hope this restaurant is open."
Hope is like when you're scuba diving deep under water and your oxygen tube gets cut. You can see the surface of the water above you and you know you can get there and you kick off the bottom with this desperate need for air. You don't sit down and contemplate whether or not you should go to the surface. You have hope that you will get there in time. You need to get there in time. Think of it like this. You're in second grade. Your house is right across the street from your school. You're crossing the field to get home and bullies appear, circling you and pushing you around, calling you names. You're surrounded by sixth graders and you have no way out. What you don't know is that your dad has gotten home early for once and he's on the front porch and he sees you. And as you're thinking it's hopeless, you catch a glimpse of your dad running down the driveway across the street and into the field where he takes care of those bullies. And instead of telling you to suck it up and come home, he kneels down, wipes your tears and picks you up, carrying you home. You're never alone. Even if you can't see it, God is there, running to your rescue, even if you're too blinded by the punches and the shouting to see him, you can hope and trust that he will come and rescue you. Thank you to Ben Steward, the speaker of North Springs Alliance, today for inspiring this post. I'm giving you total credit for these stories, because you're the one who told them:) I wish words were like little toy guns. No sting. No hurt no one. Just a "bang, bang" rolling off your tongue. No smoke. No bullet. No kick from the trigger when you pull it. No pain. No damage done. Wish words were like little toy guns. Emma: If vegetables could eat things, would they be carnivores?
Me: What do you mean? Emma: Well, if they ate other vegetables wouldn't they be cannibals? Me: I suppose so. . . But maybe they could eat other vegetables that weren't directly related to them. Like, lettuce couldn't eat spinich or cabbage. Emma: But they're all still vegetables. Me: It's like me eating a cow. It's still a living, breathing thing, but I can eat it. Or like a cow eating a cat....or a horse. Emma: That gave me a bad image. What about brussle sprouts? Those are like mini cabbages. Me: That probably would be paired with the spinich and lettuce and cabbage. Emma: So potatoes could eat a tomato and stuff like that. But an red onion couldn't eat a green onion, or a yellow onion or a white onion. Or a leek. Me: Right. Emma: What would be at the top of the vegetable food chain then? Me: Probably something that wasn't directly related to anything so could eat anything. Emma: Like a tomato. Me: Or a . . . Emma: Artichokes. They're so weird that nothing is like them. Me: We really should go to bed. Emma: So, we've established this. Artichokes are at the top of the food chain. And to all a good night. That's Shakespeare, by the way. Me: That's actually Charles Dickens..........wait... that's actually Santa Clause. Ever have useless nonversations that you'd like to share? The answer is no to video games, so they're jumping on the trampoline, up three feet in the air and down, letting the fabric cave under their weight. The oldest jumps off and runs toward the glass sliding door, saying, casually over his shoulder, “I'm going to play video games,” seeing if he can get away with it. I have to draw him back outside again. (I know. I'm such a mean babysitter, right?) Someone comes up with idea of music, so the two oldest rush inside to grab their tablets and now we're out on the trampoline watching them play a game while they're jumping. The game has funny music, apparently. And once again, I have to draw them away. During dinner, one runs downstairs to turn on the Xbox, just to “watch the video” at the beginning of his favorite video game, and we watch it from the table. And as much as I say no and to turn it off, they're drawn back to it again and again and again. Aren't we all like that, though? We're all drawn to things we can't have. Or the things that will draw you away from living fully in the moment. God wants us to live our life to all the potential that he's planned for us and if we're distracted by unsubstantial things, we miss what plans God has for us. So, I guess, what I'm trying to say is, don't be distracted by the shallow things this world has to give. Keep your eyes on making an impact in people's lifes and making the world a better place. Don't believe them when they say, "You're just a fool....to believe you can change the world." Take pictures in your mind of your childhood room. Memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home. Remember the footsteps, remember the words said and all your little brother's favorite songs. Liam's dressed himself, that's easy to see. His sweater is zipped to his chin, with the hood up. His clip-on tie is hiked up over his chin, draped over the zipper of the sweatshirt. He walks up to me, mischievous grin and all and "tases" me with his orange highlighter and calls in a Russian accent, all permeated with baby lisp, "LIPSTICK TASER!" (Despicable Me 2, anyone?) Ella's having a tea party, feeding baby dolls honey covered raisins and making fun of modern pop songs with me, her hair in pigtails with a crown, lopsided on her head. Someday I'm going to be alone in my own apartment, with my siblings all off at college, thinking, "Remember those times when my siblings were toddlers and we'd play dolls and get tased by highlighters and have tea parties." Cherish those little moments. You never know when you're going to need them. Here's to your bright eyes shining like fireflies. These are my souvenirs, the memory of a lifetime. Every character should have something they fear. Something that, no matter how brave they are, will send them running. I saw an excellent example of this in a TV show that my sisters were watching. It was a Little House on the Prairie episode called Blind Journey, and normally I don't like Little House on the Prairie, but this one expertly showed fear with a legitimate root.
Adam Something-or-Other is married to Mary Ingalls and both are blind. They teach at a school for blind children and teach them how to live life without sight. They're moving the school to a different location and they know they must cross a river in order to get there. They're camping close to the river (I think) and Mary is curled up next to Adam, and even though she's blind, she knows something's wrong. "You're shaking," she observes. He assures her that it's nothing and they go to sleep. They get to the river and the ferry doesn't arrive, so they have to ride a zipline-type thing across the river, one-by-one. Adam is the last to go over and he's curled in a ball and he won't let go of the rope that connects him to the wagon. He shouts at the man who tries to get him across, "I won't go and you can't make me!" Later, when they've finally got him across, he's laying next to Mary again. He hasn't said anything since the incident. He's breathing heavily and shaking and Mary tells him, "We're okay. Everyone is safe and sound." He doesn't answer for a second, and finally he whispers, "I'm a coward." He tells her a story of when he was a little boy and his father took him fishing. He hopped around on the rocks, without a care in the world. Then he tripped and hit his head. When he woke up again, he was in a hospital and he couldn't see. Since then he'd always been afraid of water. "I acted like a coward, Mary," he says again, sobbing now. She comforts him saying, "After what you've been through, you have every right to cry." Every character must have a fear, and, if possible, a legitimate root to that fear. We relate better to a person who doesn't have everything together and is sometimes afraid, and even more so, when we can understand their fear. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Do you know of other stories that pull this off well? Once upon a time, I dreamed of a hot guy riding into my life and sweeping me off my feet. I envisioned myself as the damsel in distress. He would see me. I would see him. We'd fall madly in love and he'd rescue me. Carry me away from my awful life. Away from my mom and her constant lectures. Away from my little brother and his constant teasing. In my dreams, he'd love me like no one had in a long time and we'd live happily ever after.
Actually it was different than I'd envisioned. I was in the high school parking lot and I backed my car into Chris's on accident, gained a ticked-off mom, a one-time meeting with an averagely cute guy (though he was too short in my opinion) and a dented car, that actually wasn't mine at the time. Somehow he figured out that I did housecleaning to earn money and told me he'd tell his mom about me, since she was always busy and could use the help. He actually followed through, so we were kind of stuck with each other each Sunday evening when I'd help his mom with their apartment and often stayed for dinner. He always made me feel special, even if he just smiled at me as I passed him in the hall at school. So looking back in hindsight, I guess, in a way, my dream came true, with a few revisions that ended up being for the better. It wasn't quite the love-at-first-sight meeting I'd wanted, but he loved me more than anyone had in a while. I specifically remember the day he told me he loved me for the first time and I cried, because that's the first time someone had told me that in almost four years. I only wish we could have lived happily ever after. |
About Me!Hannah writes to satisfy her imagination. She's written six books so far--five of which need to be rewritten--and is working on a seventh. She ranges through a variety of genres, but favors contemporary YA, fixing broken characters. She wants to use her writing to change people and bring hope. She's currently going to college for Nursing and that takes up most of her writing time. She's a rather stereotypical writer, talking to imaginary friends, eavesdropping on people at the store, secretly being nosy, stashing herself away in her room with a paper and pen and chocolate and her teddy bear. She loves Jesus, the way the morning smells, her family of seven (four siblings), old movies, fairy tales, candles at night and helping people. She writes on another blog at nerdywriter.blogspot.com to hopefully build her chances of publication. My Author Site:Archives
December 2016
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