Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "bruce-springsteen"

A writer needs to enter the characters in his novel. I’ve talked about this with other writers, but also found it useful to discuss it with artists from other fields. Two movies I saw in the last week, “Black Swan” and “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town,” illustrate just why it’s so important.

“Black Swan” revolves around the dilemma facing Natalie Portman as a ballerina cast as both the White Swan and the Black Swan in “Swan Lake.” The White Swan is no problem for her – she’s virginal and precise. But the seductive Black Swan is beyond her – she can’t loosen up and seems to be going crazy in her subconscious determination not to do so. Her director tries to drive her beyond the mere dance steps necessary for the role. The cliché would be to say he wants her to inhabit the role. But actually he wants the role to inhabit her.

That’s what makes the movie so compelling to watch as an artist. Because that’s the way it has to be. A writer has to be invaded and driven by his character. The other way around is too shallow, too distanced.

For a dancer like Portman’s character, there’s only one way to make the movements of your body convey emotion, and that’s to experience the emotion. To dance the Black Swan, you have to be able to step forward and say, “I’m the bloody Black Swan, dammit,” and for it to be true.

It’s the same for a writer. In the moment of writing about a particular character, all the writer’s reactions must come directly from the connection between the writer and the emotion at the heart of what he’s writing. If I ever experience a weak connection or a break, I can tell immediately: the words don’t come; or the most obvious character reaction suggests itself and instantly feels false.

I’ve developed techniques for entering into the character. They involve meditation and “breathing” through the heart, rather than the head. It opens you directly to the necessary emotion.

Read the rest of this post on my blog The Man of Twists and Turns.