Writing Assignment 4

Writing Assignment (4): Briefly describe a character who is as unlike yourself as you can imagine. Then get inside this character's head to individualise him or her.


I could come up with an infinite multitude of such characters. Opposite me in every way, in any way. As different from me as day is from night.

But all I would be doing would be painting a picture of myself.

How so?
Just so.

If I were to describe an elderly black man, for example, you might guess that I'm a young white girl. If I were to describe someone poor, you would know that I am not. If I were to describe someone with short black hair you might deduce that mine is long and blonde. If I was to describe someone in prison you could safely assume I'm a law-abiding member of society. (Or, at least, that I had not yet been caught).

It is like an exercise in binaries. In the separation of the self from the other. Othering. (How bleak that word looks without an M before it!)

Equally, it is difficult to avoid unconscious arrogance. For example, were I to describe a detestable character, I would be unwittingly implying that I am likeable. To describe ugliness would be vain. At the other side of the spectrum, of course, would be describing someone with positive attributes, the implication being that I do not possess them. The painfully self-aware modesty of this would be almost as bad as the unconscious arrogance.

So here I am, staring at the question, rolling it around in my head as one might suck on a gobstopper. Hoping to reduce it, eventually, to something smaller. Less problematic.

Then it came to me.
I think too much.
Not a negative quality; nor, for that matter, a positive one. But a freshly-proven fact.

My character, I realise, should be someone who thinks less.
Who doesn't torture themselves with questions, introspective self-analysis, hyperactive self-awareness, over-reactive self-loathing.




This is why I chose to write about Neil.
And I know exactly how it reflects on me.
And that is the desired effect.