One Piece Of Acting Advice That Has Stayed With Me For Years In Regards To Both Writing And Drawing As

One piece of acting advice that has stayed with me for years in regards to both writing and drawing as well is: "Don't use the body to act what the character is saying. Act what the character is THINKING."

Like, as a very, very basic example: a character is apologizing by saying, "I'm sorry." But that line is going to look and sound different depending on what the character is thinking. Crossed arms and a sullen tone can mean that a character is actually thinking: "I don't mean it and also I hate you." A pleading tone and reaching out to take the other character's arm can mean: "Please don't leave me." A tired voice and slumped shoulders within context could mean: "I did what I had to do."

This is one way to begin to do "Show, Don't Tell" in storytelling. It is trusting your audience to see the depth and to catch on to the things you leave unsaid. It's fun to let the audience be observant and clever. It is also reflective of real life, where people are often scared of being vulnerable, or don't necessarily even understand their own emotions, or can't articulate their own thoughts, or have difficulty identifying the true feelings of the people around them, and so don't say very much.

There are exceptions to this advice, of course. In writing especially, rather than in a visual medium, some POV characters are very good at reading emotions from body language and others are not, and their observations in the narration may reflect this skill. Some characters will assume everyone around them is always angry with them or simply not pay attention to other people's moods at all, personalities which can also be subtly communicated to the audience and later used in the story in some interesting way.

Some characters have excellent control over their body language and tone of voice, because they are on-guard, highly trained in some fashion, or a very good liar. They will not easily communicate their true thoughts through their body language or their actions. Their lie can be so good that it can be slipped past the audience as nothing important to the plot until it comes back to bite. Their oddly perfect control over their body in a tense situation can instead maybe be used to indicate to the POV character and/or the audience: "Oh, there's something up with this person."

Body language will also change by culture and class and disability and so on. This clash can cause communication problems between characters, as a character's affectionate pat on the shoulder of another might be intended as casual comfort, but be received as overly intimate condescension. Different cultures / people can even have very different opinions on what level of eye contact and overlapping speech is rude.

This advice was originally given to me in the context of illustration and animation, in which it is very common for inexperienced artists to act out the words that the character is saying in mime-like gesture. In media for young children, we might choose to keep things very simple, as toddlers struggle to learn what it looks like and feels like to be angry or happy. But past that? People don't really behave this way. What we say and what we really mean are not always synchronized, and we can use the body to communicate this.

tricky words I always see misspelled in fics: a guide

Viscous/vicious – Viscous is generally used to describe the consistency of blood or other thick liquids. Vicious is used to describe something or someone who is violent.

Piqued/Peaked/Peeked – To pique someone’s interest is to catch or tease their attention. When something peaks, it reaches its total height or intensity. To peek (at) something is to look briefly, or glance.

Discrete/Discreet – this is a tough one. Discrete means to be separate, or distinct, i.e., two discrete theories. Conversely, when someone is discreet, they are being secretive or cautious to avoid attention.

Segue/Segway – one is a transition between things, the other is a thing you can ride at the park and definitely fall off of.

Conscious/Conscience/Conscientious – to be conscious is to be awake, i.e., not unconscious, or to be aware of something. Your conscience is the little voice in your head telling you not to eat the entire pint of ice cream. Finally, to be conscientious is to be good, to do things thoroughly, to be ruled by an inner moral code.

Hope this helped! Please add more if you think of them!

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sun-rush

7 months ago

a lot of talk about eow zelda developing an abysmal crush on link via him saving her and then hearing about how great he is from literally every person ever which is so true but also if I was link I'd be obsessed with zelda so easy. break a royal princess out of a crystal and then the next time you see her she's fighting a monster. already im spending my time in the magic cell daydreaming about the pretty girl, but then the next time you see her after that she's breaking YOU out of a crystal and also oh look she brought all of your weapons?? she got your weapons back to you?????? and then you guys go fight the evil guy together and she's spawning monsters from hell????????? I'm blushing