The Kilted Writer

(Note: This post was originally written in June 2013) As I was giving the "Brains, Brawn & Bravado" workshop to the Parker Writers Group (thanks for having me, PWG!) this past weekend, I realized something. Siddhartha's transformation mirrors that of Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol . Both start their transformation journey with a mind character, then encounter a body character, and finally encounter a spirit character. Where Scrooge's transformation takes an entire night, however, Siddhartha's takes a lifetime. Body Character I: Kamala After shedding the burden of intellectualism, Siddhartha's eyes are opened to a whole new way of seeing the world. All this, colored and in a thousand forms, had always been there...but in previous times, all this had been nothing to Siddhartha but a fleeting and illusive veil before his eyes... For the first time in his life, Siddhartha allowed himself to experience the beauty of the world, and...

In my last post, I mentioned The Hunger Games as an example of a book where the mind character, rather than the spirit character, is the main character.The book is written in 1st person present, which can be very difficult to write, but the traits of each character/personality type are easy to see, despite the less objective POV. The fact that Katniss is cool and logical as the mind character helps in this regard. She is more likely to be objective about the actions of those around her. The Mind Character: Katniss Everdeen Katniss is introduced, in part, with a description of why she wants to drown a cat. She couldn't justify having another mouth to feed and because the cat was sickly, it would probably die soon, anyway. Katniss can only see the logical ramifications of keeping this cat. She can't see the joy or comfort it would bring Prim, her little sister. Those are spirit characteristics, not mind characteristics. Later, Katniss recalls the story of ge...