Current mood:	mellow
Current music:	Steve Vai - For The Love Of God

in the autumn of my madness, which in coming won't be long
andy should write fiction. in reading the ender's series by orson scott card, i'm realizing just how important it is to understand people in order to write good characters. just like with seth mcfarlane in family guy, sometimes in card's writing you come across a line or scene that just clearly shows how well he understands how people think and feel and interact. it just makes you go "yup, that's exactly it." an example with family guy of the kind of thing i'm talking about is the scene where Joe is in the hospital and the doctor comes in and says (i paraphrase) "i'm sorry to have to tell you this, but, you'll... never walk again." and joe says "i know, i was in a wheelchair before i came in here", and the doctor is so relieved and goes "oh god, really? man, i was standing out there for like 10 minutes!"

an example from speaker for the dead by Card: "At the same time, she seemed utterly cold, completely removed from everyone else. Pipo's own boy, Libo, was shy, but even so he had several friends and had won the affection of his teachers. Novinha, though, had no friends at all, no one whose gaze she sought after a moment of triumph."

that's the kind of thing andy is good at, he notices all those little details that make people real. i'd be interested to see what kind of story and characters and relationships he could come up with.