ShmoopTube

00:03

[Dino and Coop singing]

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Think of all the different people in your life that you care about: your mom, your dad, [Student thinking about her mom and dad]

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your friends, yes, even your siblings…

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Think of what you like about each of them. [Mum bringing a present]

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Maybe you like how caring your mom is, or how good at making fart noises your dad is, [Dad laughing]

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or how well your best friend reacts when you surprise dutch oven them… [Friend in bed looks shocked]

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The point is that you like them for who they are, and since they're all different and unique

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people, you like them for different and unique reasons.

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If your life was a book, then all of these different people would be the different characters, [Book opens]

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and they'd all have their own likes, interests, motivations, and personality traits. [Page about her brother]

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And if you want to write an interesting story, you need unique characters with their own [The pages turn and other characters such as mom, dad appear]

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personalities, just like in real life.

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We call this "characterization," and it consists of five main points: the way the character [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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speaks, the way they think, how they act, how they react to their surroundings, and

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how others react to them.

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If that seems hard to remember, don’t worry. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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That's why we have TEARS.

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No, we don’t mean that we're crying over characterization. [Girl crying at a TV]

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TEARS is just a device you can use to remember the five main points.

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Which brings us to our favorite time....snack time! [Stop sign appears over snacks]

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…Oh.

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Example time?

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…We guess that's fun too…

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Okay, so let’s think about our good pal, Cinderella. [Girl cleaning a window]

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What are some of her character traits?

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To us, she comes across as being shy, quiet, well-mannered and hard-working.

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She also doesn't have very much money for clothing, but despite that, she's very pretty. [Cinderella smiles]

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She's so pretty, that people are actually jealous of her.

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We know exactly what that’s like.

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We've won every beauty pageant we've ever been to. [Girl with a tiara and pageant sash on]

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To be fair, our competition was pretty…ruff. [Dogs on the stage]

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Anyway, the reason we can describe Cinderella like this is because of the characterization

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in the story, i.e., because of how she speaks, acts, thinks, reacts, and is reacted to. [Cinderella going to the Prince's ball]

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(Coughs) TEARS.

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Now that we've learned how to use the five aspects of characterization to figure out

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what a character is like, we can compare that character to another one using a Venn diagram. [A Venn diagram in the book of characters]

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Since we're comparing two characters, let's put Cinderella in one circle, and the little [Mermaid in the sea]

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mermaid in the other.

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The Venn diagram lets us compare each character by putting their different character traits [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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in each of their own circles.

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And here's the fun part.

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See the middle section where the two circles overlap? [The middle section is highlighted]

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That's where we can put character traits that both characters have.

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Ta-da!

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Venn diagram magic.

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Earlier, we said that Cinderella is pretty.

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So we could put that in Cinderella's circle. [Arrow pointing to her circle]

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But not so fast!

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Ariel is pretty, too.

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So it goes in the center. [Arrow pointing to the center]

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Easy peasy.

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We also said that Cinderella is shy.

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Is Ariel shy too?

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Not really. [No sign appears over Ariel]

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So "shy" just belongs in Cinderella's circle.

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And now, let's try to think of a character trait Ariel has…we know that she wants legs more

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than anything else, and since Cinderella already has legs, we can put this one just inside

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Ariel’s circle.

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Great.

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Now we have one character trait that belongs to Cinderella, one that belongs to Ariel, [Arrows point to the different traits]

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and one that they share.

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Now that you know how Venn diagrams work, why not try making your own?

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Pick two characters and see which traits they share, and which traits are theirs and theirs [Student writing in a Venn diagram of her mom and dad]

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alone.

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And remember to use TEARS to help you out!

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…No…not…crying…though who knows?

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Maybe that could work too... [Other student crying]

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