I caught a lot of the speeches last night and while it wasn’t easy watching they were instructive. I don’t think I’ve felt that much bile rise in my throat since my bout of food poisoning and I really was fascinated to figure out what the triggers were (when not eating bad chicken). I want the reprehensible characters in my novels to elicit such strong emotion. Apparently it requires a solid base of hypocrisy, a lot of condescension (not as much condensation), fear of losing power as a driving force, anger, arrogance, a swagger predicated on bullying and a general attitude of belittling anything or anyone you don’t like or understand. Soooo, I just need to channel Rudy and I’ve got it 🙂 Oh, and lies. Lie early, lie loudly, and lie often. Embrace your lies and come to believe them.
Thank you television, and thank you Republican Convention. Now I need to disinfect my tv before I watch something wholesome, like Gossip Girl.
Because politics can kill you – and I am distracto girl, you reminded me that my daughter decided when she was eleven that from the meaning of condensation that she could use the phrase, “I need to go condensate.” to mean she had to go pee. We still use it. But not condescendingly.
That’s cute 🙂 If only politics were so.
Heh, character building 101. Love it.
You know don’t you that if you write it the way it really is no one will ever believe it. It’s much too over the top.
I know! It’s hard to believe some of these goons are real. What I’m not sure about though is do they really believe the garbage they spew or is it just that they have so much hate and fear in their hearts they’ve lost all capacity for empathy and just plain decency? It was fascinating to watch Palin demean and denigrate tens of thousands of Americans last night who work in their communities to make them better places. And to see the crowd cackle with glee as she belittled these people. Compelling stuff, but how do you write it so that it’s believable in a novel?