Well, we writers do TRY to take criticism…

Characterization: When the clothes make the woman.

[cross-posted on Writingscape v1.0 8/6/11]

I got the greatest laugh ever when longtime ABC drama General Hospital pulled a terrific piece of characterization out of its trick bag last week for Harbinger of Death and longtime villainess Helena Cassadine.

You see, a veteran GH viewer already knows that Helena is one of the deadliest women on daytime TV, a crown she wears proudly. She not only constricts and devours her own young on the regular, but everyone else’s young as well. Any man, woman, or child breathing is at risk, whether they purposely cross her path or not, and her own family has always suffered the most (not that any of them have been paragons of virtue, mind you).

And so, when Mrs. Cassadine slithered into the scene wearing this…

… I cracked up and found myself applauding.

The beauty of this is that the newbie GH viewer who doesn’t know Helena yet will only see a very rich woman in her palatial manor dressed to the nines in a designer outfit from somewhere on Rodeo Drive. Only later, after they see this Burmese python in action, will they realize–to their horror–that they weren’t looking at her clothes, but at her SKIN.

Bwahaha.

Love it.

Foreshadowing: Of course, he was talking about a desk job.

(Cross-posted on Writingscape V1.0, 7/14/11)

I’m sitting here watching one of my favorite episodes from one of the best classic shows ever — “The Sixth Finger” (1963) of vintage Outer Limits fame — on the Chiller Channel. And one of my favorite examples of foreshadowing just happened.

David McCallum’s poor, tragic character, disenchanted by the hopelessness of manually toiling day in and day out in the oppressive darkness of the town coal mine, takes on a job as the town scientist’s guinea pig. The project propels his human brain THOUSANDS of years into the future and evolves him from this…

To this:

And finally, to this…

… where he’s not only grown a sixth finger but can absorb text at crazy speeds, read minds, spew out intelligence a normal brain could never hope to understand, and even physically repel anything that threatens him.

THAT BRILLIANT MOMENT OF FORESHADOW: Very early into the episode, David’s character has a “hopes and dreams” moment and tells his girlfriend, “If only I could find work where I could really use my brain. I’d show them.”

Of course, he was talking about a desk job. Haha.

Carry on, peeps. Conquer your Thursday and conquer it well.