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| William Shakespeare - http://listverse.com/ |
William Shakespeare's infamous plays captured an audience greater than any other writer (Halio 1988). He delivered plots to the audience that they had fantasized about, could relate to, and/or would never have dared to imagine. In his plays he portrayed romance, love, jealousy, betrayal, tragedy, broken families, disjointed relationships, just to name a few. Because of his success, his scripts were promoted from stage to cinema and are continued to be viewed and studied today as history.
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| JK Rowling - thefastertimes.com |
A writer of the twenty-first century who will go down in history as Shakespeare has done is author of the complete Harry Potter serious, J.K. Rowling. Rowling, like Shakespeare, creates a fantasy world for her audience while attaching natural occurances to characters such as love, jealousy and betrayal to allow fans to relate to her characters. Again, like Shakespeare's plays, it wasn't long before Rowling's novels were taken to the movies.
What makes Shakespeare and Rowling such successful writers and their plots so popular amongst the public is character development and character relationships.
"The core of a story is not so much what happens, but more importantly it is how the characters react to the events and the other characters which they come in conflict with" (The Clapperboard 2008).
Both Shakespeare and Rowling give their characters such depth and distinction that the audience can totally grasp the relationships between characters and, in doing so, forms a relationship themselves with the characters. This relationship between reader and character is what makes readers want Romeo and Juliet to live together happily ever after and for Harry to defeat Voldemort once and for all. Once a writer can create a relationship between reader and character, they have themselves a success.
Reference:
Halio, Jay L 1988, Understanding Shakespeare's Plays in Performance, pg 1, viewed 24 August 2011 http://books.google.com.au/booksid=7ke8AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Shakespeare's+plays%5D&hl=en&ei=YCtaTtKkHsnmmAWgliyDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&
zved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
Clapperboard 2008, 'Exploring the Meaning of Movies', Screenwriting Fundamentals, viewed on 24 August 2011 http://www.theclapperboard.com/view_posting.php?posting_id=129
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