Blog Assignment 6: Creating a Persona, Authorship

As we compose pieces of text, we create personas. These personas, could be also called our “authorial personalities.” And, while we find that at times the personas which authors employ may be “accurate” and “realistic” representations of themselves, at other times we may find personas that are very silly, brash, or even downright “fictional”.

Regardless, a good persona is one that is consistent, and created for a purpose. For instance, consider Stephen Colbert, surely we can likely assume that the T.V. persona of “Stephen Colbert” is much different than the actual person—family man and citizen—Stephen Colbert. Another example would be Mark Twain, the author of Huck Finn, who was a “created” persona and pseudonym used by Samuel Clemens. If we compared Samuel Clemens’ opinions on issues to those of Mark Twain, we’d find that they differ at times.

And, as different, or similar, as a persona may be to a real person, the “creator” or “author” must construct, built, create, conjure, think of, and/or develop this persona. Think, for a moment, of your favorite T.V. actor/actress, band member, celebrity, or athlete. What do you think you know about him or her? What do you actually know? Truly, what you know—unless you’ve been invited to a very exclusive party—is information you’ve gathered from watching, reading, and hearing of texts in which this individual has appeared.

Personas and authorship is very important to texts. Readers choose books just because a certain author wrote it; TV fans watch shows because of certain actors/TV personalities (Think News shows particularly: if you watch news, what channel do you watch, and do you chose the show you watch because you prefer Dan Rather to Katie Couric, or vice versa); and, movie goers choose certain films because specific directors create them.

Because understanding personas is important to writing, because you must create a persona whenever you write, and because as a reader/watcher/listener of texts you must depend on your ability to “feel out” an authors persona (so that you understand where the author is coming from) I ask you to complete the following tasks for this weeks blog assignment.

First, think of a “persona” that you dislike. Second, consider why you find that “persona” particularly scathing. Then write a 150 word blog in which you describe:
1)The character or “personas” personality traits;
2)How the character creates those traits, does he or she dress a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way towards topics? What does he or she do that makes them a “memorable” persona?
3)Any lessons you’ve learned that you can employ as you create your “persona” for pieces you write in the future.