Last week Foreplay and Fangs went dark, as I dealt with some severe heat-related fatigue. We're back this week and preparing for a Lotus Petals blog tour, soon to be posted. For today's Talking Shop, let's look at character development, and the dangers of "overdoing it".
What is a caricature? The dictionary defines it as "a picture, description, etc., ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things". When most of us here the word "caricature", we think of something like this:
As a literary device, caricature is described as "a device used in descriptive writing and visual arts where particular aspects of a subject are exaggerated to create a silly or comic effect".
Here's a very recognizable example of caricature: in the Fox animated sitcom Family Guy, a character is introduced as a part of a domestic violence plot in Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q (Season 10, Episode 3). The character—Jeff—is the loud, obnoxious, abusive boyfriend of Brenda Quagmire.
