Foiled, Foil and foils

Taken from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/foil

• Foil –verb (used with object)
  1. to keep (a person) from succeeding in an enterprise, plan, etc.
• foil –noun Fencing.
  1. a flexible four-sided rapier having a blunt point.
• foil-noun
  1. One that by contrast underscores or enhances the distinctive characteristics of another

I my friends have been foiled, will use a foil and have created foils.

Last night I sat down at Doozen's coffee house planning on finishing a chapter of my book. I had my ipod, I was focused (as much as I ever am) and ready to go. I wrote an ambitious goal of writing 1500 words last night on the goal-board and I was planning on meeting that goal. My plans, alas, were foiled. By a tornado. Or rather a funnel cloud hanging ominously above my house threatening at any moment to dip down to the ground and send my house and my cats to Oz. Luckily none of that happened, I did however have to stop everything I was doing and rush home to save said cats from certain doom should the tornado form on the ground. Let me tell you...getting Pixie into a cat carrier is not pleasant. Needless to say I didn't get any writing done, I was too busy being in panic mode. Plus I didn't want to plug in my laptop in case there was a power surge from the copious amounts of lightning. There wasn't. I did however watch War Games. Matthew Broderick looks sooooo young in that movie.

Foil as bullet point 2 describes it is something that I will be using come mid June. I'm taking a beginners fencing class with Sarah on Sunday afternoon for 5 weeks. It should be a huge amount of fun. I imagine that it will help in my writing as well but mostly I think it'll just be fun and a good workout.

Foils as characters. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately actually. It's good to have characters that are foils of each other, however, it is not good to create a character simply because you want that person to have a foil. If you did that then you'd only end up with pairs of characters and I don't think that makes for interesting characters whatsoever. Katze and Gabriel are foils of each other and I did plan it that way. They went through the same tragedy and came out of it completely different and dealing with life and people completely different. Katze and Shay are foils of each other because Shay is so happy and Katze so...isn't. However Katze and Rafe are not what I'd call foils of each other because they are so similar. They have quite a few of the same characteristics. That being said I also don't think Rafe and Gabriel are foils even though it would make sense given the previous sentence.

I think that strong personalities need someone to balance them both in life and in stories. But I think realistically the balance comes from many different people. Katze's coping mechanisms have a foil in Gabriel but Katze's general demeanor have a foil in Shay. If you put all of your characteristics in one person and then have the exact opposite written into another character it isn't true to life. It also becomes boring and predictable and just pleh. Also you must remember to keep similarities among characters even if they are a foil and most especially if they are not. Katze and Gabe do have some similar traits, if they didn't they wouldn't have any ground to ever come together in any meaningful way.

So foils I've also decided are hard to write correctly if you are trying to make them as such. Meaning if you're writing characters and you suddenly realize how they balance each other and you realize that they are foils of one another I think that's awesome. That comes out of creative instincts and letting your characters think for themselves. If you try too hard to make a foil then it usually ends up as a failure or at the very least it feels forced and trite.

That's all I have to say except FIE on tornado's! FIE!!!