Hard truth here: I freaking HATE my characters.\u00a0 And not just the current batch either.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking all of them.<\/p>\n
Now before you get all judgmental, hear me out.\u00a0 Your characters are not your friends.\u00a0 They are lazy, needy little bitches who expect you to do all the heavy lifting.\u00a0 I, for one, am tired of it.\u00a0 So I\u2019ve started fighting back.<\/p>\n
When I\u2019m setting up a scene, or even a story for that matter, I usually start with a goal.\u00a0 What is the overall story question of the book?\u00a0 In this particular scene, what is the protagonist trying to accomplish?\u00a0 Does he or she get it done?\u00a0 Regardless of the answer, what are the consequences of the outcome?<\/p>\n
I put\u00a0a lot of thought into the architecture of the story, and along those same lines, I have very specific ideas about what roles the characters will play in each of these scenes.\u00a0 Ideally, you could add a face and a name to each of these roles, and then wind \u2018em up and let \u2018em go.\u00a0 But ideally makes for a shitty read, and this is where characters really start to piss me off.<\/p>\n
Every character that appears in your book needs at least a little backstory, and the more important the character is to your plot, the more you need to know about his or her history.\u00a0 It\u2019s not enough to put your characters in uncomfortable situations and watch them react. \u00a0You have to know why they do the things they do.\u00a0 You need to understand your characters so their actions seem consistent and believable.<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, you would have these character histories mapped out before you dive into a story.\u00a0 But I do not live in this world, and I am impatient when I\u2019ve got a story to tell.\u00a0 I want to get the ball rolling as soon as possible so I can capitalize on that initial burst of creation energy, and I\u2019m ready to write RIGHT NOW!\u00a0 (At this point, it\u2019s okay to envision me with crossed arms and a stomping foot.)<\/p>\n
My characters though, they don\u2019t help me out.\u00a0 They refuse to be Athena and spring forth from my forehead fully formed and ready to kick some ass.\u00a0 And so every chapter, every scene, is a struggle as I try to balance my eagerness to progress the story with the knowledge that I need each of these story people to be memorable.\u00a0 I put a high premium on silly, so I try to think of off-the-wall ways to introduce characters or at least mention something about their past that makes you think, \u201cWhat the hell?\u00a0 Who are these people?\u201d<\/p>\n
I want my characters to make me giggle, and that can take a lot of work.\u00a0 It can also be frustrating, which is why my characters take a lot of abuse.\u00a0 (They have no one to blame but themselves.\u00a0 If they were more forthcoming with information, I might be a more benevolent god, but they obviously want to do things the hard way, so buckle up.)<\/p>\n
Just to give you an example of the kind of tough love you need to be prepared for if you take my let\u2019s-not-plan-a-damned-thing approach to characterization, here\u2019s how I might respond to a couple of characters from my current novel if they had the stones to question me.<\/p>\n
Dip, you want to know why I broke your nose in chapter eight?\u00a0 Because you wouldn\u2019t just come right out and tell me what all the drama was between you and your mom.\u00a0 You made me figure it out for myself.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 Your family is jacked up, and I totally understand the silence of shame, but dude, I\u2019ve got to explain this to people, and you\u2019re not helping.\u00a0 Stop being such a plot-block.<\/p>\n
And just so you know: \u00a0by the end of the novel, you\u2019re probably going to end up locked in one of those deep freezes that rednecks keep in their garages, so you might want to go ahead and mentally prepare yourself.<\/p>\n
Virgil, you remember when you took that shovel to the face?\u00a0 You should have told me early on that you were such a funny asshole.\u00a0 I love that your mouth lacks a filter and that you are unapologetic about your broken moral compass.\u00a0 But now I have to go back to those early scenes and fill in the funny.\u00a0 I\u2019m not really angry, so much as disappointed, and yes, I will still serve you that drink that is at least three parts alcohol to one part kerosene.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but you brought this on yourself.\u00a0 It hurts me more than it hurts you.<\/p>\n
So to sum it up, do I have a fictional anger problem? \u00a0Maybe.<\/p>\n
Do I think it\u2019s entirely my characters\u2019 faults?<\/p>\n
Probably not, but when you write as slowly as I do, you spend a lot of time with these people in your head, and believe you me, familiarity does breed contempt.\u00a0 And not only are you stuck with these people, you\u2019re not allowed to kill them, at least not the important ones, because that would be cheating.<\/p>\n
On top of all the work that already goes into a story, your protagonist has to learn something.\u00a0 He or she needs to experience some fundamental change by the end of the novel and emerge a different, if not better, person.\u00a0 That\u2019s a hard thing to do when they\u2019re taking a dirt nap, so it\u2019s up to you to figure out who they were and who they will be.<\/p>\n
Needy mother[BLEEP]ers right up to the end.\u00a0 I hate these people . . . but I hope they still hang out with me.\u00a0 Because misery loves company, and I like it when they make me laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hard truth here: I freaking HATE my characters.\u00a0 And not just the current batch either.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking all of them. Now before you get all judgmental, hear me out.\u00a0 Your characters are not your friends.\u00a0 They are lazy, needy little bitches who expect you to do all the heavy lifting.\u00a0 I, for one, am tired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[162,165],"class_list":["post-1253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-character","tag-character-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}