Just Straight-up Say It
When it comes to writing an interesting character, I think the best ones are those who go verbal places we're afraid to. Sometimes they use subtext, sometimes speak the truth, straight-up.
Or maybe your characters break some rules you would never dare to even imagine breaking? Maybe they expose themselves, make themselves vulnerable to other characters? Or do they demand things we've learned to only wish for?
What's the wildest thing one of your characters has done? Would you do it?
Or maybe your characters break some rules you would never dare to even imagine breaking? Maybe they expose themselves, make themselves vulnerable to other characters? Or do they demand things we've learned to only wish for?
What's the wildest thing one of your characters has done? Would you do it?
Comments
My characters are asked to break someone out of jail.
Gotta say, I definitely wouldn't do it.
Hey Jessica, congrats on being 99% done with "The Bridegroom needs a new Title"
Suicide is a heavy topic, for any day. That's sad. I hope that character ends up in a better place by the end of the story.
Well, I would at least. LOL
But to read about that kind of character is pretty entertaining. LOL
Now that kind of man would make me mad. Grrrr... unfortunately I think there are mean guys out there like that. Is this the story I read?
Harumphh.
When you're an urban fantasy writer, there's a lot your characters do that you wouldn't.
Don't ever let your characters do something that is not possible, or would not happen in reality. Your readers will say, 'that's impossible' and you could lose them. But make your characters true to life. Pull them off the pages as real, living, breathing people and you gain a reader. Make your character, as Jessica said, do things that surprise the reader, fascinate them, cause them to cheer them on, and they will keep turning the pages.
I think I would do what Juleah in Surrender the Wind did and grab that pistol and raise it at my attacker. Whether I would have the courage to pull the trigger, I don't know. Maybe. Definitely if it was a matter of life or death.
I hope I would have the courage to do that too. I'd think I'd be trembling so bad though...
Thanks for commenting Rita! You're right, it's fun to have our characters do wild things, but it also has to be believable.
My characters haven't done anything wild that I can recall. Ha! Maybe I need to get more adventurous in my writing.
Thanks for the idea.
Blessings,
Susan :)
I love to integrate unique, tender quirks in them, to make them multi-faceted as opposed to one dimensional slimes. In my first fantasy novel, my antagonist had witnessed his father killing his mother as a child. His mother had raised homing pigeons, and she'd always told her son stories about birds. One of the stories was that doves were the spirits of people wrongly killed. So when she died a violent death, he started to collect doves—by the hundreds—and care for them, thinking surely one of them was his mother’s spirit. He did it even as a grown man.
It made for a wonderful contradiction and a helpful subplot, because it intrigued the heroine to the point that she trusted him more than she should have. Having been beaten and abused by his father, that antagonist had a very dark and violent side. But then there was this unexpected soft side in his tenderness toward the doves that provided a human quality which otherwise wouldn’t have been there.
I agree. :-)
Me too! LOL It's wonderful to get all the thrill but none of the danger *grin*
That's SO interesting. Are these the books based in colonial times? Your first ones that I haven't gotten to read? *pout*
So does the heroine eventually redeem the villain or does he get worse?
Poor teacher... :-)
Not something I could ever imagine doing myself!
Of course, I'm still developing her character, especially her human side, and though she's very different than me, she has traits that I could see myself struggling to overcome (vanity, shallowness, selfishness, etc). It'll be interesting to see how she develops over the course of the book.
The freezing thing is super interesting. I hope you have fun developing her. :-)
I didn't realize you'd written a western. :-)
Thanks for commenting!
But, in my short stories, I sometimes get a little darker -- so characters have done things I'd not do....
One character, Adyna, though, makes me laugh -she's very disturbed -- she shaved half a dog's fur off to get even with a neighbor, she sprays her telephone with lysol and wipes it with a alcohol several times after every call - which she doesn't like to get phone calls, since when she was a child her pet bunny chewed an electrical cord and was burned to a crisp - so anything with cords upsets her....and....and...well, she's just strange! *laugh*
but sometimes I'll wish I were more like a character - I wish I were more like Virginia Kate! I love her....want to be her....
I have a feeling VK is like you, don't worry. :-) As for Adyna, sheesh, that is very odd. Do you pull her off as a protag or an antag?
That is the nice thing about writing. :-) We're in total control. How perfect. LOL
That was difficult to put out there cuz the short story won a lit prize at my private Baptist University and I had to read it in front of everybody at a ceremony...after that-Everybody asked if it was based on my real experience. I'm sure you've had some type of experience like that since u write Inspirational Romance--People will read into writing like it's a diary, so you have to be careful and remind people that it's fiction-with-of course-SOME real life influences, but still fiction-ur not using ur book as a confessional :) Do u experience that?!
For a long time, I didn't touch certain subjects and such because it just wasn't "pleasing to God" in my mind, but the 'Bible' approaches difficult subjects and stuff, so I felt as long as my over all message was good and "right", then I can write about difficult subjects. My family is always wanting me to write something overtly Christian, but I just don't feel the direct path is mine in writing...I want to write about all types of things-there's always a search in my writing for answers and symbols of God-also references to scripture or other spiritual writing...I dunno. My mom says I think too liberally to be a Christian sometimes...hmm...
Sorry! I started babbling on! I probably made no sense :)
Everyone has their own path in writing. Chronicles of Narnia is not overtly Christian, and yet, it is.
But you should write what is right for you, and if you want to please God, then what you write will be of Him, no matter what others say.
I didn't realize you'd been raised up Baptist. I was Baptist for a while in my teens, so I feel some of your dilemma.
As for real life, well, not too many people have read my fiction besides other writers, but yeah, I'm always afraid others will think what I wrote is something I experienced. LOL That must've been so weird for you with the drug story. LOL