This post originally appeared as a guest blog at OwlReviewaBook.
BE A JERK AND YOUR CHARACTERS WILL THANK YOU FOR IT
Bethany asked me to write a little something about character development, so here I am attempting to write a little something about character development.
There’s one major problem.
I honestly don’t know anything about character development.
Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit for the sake of comedy.
The truth is that I don’t know anything that I’m supposed to know about character development. Plus, I’ve always found it a bit weird for me when someone asks me to write about the “craft” of anything.
The only real “craft” I have any right lecturing on is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese – which happens to be the only food in existence with a taste wholly dependant on your mood. If you’re depressed it’s awesome. If you’re happy, it’ll make you depressed.
That should be their slogan.
The only real bit of advice I can offer up when it comes to your characters is this: Be a jerk.
As a writer you’re in control of every aspect of your character’s lives and it’s pretty safe to assume that you feel a certain love for them. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great actually. You should love them. If you don’t love them, the fact that you’re going to spend endless hours and upwards of a 100,000 words writing about them would just be silly.
A problem arises when you love them so much that you start treating them the way you want them to be treated, rather than the way they need to be treated.
If it makes sense for them to get hurt, be prepared to hurt them. If they have to die to get across your point, I suggest you find yourself a sturdy tree and pull out the hangman’s noose.
Remember that great story where everything always worked out for everyone and everything was fantastic all of the time?
No?
That’s because it doesn’t exist.
You can’t be a good friend to your characters. You have to be a terrible friend. It’s a necessity of the relationship. At some point you’re going to make them hurt. You’re going to drag them through the mud and make them cry. You’re going to take them to the lowest of lows and just when they think you’re done hurting them, you’ll slap on some more.
It’s for their own good.
It has to be done and you’re the heartless jerk that has to do it.
In my opinion the love you feel for the characters you create has be a tough love. Anything else is a detriment to your story. It does them an injustice, it does you an injustice, and it does the term injustice, injustice.
Wait…
That last part didn’t make any sense.
Ignore the fact that I typed it.
Love your characters and love your story enough to be the jerk they need you to be.
Wow, that almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about – a little bit anyway. And I wasn’t even ruminating on the pros and cons of Velveeta Shells and Cheese as opposed to Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.
Don’t even get me started on that battle of the unhealthy titans.
We’d be here for hours.
Steven
Image via Wikipedia
Like many British people (and I suspect many other people around the world), it’s a real treat to crunch on a biscuit when enjoying a cup of tea or coffee. So you can imagine my surprise, when having my early Sunday morning imperfectly made cuppa (see http://purpleslinky.com/offbeat/the-complicated-cuppa-cup-that-cheers-or-mug-of-misery/) that I discovered I was amongst those idiots who have managed to suffer a minor injury at the hands of the humble hobnob.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/125767/Crumbs-half-of-us-have-been-injured-by-biscuits
I regret to admit that I’m one of the 29% of adult Brits who have managed to splash themselves with hot tea when dunking my digestive. For those of you who’ve never dunked or heard of dunking let me enlighten you. Once you’ve made your tea (or coffee) (beverage) and taken the biscuit of your choice from the biscuit tin (dunkee), you then proceed to dip a bite size piece of the dunkee into the beverage while holding onto the remainder to use as a ‘handle’ . Once the dunkee has been dunked for a couple of seconds you bring it to the surface of the beverage and then manouevre the dunkee together with beverage as close to your chin as you can before biting (or sucking) the dunkee. The skill is in getting dunkee to lips before it drops back into the beverage. More often than not the dunkee drops its load back into the beverage thereby splashing the dunker with hot beverage!
If you’re lucky enough to dodge the hot beverage if the dunkee drops, don’t believe for one minute that the danger ends there. You then have the job of taking a teaspoon, delving to the bottom of the beverage and trawling the cup to retrieve the errant dunkee to prevent choking. This is no mean feat as, more often than not, the dunkee slips back into the beverage like an eel through a fishing net, which again can cause the dunker injury from splashback!
Having overcome the hazards of dunking, I have also regularly fallen into the 28% of Brits who have choked on biscuit crumbs and at times I’ve fallen into the 7% of Brits who have dropped a biscuit tin on their foot and the 7% who’ve been nibbled by a pet while feeding it with a biscuit (obviously I’m so sweet they can’t tell the difference between a biscuit and me), but thankfully none of my injuries have required the services of the A&E Department of the local hospital.
So there you have it – the Great British Biscuit Bite Back!! I’m now going to get my mid morning coffee and I’m just pondering on whether to risk having a Bourbon (the UK version of the Oreo) biscuit – could be a nice treat or could end up as ‘death by chocolate’!!! If it turns out to be the latter then at least I will have died happy!
Temptation is difficult to resist, especially when I'm tempted by such attractive morsels like the macaroons above, so brightly coloured and scrumptious looking. Fortunately I find them far too sweet for my taste and am happy to admire the way they look, draw them and leave them for others to enjoy.
I'm finally moved into my new quarters and hope that in a few months this will become my permanent home. Fingers crossed. In the meantime I am so loving being here and the settling down process is being helped along by the presence of a good friend, good food and beautiful surroundings. It's taken time away from blogging, commenting, getting inspired visiting other sites and, most important, drawing! But I refuse to get stressed over it as I know that soon enough it will be winter and I will have tons of time to concentrate on art and work.
Macaroons Card at zazzle
