I've made it a goal of mine to never write weak characters. That may sound weirdly definitive from a girl who's not even fifteen, but I have reasons. And I even numbered them for you.
- Strong characters are awesome. If characters are well-written enough, no matter how bad their actions may be, they'll be intriguing.
- I use my characters to inspire me.
- If I'm going to be immersed in their stories for a year, they'd better be interesting.
- I'm pretty sure weak characters aren't sarcastic.
- There are enough vanilla portrayals of people in already-written novels. Often, they're stereotypes: the ditzy blonde, the nerd, the football player, the soccer mom, the clueless dad. Even if they are popular, they only work well with a certain demographic and become dated outside of that group. Anyway, there are enough Bella Swans out there to last us a long time.
Any more reasons out there? Share them in the comments.
Also, I've been working on a historical fiction short-story about Judas, inspired by my contemplative mood on Good Friday and of course, Jesus's Passion and Crucifixion. I'll post that tomorrow night!
Katia
YES.
ReplyDeleteStrong characters have so much more depth, are less predictable, and...I usually learn a lot more from them than middle-of-the-road charries.
Gah. Ijustlovethem. ;)
Me too. Plus, if you have uninteresting characters, the plot drags. And they're real. They make mistakes, sometimes they kill people, but they have actual reasons. Not that my characters -ahem- kill people a lot or anything ... (Shifty look)
DeleteI love them too.
My characters...kill lots of people. >;D Embrace it. Haha ;P
DeleteGood reasons. I agree! Who would want to read flat characters anyway? Even villains (and secondary characters) need to pop too. Plus I like your "vanilla portrayals". Awesome way to describe them!
ReplyDeleteRight now, I'm having trouble making my villain seem believable (read: he is way too evil to be real). I have a feeling that either the writers who write bland characters are more interested in a) being published, b) the plot as opposed to the actual characters or c) getting the novel submitted under a deadline. That's just a theory, of course. And by the way, thank you. Comments make my day.
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