Nobody likes a perfect character. It's really hard to make them likable. No weaknesses, no personality, flaws, and nothing to latch onto. I might get some flak for this, but Superman tends to come to mind. This isn't to say that Superman is a bad character. Obviously, he's been around forever, so there has to be something the people connect with. And you know, I think that what they connect with is the potential that Superman has when he's done right.
So many people I know think the character is boring. There's never anything at stake when he shows up. Now, I know that's not always true, but there's a reason for the sentiment. It's too easy to mess up with someone like Superman because there's so little for the average person to connect with. He's perfect. So, when I come to new characters, I make sure that I don't make them some ideal version of themselves. Whether it's inexperience, cowardice, arrogance, over-confidence, inhibition, or any other of a myriad of character flaws, it's these little things that help someone identify with them. You need to know that when your character goes into a situation, there's a chance they'll fail. Hell, there's a chance they'll die. But how do you come at these flaws? How deep do they go? A popular flaw these days is to give your hero some form of PTSD. I don't know that I land on one side or the other of that particular argument, but I feel like there are other choices that can work out better. Probably the best advice I've been given for writing characters is to think about someone you know when you write. Now, that isn't to say that you just write your family and friends into a story and slap a bow on it. Think about the way they react to certain situations, both good and bad. Perhaps your protagonist can take inspiration from the way your father used to suppose his own expertise in matters he was unfamiliar with or your sister's habit of interrupting people. The character doesn't have to take everything from these inspirations, but if you can remember how people you know actually behave, you can write something believable. This counts for good quirks, too, so keep it in mind. Be Excellent to Each Other
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So I always try to give my Paladin Playlist link to the official YouTube video, but I will admit that for today's installment, I considered using a different one. I love this song. The movie it's attached to...eh... let's maybe not go there. Still, putting the movie aside, Godsmack's I Stand Alone is an amazing song. I'm sure I've sent some of you guys some mixed signals. I've got everything from Bossa Nova to Classical on this list, so I feel like it shouldn't be too bad, but, yes, I understand not everyone may be down for this song. Still, if you're writing, if you need a character to rise up above challengers, if you need someone to be a total badass, you can't go with with this song. Seriously. Forget about Scorpion King (please!) Just scoot a minute into the video, close your eyes, and picture your main character, weapon in hand, bloodied, bruised, but not going down. Imagine them pushing past their obstacles, defying those that would stand in front of them. I'm not saying this is a good song to explore Jonathan's inner thoughts and deep concerns, but when you've got a field of monsters and a hunter with a blessed blade standing opposite them, this is a perfectly fine song for the occasion. Don't Forget to be Awesome! One of the things I was told early on when I started writing was that a good chunk of my editing would focus on the beginning parts of my manuscript. Writing an entire novel takes a long time several things can happen to you, the writer, during that time. Finding your voice is a big thing. By the end of the novel, you understand these characters and you understand how you want to convey the story to your audience. It's something that comes to you with time and with practice. That means, inevitably, the characters you are writing in the beginning are not the same as the ones you are writing at the end.
Now when I say that, I'm not talking about the metaphorical, personality changes that a character is supposed to go through across the arc of a narrative. That's a natural progression that a character is supposed to make and you should be directly responsible for that. The change I'm referring to is the unintentional change that comes as you get to understand the character you're writing. Maybe in the first chapter you have it set that your protagonist stutters when they get nervous. Chapter one might not have enough opportunities to show this off, so you work it in, but, months go by, maybe years, and your writing style and ideas about the story and the character have changed. You've seen them in action now and it makes more sense that they don't stutter. Maybe it makes more sense that they're direct about criticisms they have. I know that when writing Jonathan, I had a very "good boy" church type in mind, but that was changed by the end of the novel. The Jonathan that ends the novel is the real Jonathan, the one I had to write and write and write to find. Now it's my job to go back to the beginning and fix his character and keep him in line with his true nature. I understand that I need to make sure his character changes and adapts, but it still needs to be true to who Jonathan is, and that was only something I could learn by writing him. Don't forget to be awesome! So... I'm still sick and all, but my brain is finally working like a proper brain should. Or at least as properly as mine ever does. I apologize for the weirdness of the last two posts. In all seriousness, I probably should've just not posted, but I've been posting every day since September and I guess I'm just a little stubborn. Still, for some reason, yesterday's tiny, fever filled post seemed to bring in a decent amount of traffic so... I don't know, maybe I should always be mentally impaired when I post?
Anyway, I figured today I'd talk about little bit about things kind of falling into place. It's weird. I'm sure other writers or artists can identify with it, but I can work on a chapter, work on a character, work on a plot line, and have it come to no fruition for days or weeks. I'll pull out hair, curse at my screen, and otherwise annoy anyone unfortunate enough to be in my vicinity, but it's to no avail. Then it just hits. It's almost annoying, you know? You put in so much work, but sometimes it doesn't click until you unfocus and move on to something else. I remember that several of my favorite characters and plot arcs came after I stopped really trying to figure it out and just relaxed. You can ask my better half, I've come up with a decent amount of solutions to plot holes and other problems on the way to work, just listening to music. I've had a few come to me while out hiking. I think the biggest point is, that, while one certainly shouldn't shirk their responsibilities with writing, sometimes, you just have to set it aside and let your brain do something different. Be Excellent to Each Other My brain isn’t functioning properly right now, so this is going to be short again. I’m actually pretty sick at the moment and... well, to quote Mr. Meeseeks, things are getting weird.
Im sleeping most of the day and my dreams... my god my dreams. I’m not sure if I’m scared or happy, but all I can do is dream about plot elements. Seriously, I’m dreaming about the same scenes over and over. The solutions my dreams present aren’t viable once I’m awake. I mean, I kinda incorporated one, but it wasn’t exactly what my dream presented. So, yeah. Sorry to make this short, but I still thought it was interesting that my dreams are plagued by story elements. Does that make me a true writer? dftba You'll have to forgive the brevity of today's blog. I'm sick as a dog. I actually feel worse because I haven't gotten any real editing done today. Mainly, I've just been sleeping and trying to recover. Man... you don't appreciate the ability to breath until it's taken away from you.
But that's not what my subject is today. Today I'm doing something brand new for me. I'm GMing a table top campaign. I've done these kind of things before as player. They're fun. But this is the first time I've been in charge of the story. I think it's actually a really interested way to flex my creative muscles with a lot of improvisation. I did a practice run over the last weekend for New Years and it was really fun. It's great practice to build a story around players that are constantly moving about and testing the limits of your story. I have a basic idea laid out and, of course, players are going to go wherever they want to go. Being able to work out new dialogue and plot on the fly, going wherever the players want to go and rolling with the decisions they decide to make, it's quite the challenge. I think I might suggest it to any writer out there who wants to challenge themselves. You have to do a lot of research ahead of time, work out a lot of plot elements, but also work out potential alternatives because regardless of what you write, the players will do something else. Sorry to cut it short today. Again, I've got to get prepped for a game tonight and I need to not look like I've spent the entire day convalescing. Don't Forget to be Awesome! As I'm reviewing my manuscript and trying to expand a bit more on Jonathan's feelings, I've noticed that... I have a lot of characters. Now, this isn't like I have Romance of the Three Kingdoms level of characters (a classical Chinese novel from forever ago with 800,000 words and nearly 1000 characters. Yes I love it... ) but in going through the manuscript, I certainly have a healthy roster. This comes with its own problem: I have to make sure all the characters (or at least those important to the plot) have their character expounded upon.
It becomes a bit of a balancing act trying to make sure that I include enough information about each of them. Many of them have their own little side plots and I have to make sure there's a satisfactory conclusion to them. So how much do I need to focus on this? I mean, first and foremost comes Jonathan, right? He's the protagonist, so I have to make sure he's fleshed out and has a satisfying conclusion to his arc, yet at the same time, what about Giz? Reagan? Taylor? Simon? All the others? It's a completely different feeling looking at this during editing than writing. Writing was easy. All I had to do was spit all the mind gunk boiling around my gnoggin onto the page. Editing... now I've got to make it make sense! I might be a little hard on myself. I promise my writing is coherent and entertaining, but any decent writer is going to look on their own work with skepticism. And during the editing phase, that is magnified ten fold. I have betas pointing out minor flaws that I'm blowing up into plot ending failures on my behalf, thoughtful suggestions that I'm turning into career ending criticisms. It's mentally exhausting. And on top of all of it, I have people asking "What about so-and-so?" What about them? Was it not apparent that they lived happily ever after and went to live in Cabo? Didn't you figure out that they were secretly a government sanctioned milk-man tasked with ending the internet as we know it? (Those... those aren't actual things. I really hope you knew that.) Point is, I'm seeing that, while it was clear in my head, I spent a lot of time on one section of the novel and forgot to make it clear what was going on with some of the side characters. Sometimes the relationships between two characters is misinterpreted. Sometimes their motivations aren't clear. In any case, it's all stuff that I need to clean up. So what about you guys? Ever have issues balancing like this? Let me know, I'd love to hear from you. DFTBA! Today is one of those days where I feel like a terrible writer, or at the very least, a terrible editor. I have some really great Beta Readers, and so far, none of them has really been bothered by the length of The Paladin. I'm in the middle of trying to cut down my word count, but every suggestion I get from my betas is resulting in adding words. I cut out the entirety of chapter seven from my manuscript. I was thrilled. I was able to make a decent dent and anything important from that chapter was reworked in other places. Then questions about certain aspects were asked and suggestions were made that they, the betas, would like to see more to understand things better. This resulted in undoing a chunk of that chunk. Now, I'm looking at another suggestion. It's a good suggestion. Early on, I just didn't give Jonathan enough reactions, I didn't allow the reader to really see into his character in specific situations. I really should fix that, but that word count... Gah! It's like rolling Sisyphus' boulder up that hill, over and over again! I've managed to identify a few places I might be able to remove large chunks, but I'm going to have to really rework the narrative to convey that information somewhere else. So what do I do? I know the word count shouldn't be a hindrance, like manacles chaining me down, but at the same time, I know I can't just write and write without any consideration to my word count whatsoever. Plus... it's a little depressing to realize I'm an overwriter AND there are still things I didn't manage to convey properly. I know in a week I'll be fine and realize my mistakes and clean up everything, but today, I'm just feeling like every writer does: like I'm the absolute worst. I know it's not true (I've visited Wattpad) but still, it does sting to realize how little of my errors I can notice the first go 'round. Be Excellent to Each Other. Mind if I gush here for just a little bit? I didn't talk much about my Christmas, and I suppose to a certain extent, that's because I just don't have A) the connection I once did to the majesty of the holiday and 2) I wasn't certain it really belonged on this blog. But you know, I do have something that actually connects it. Check this out. This copy of Alice in Wonderland was given as a gift to someone named Vera back in 1902. This Christmas, it was given to me by my wonderful wife. Look at that thing. It's ancient. This book is nearly 120 years old! I'm sure that when Carrole penned his book as a gift for a young girl, he had no idea it would last so long, endure as a classic of literature and even, more or less, invent an entire genre of fiction. The absurdity of the story was unheard of and even spawned pretenders for a while (which led the author to try penning a rather dry, boring story after Looking Glass, but I digress.)
The point is, the thought of holding this book in my hand, a piece of fiction that meant something special to someone a hundred years ago, is inspiring. It makes me want to pour my heart into my work in the hope that, perhaps in a hundred years from now, someone might hold a copy of The Paladin and count it as a dear gift. Be Excellent to Each Other! Mz. Hyde by Halestorm is my Paladin Playlist for this week. Now, usually I only listen to songs that I've stumbled onto myself, but this one was brought to my attention and, at first, I was like "Yeah, that's pretty cool. Good beat, rocking music." Then I kept listening. And listening. And listening. And then I had to start plotting out a storyline inspired by. The song has great lyrics that really get my brain percolating while listening. There are a lot of songs that deal with the stereotype of a woman being an uncertain being, about not know what you're going to get, but this doesn't go that route. This is a very specific woman with very specific traits. She can play the part of the good girl and the whore (her words!) You never know which you're going to get and it really gives the idea that they're separate identities within one person. Or maybe I'm just reading more into than I should because I HAVE to give everything a plot. Either way, I love this song and I think you should give it a listen. What do you think? Any songs out there you think I should listen to? Let me know! DFTBA |
Matias TautimezKeep your eyes open for my debut novel, The Paladin. Archives
January 2023
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