Want to make me not at all interested in a character? Describe him, or her as beautiful and rich. I gave up on Mary Higgins Clark’s mysteries in middle school because I just couldn’t care about the plight of the wealthy, beautiful people any more. Isn’t it enough that they cover the screens of our T.V.s and movie theaters; that they create enough scandals to fill tabloids week after week? Honestly, do they have to pollute our fiction as well? This last week, I read a novel which included a very beautiful woman planning her wedding. Her father was a billionaire, of course, who had two helicopters. She went to have a moment to herself in a bar, but she had to keep refusing drinks from strangers because she was so beautiful. Then when her fiancé saw her before the wedding she was even more beautiful. Really? There was more beautiful to go? What did that add? One thing Americans learned through the economic collapse was that only 1% of the population holds the wealth. Now think of how many of those people would be described as beautiful. I would say the fictional population is a pretty skewed subset of our population. And the perfect character problem does not only reside among the beautiful that are wealthy. There are also the perfectly skilled. Why would I want to read a story about a person who went to battle school and never lost a battle from his first day? Why would he go to battle school when he had nothing to learn? These perfect characters have nowhere to go and nothing to overcome which makes for a boring story. But worse than that, there is just no relating to them. I realize that some people like to fantasize about being some mass produced beauty aesthetic with unlimited resources and adoration, but when those stories are over the reader is left with an empty feeling of ineptitude. As a writer, one wants to hook the reader by creating ways for the reader to relate to the characters. Give your character some adult acne, back pain, a car that breaks down when it is least convenient, bills that are always due and an out of work family member on the couch and your writing might resonate with the not as privileged 99.75%.
Reality T.V. as fuel for character development
How do I develop a villain without making him, or her, a cliché bad guy? Tips I’ve read say to try to make him less one dimensional by giving him quirks and something about him that could be loveable, if he hadn’t gone so wrong. Yes, these tips are good, but why was my villain behaving so badly, if he was a loveable guy with fun quirks? How could my reader relate to behaviors that seemed so strange to me? I wasn’t finding examples for my villain in my own life, or in the faces of my acquaintances and friends, so where could I look? My villain in progress was a sociopath who was able to live a double life with no remorse. At first I didn’t have a feel for what he was feeling, or how to understand his motivations, but then I stumbled upon the show Hard Core Pawn. I watched it because the inexplicably erratic behaviors of the pawn store customers made me laugh, but after watching a marathon of episodes, it dawned on me that the hysterical people the bouncers were walking, and sometimes carrying, out the door all had something in common: a sense of entitlement that I could not wrap my head around. Who would walk into a store and demand money for worthless objects and then throw a fit and threaten the owner when he said no? From the show, I got the impression: everyone in Detroit. But then I started thinking, someone like my character; someone who felt that the world owed him and he was going to demand his due. This overreaching sense of entitlement brought a new dimension to my villain. I recently thought about adding a disillusioned young adult whose mom put her in pageants as a child (Toddlers & Tiaras), or a hoarder who won’t let anyone come to her house because she lives in piles of possessions and piles of debt (Hoarding: Buried Alive). I am not recommending focusing on any one reality persona (for example Si Robertson (Duck Dynasty), or any one of the Kardashians), too closely, but when looking for inspiration for your characters with bad behavior, a dose of scripted reality can be inspiring.
Welcome to my writing life.
On this site, I will be sharing what inspires my writing and what I am learning through the process of getting my words on paper. I look forward to many lively discussions about technique, motivation and creativity.
Experience Writing 