Upcoming Character Drawings

Well…you guys saw my political cartoons and hopefully you’ve enjoyed them so far. Now I’m going to start uploading drawings of my characters, particularly ones who will appear in my two novelette collections Lysergic Fairytales and Tacky Tuesday. When I’ll finish the damn stories, I’ll never know, because schizophrenia’s been fucking with my energy and my general wellbeing. I’m drawing characters as a way of keeping hope alive. I will finish my writing someday, even if I have to take forever to mentally heal. Until then…meet the cast and crew!

Final Fantasy IV and Stupidity

When people ask me about my favorite videogames, Final Fantasy IV is somewhere in that Mt. Rushmore...of more than four heads. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s got magic, science fiction, creepy puppets, and…unfortunately, it also has stupid characters. Cecil has to travel the world to protect the elemental crystals from Golbez. But every time Cecil and his friends touch one, Golbez is right there to take it from them, almost like the protagonists are just leading him to the crystals. There’s even one instance where Cecil had to exchange a crystal for his girlfriend Rosa. He gives Golbez the crystal and, surprise, surprise, Golbez reneges on the deal and tries to kill him. And then there’s the dragon knight Kain, who is supposed to be one of Cecil’s allies, but he keeps getting brainwashed by Golbez…over and over again! And what does Cecil do? Welcomes Kain back into the party every single fucking time the brainwashing wears off. Tellah, an old mage with powerful magic, has to sacrifice his own life to cast Meteor on Golbez, which doesn’t kill him, but forces him to relinquish control of Kain…for a little while! And by the way, Golbez is no better. He’s an all-powerful wizard knight who could kill everyone and everything in his path with just his magic alone. There’s even a time when he leaves Cecil and crew laying on the ground…and doesn’t kill them! If Golbez is that powerful, what the fuck does he need elemental crystals for? He could just lightning bolt the world out of orbit if he wanted to! Zip-zap, done! End of story! I’m not saying I’ve never had stupid characters before, but holy shit, they’re not THAT dumb. Now that I’m looking at Final Fantasy IV through a critical lens and not a nostalgic one, where does that rank it on the Mt. Rushmore of my favorite videogames? Hmm…

RPG Memoirs: Fiction or Nonfiction?

So…I’m at a little bit of a crossroads here when it comes to my nonfiction. Many months ago, I wrote a memoir about a D&D campaign I did with my brother in 2003 where I was a bounty hunter named Regal (it went about as well as you’d imagine, haha!). Ever since then, I’ve wondered if I should do those kinds of memoirs in the future. A small little voice told me that if I’m going to do them, why not just write them as fictional stories instead of memoirs? There’ll be more opportunities for showing instead of telling and it’ll feel like a real story. But given how some of those role-plays panned out, they wouldn’t make for very good stories on their own. Under a nonfiction microscope, I can analyze what went wrong and why. That’s basically the point of these memoirs: to show how much my storytelling skills and I have changed since those days. They can either be cautionary tales or legitimate master classes. What do you guys think? Are these kinds of stories better served as fiction or nonfiction?

Terrible Flaws

 Anytime a book, movie, or TV show receives praise for having “flawed characters”, it makes me wonder what exactly those flaws were. Are all flaws created equal or are some more forgivable than others? Can characters with the least forgivable flaws find redemption by the end of the story or does that come off as forced? Are some character traits considered flaws when they don’t deserve to be? Do villains’ flaws (aside from the obvious) have to be conquered just like the heroes’?

I’m asking all of these questions because I’ve been in this writing game for many years and I still haven’t mastered the art of the flawed character. I’m always afraid of making a character so flawed that they’re no longer likeable in any capacity. Even dumpster fire human beings can be liked by the readers, but how do I achieve this? Well…let’s run these questions through a battery of tests, shall we?

Suppose you have a protagonist (like every story does). He’s got acrobatic fighting skills, he’s got magical powers for days, and he’s perfected the art of the insult. He wears spiked metal armor and carries a sword bigger than his entire body. He’s got long purple hair that has probably been washed with Head & Shoulders more times than he’s been in combat. He’s got striking golden eyes that can weaken the knees of every woman around him. His major flaw? He’s a genocidal lunatic. He doesn’t just go in for the kill. He destroys entire groups of people until they’ve gone virtually extinct. He feels no remorse for his actions and openly mocks any group that he’s wiped off the face of the earth. 

Are you cringing in disgust yet? Why? You like flawed characters! Killing large numbers of people is a HUGE flaw for somebody to have. I certainly hope he can overcome it! Now that I think about it, there is an example of someone like this. His name is Vegeta and he’s from the Dragon Ball franchise. In the beginning of the series, he killed off entire populations from any given planet and sold the planet for a quick buck. Near the end of the series, he’s a loving father and husband, but he’s still salty as fuck. Despite his murderous past, Vegeta is still the most popular character in the series.

Alright, alright, alright, that’s just one example of a successful flawed character, though. Maybe genocide isn’t enough to turn people off (which actually scares me a little bit). Okay, how about this: you’ve got a protagonist (noticing a theme here?). He’s rich beyond his wildest dreams. He’s got more abs than he knows what to do with. His business suits, sports cars, and summer homes all cost him more than the national debt allows. He can sex up any woman from the moment they smell his cologne. 

His major flaw? He’s got a serious case of flatulence that could trigger climate change and successfully take away Greta Thunberg’s future. What? You like flawed characters! His farting gets in the way of his romantic life and political aspirations, so it’s a real flaw! He can easily overcome it by getting a colonoscopy and finding out what the fuck is going on in his ass. But once he finds out what’s actually in there…then the plot thickens quicker than one of his diarrhea dumps. Could you get behind a character like this? Hopefully, not literally since we’ve established that his farts smell like dead skunks and toxic waste.

Okay, maybe bathroom humor isn’t your thing. It certainly isn’t mine. So how about this: you have a protagonist (yet again). He’s a five-star general who commands the respect of everyone he meets, even people outside of his jurisdiction. When he tells you to do pushups, it won’t matter if you just got your COVID vaccine, because you’ll do them anyways. When he tells you to run ten miles without stopping, it won’t matter if you’re bound to a wheelchair, because you’ll find a way. 

His major flaw? His voice is so cartoonishly annoying that subordinates only do what he says so that he’ll shut up and leave them alone. That’s not respect for authority; that’s hatred for irritating people. When the time comes to actually take him seriously, nobody listens to reason, because the general’s voice shatters their eardrums every time. Do you still think all flaws are created equal?

Now I don’t want any of you to think that I’m advocating for Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus. Maybe there was a time in my childhood when beefy barbarians who never lose were appealing to me. Maybe there was a time when undeniably hot chicks won me over just because. But as I got older, the shine wore off in a big fucking hurry. You think Alex De Large from A Clockwork Orange would have become as iconic as he was if he took the role of an axe-wielding ninja-knight who remained undefeated forever? You think Vic Mackey from The Shield would have been convincing as a corrupt LAPD detective if he didn’t occasionally lose from time to time? We don’t want to see our favorites lose, but if they don’t, then the story becomes boring and nobody cares.

But at the same time, we have to come to terms with what flaws we’re willing to forgive and which ones make a character impossible to love. Maybe the flaws we can’t forgive are overcome by the end of the story. Maybe a Klansman who uses the N-word five hundred times in a two-minute conversation can see the light and become so far to the left that he falls off the spectrum completely. Maybe a CEO who makes money off of his impoverished employees can become homeless and experience the plight of his underlings firsthand. So maybe the question isn’t, “Is this flaw bad?” Maybe the question is, “Can this flaw be redeemed?”

By that logic, even Cthulu can be redeemed despite the fact that he’s an intergalactic squid who destroys worlds effortlessly and drives the survivors to infinite madness. Maybe Cthulu has a slight moment of guilt when a feral child tries to reach out to his heart. It’s one thing to drive adults to madness, but feral children never had a chance to even acquire a first language. So Cthulu’s heart is broken beyond repair, but his universe is not, so he creates paradise out of his destruction. Would you still find it in your heart to forgive this flawed character despite what he did to get to this point? Did Hitler need a hug? Does Donald Trump need tender loving care? Does Vladimir Putin need a girlfriend who will cradle his head in her lap and stroke…whatever hair is left on his head?

I guess it all boils down to whether or not you as a reader believe in redemption arcs. I personally can’t get enough of them as long as they’re not rushed and forced. If you don’t want spoilers for A Dog’s Journey, then stop reading and have a nice day. Gloria is a toxic mother who spends her nights partying and drinking rather than taking care of CJ and her dog. So what does Gloria do? She gets sober and reconnects with CJ, giving her letters from her father that later serve as creative fuel for her songs, thus launching a successful music career. That’s one example of a redemption arc I can get behind. Gloria is indeed a flawed character, downright disgusting at times. Neglect and abuse are horrible things to do to a child. And yet, she won me over by the movie’s end. Well done!

Perhaps the lesson I’m trying to teach myself is to not be afraid of the flaws I give my characters. I have enough faith in my writing abilities that the characters can be redeemed by the story’s end. And if I haven’t done that, it’s okay, because that’s why our stories go through multiple drafts worth of edits and rewrites. Unlike a brain surgeon, you don’t have to get it right the first time if you’re writing a story from scratch. Be bold. Be brave. Let your book babies take flight. You can’t cradle them forever and if you do, you’re worse than the mother from Pink Floyd the Wall, a movie with a VERY flawed protagonist, yet one who is easy to root for.

Characters Without Aspirations

 If somebody is living a “normal” life, it’s seen as a positive. If somebody is living an “average” life, it’s seen indifferently. However…if somebody is living a “mediocre” life, then shame on that person. Normal, average, and mediocre all have the same meaning, yet their connotations are different across each word. Normal and average characters are relatable, but mediocre ones are looked down up with disgust. But when a critic is talking about a mediocre character, they’re not usually talking about the character’s upbringing, education, or work life. Mediocrity often means the character has no ambitions, dreams, or aspirations. Three-dimensional characters are the best kind and a character cannot be three-dimensional without at least one feasible goal or lifelong dream. That’s what we’ve been taught as writers because that’s what makes a story interesting to begin with.

But is that always the case? Do characters HAVE to have big dreams and aspirations? Commonsense would dictate that a character-driven story would mean having the MC pursue an end game. But what if the character had no dreams or aspirations at all? Sounds pretty boring, doesn’t it? Until you dig a little deeper into why that is. Maybe the character is so depressed that he can’t see a future for himself. Maybe he’s older and subscribes to the “don’t follow your passion” rhetoric that conservatives of his generation like to preach. Maybe he’s a younger child who’s been brainwashed by the school system into believing that STEM jobs are the only kind that matter. With the latter case, the brainwashed child in question has a goal, but not the one he originally intended. Does that count? Not if he’s going through the motions.

Mediocrity isn’t fun to read about, but the reasons behind it can be. In fact, the reasons alone could turn an otherwise dull character into someone to root for. Maybe the goal is to break the cycle of mediocrity and become his own person. Maybe the goal is to murder the people responsible for creating his dull situation. Wait a minute. Did that get a little too extreme for you? Is it really reasonable for a mundane character to go around stabbing people to death if they forced him into a life of boredom? Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. Either way, you’ve got a compelling story on your hand. 

Conformity through brainwashing or creative suppression can be a powerful thing. That’s why millennials and Gen Z people tend to dislike Mike Rowe, because he’s using his platform to encourage capitalistic conformity. Conforming to society will make you more presentable in the eyes of the CEO’s writing your checks. Okay, Boomer, enough is enough.

While most people do want to break the chains of capitalism and tell Mike Rowe to suck a big fat one, there are legitimate slackers in society. I’m sure you, my lovely audience, have gone to school with a few of these guys. They don’t do homework. They spend their time in class shooting spitballs and fucking around. They mouth off to the teacher when they’re receiving genuine criticism. While these students don’t make up an entire generation nor can they not be saved, they do exist and they can often be interesting characters to read about. 

It’s easy to tell this lackadaisical student to “get a job” and “stop screwing around”. But have you ever been inside the mind of one of these students? Maybe the sour attitude is a cover-up for suppressed trauma. Maybe he doesn’t feel like there’s any hope for him after all. Or maybe he just wants to play videogames and fuck the world. Even the latter of those choices can be made into three-dimensional character work if an author knows what the hell he’s doing.

You’re probably reading all of this and are digging into the recesses of your mind trying to find examples of mediocre characters that are fun to read about. You want to find the difference between being lost in a dream due to aspirations and lost in a dream because he doesn’t want to wake up and face the world. Not a book, per se, but the 1994 comedy Clerks is a good example of this. Dante works at the Quick Stop Convenience Store and has no plans of bettering his life, yet he constantly complains about the situation he’s in. His friend Randal works at RST Video Store and doesn’t mind slacking off every once and a while as long as he gets to anger the customers. 

Two mediocre workers, different clashing mindsets. They have little goals here and there. Dante wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend Caitlin while still dating a superior woman in Veronica. He wants to play hockey on the rooftop. He wants to go to a funeral to say goodbye to one of his exes. But are any of these goals really going to get him out of his depressive funk? No fucking way. Even if he somehow achieves these goals, he’ll go right back to where he was the next day: tedium and shitty customers. Dante and Randal have painfully ordinary lives, yet Clerks is considered a cult classic and Kevin Smith’s best movie of all time.

But if you’re going to intentionally write a mediocre character and have him lead the charge, his uncaring attitude should mesh well with his environment. If the character is a humanoid dragon barbarian fighting for his life in a dark fantasy kingdom with demons, devils, and zombies chewing on his flesh, that MC cannot afford to be mediocre for even a second. Yes, Gary-Stus exist, but in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, they’re frowned upon. Speculative fiction is known for having colorful worlds where the author’s imagination runs wild. Crystal castles in the sky, fireball magic spells, temptress witches, electromantic dragons, sneaky goblins, they’ve got it all! If a character is mediocre in an above-average setting, then that’s a problem.

But…what if a character is mediocre in a BELOW-average setting? What if the fantasy world has turned to absolute shit and the character gives into his urges to give up all hope? It doesn’t even have to be a nuclear apocalypse, no, no, no. It could be worldwide blight. It could be constant darkness. It could be monsters and zombies overrunning everything. Or it could be an actual world of shit, because there’s nowhere else to go to the bathroom. Losing hope and giving up easily would be perfectly understandable in a below-average hellscape. At that point, the character has two choices: give up entirely and submit to the Lovecraftian negativity, or find smaller goals to achieve if only to make life a little more bearable than it was before.

By choosing the latter of those two scenarios, your characters cease to be mediocre. An example of this is a 2009 movie called Zombieland. As the title would suggest, zombies have taken over the world and are chewing on humans like bubblegum. Fuck hope, because it’ll never come back no matter how many shotgun shells are popped off at these undead cannibals. The world will never return to its normal state. So what do the characters do? They cope. They don’t solve everything. They cope. Woody Harrelson’s character wants to find Twinkies and eat them like he was a zombie himself. The two girls in the zombie-escaping team want to go to a theme park and party it up. The main character? He just wants to see his family again. By having these little goals to keep them company in an otherwise shitty world, a run-of-the-mill comedy has become a three-dimensional story that deserves all the praise it gets.

In case it wasn’t apparent by now, mediocrity itself isn’t good or bad (that’s the very definition of the word). It’s what an author does with it that counts the most. Hell, it can even apply to real life, even in a nonconformist setting. It doesn’t have to be all about brainwashing and Boomerisms. Sometimes those big dreams aren’t what they appear to be when examined further. I had lots of dreams when I was younger, but didn’t realize how damaging those pursuits will be until I grew older. I wanted to be a pro-wrestler, but that would involve exhausting exercise, injuries, tedious travel, and bullying from the higher ups. I wanted to be a heavy metal singer, but that would also involve tedious travel, along with clashing egos, heavy criticism, potential drug and alcohol use, meaningless sex, and yes, sometimes injuries. I wanted to be a screenwriter, but that would involve traveling to Hollywood and potentially being molested by Harvey Weinstein or someone just like him. 

After all of those options, the one I decided was least detrimental to both my mental and physical health was the life of an author. I can still indulge in my creative fantasies. I can still tell Mike Rowe to get fucked. I can still be a productive person. And above all else, no injuries! Have you ever heard about an author who broke his neck while typing a novel? No, and you never will. Maybe mental injuries could be more prevalent with worldwide criticism and general trolling, but that’s not enough to keep me from pursing my dreams of being an author. I live a normal life without submitting to mediocrity. I guess I could be a three-dimensional character in someone’s novel. Or I could just do a complete self-insert, one of the two.

Middle Ground Between Perfect and Despicable

***MIDDLE GROUND BETWEEN PERFECT AND DESPICABLE***

The year 2014 was an…interesting one for me in terms of my writing career, but what it all boiled down to was two characters I created, both from separate stories. And now I feel like Agent Smith from The Matrix when he tells the main character that there’s a difference between Thomas Anderson and Neo. But instead of taking your mouths away, I actually want some input from my readership to see if I’m not alone in this. Being stuck on an island is no fun at all.

One of these two characters was Sitka the Nose Biter, the titular witch kitty from Poison Tongue Tales. Her positive traits were her cuteness and magical powers while her negative ones were her grumpiness and inability to trust even the kindest souls. She ended up becoming one of my most popular characters.

The other character could not be less relatable. Her name was Danielle Keyes and she was Terrance Coffey’s roommate in the American Darkness short story Wishes in the Night. Danielle’s gimmick was that of a Nightwish fan-girl who had a shrine of their merchandise and photographs in her bedroom while their music was playing too loudly for Terrance’s comfort. Danielle’s characterization went over like a fart in church, meaning none of my audience members cared about her.

To channel Agent Smith once again, “One of these lives has a future, the other does not.”

It was during 2014 that I struggled the most with creating relatable and believable characters and to some extent I still do struggle in today’s world. This whole time I’ve been rolling the dice with my characters and hoping I didn’t roll snake eyes. In other words, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. My characters were either too perfect or too despicable with very little middle ground between the two extremes.

I recently got some advice on this topic from my lovely beta reader Ashley Uzzell and she said that good characters should have a mixture of positive and negative traits just like any other human being in the real world. Fair enough. But then the question becomes, what positive and negative traits will keep my readers’ attention and which ones will turn them away?

Let’s say I had a character who was generous with his charity donations, but also ate with his mouth open during banquets. Let’s say I had another character who was a good teacher, but also hated furry animals. Or another character who was a top-notch athlete in school, but had a constant case of flatulence. Do any of these characteristics sound appealing right now? Not to me, they don’t.

And then I figured, maybe the traits themselves should be relatable. Okay, I can do that. How about a student who is good at math, but suffers from depression? Or a politician who is good with words, but has panic attacks during heated debates? Or a dancer who is athletic as hell, but can’t reach her full potential because she smokes cigarettes? I like these characters a lot more! Maybe I’ve answered my own questions after all.

You can use your own flaws and perfections when creating a character too, which is why “write what you know” gets thrown around as liberally as it does. Granted, self-inserting isn’t a desirable technique since it makes the author look egotistical, but you can throw some of your own traits in with ones that are already there. Scott George, the lead character from my Floydian high school drama Silent Warrior, is my best example of this. He’s mentally ill, socially awkward, and introverted as hell. I’m sure most of us can relate to these things, and yet the flaws work perfectly within the narrative…or so I’m told. I’m not trying to toot my own horn or anything; I’m just looking for examples, that’s all.

But just because I’ve gotten my shit together with flaws and perfections, it doesn’t mean I don’t still roll the dice whenever I create characters for the public. Not everybody is going to be a winner. But then again, that’s why we have the editing and beta reading processes. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around. If it takes forever, edit forever. While I was writing for the Still Standing anthology, I had Aurora Styles (one of the authors) suggest that I give Llewellyn Xavier (formerly known as Michelle) a hobby of some kind to round her out. When Windham asks her how her chess match went, she dangled a king piece in his face and smiled as she said, “How do you think?” Teamwork, people! Teamwork!

It takes a village to write a novel…or a short story…or a poem. Those villagers include your beta readers, editors, and your own characters. You can roll the dice all you want with your characters, but eventually you’ll have to take the sleazy casino route and load those dice with little weights. Only then can you rake in the chips and cash them in for a big payday. Actually, being an indie writer isn’t a lucrative business, but there are other ways in which you will feel satisfied with yourself. If you can make just one person happy with your writing, you’ve done a great job. Even if the story is sad as hell and a major tearjerker, you will have affected that one person on a deep level and that’s the most satisfying part of the job, in my opinion. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***OZZY UPDATE***

Our little gray and white sweetheart is doing much better today than he was a few days ago. We still have to keep him isolated and medicated (which is coincidentally the name of a Seether album from 2014), but sure enough, he’s on the road to recovery. His wound doesn’t look as nasty as it once did and medicating him for it has been easy-breezy-lemon-squeezy. He’s going to make it! I know he will!