***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!
