So all these characters in the books we read and write have to be well rounded, fully fleshed out and interesting. That's a pretty tall order to fill. I know some actual people who don't seem to be fully fleshed out human beings. They have less personality than their cardboard cutouts.
But in writing it's super important to make these characters jump off the page. So while the characters have to be sympathetic and likeable or hateable in the case of the villian, they also have to have flaws. And some characters have major flaws. JR Wards vampires all have some major curse or problem to overcome. JD Robb's, Eve Duncan, has serious intimacy issues. Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas has issues surrounding a less than stellar childhood and the death of someone close to him. Odd is a fry cook with no particular skills beyond making incredibly fluffy pancakes yet again and again he overcomes adversaries so powerful, and he does it in the most creative ways. He doesn't carry any sort of weapon, instead he relies upon the necessary item to be available when he needs it -- whether it's a rubber snake or a live one.
Ok back to the topic. The characters must have some sort of flaw to make him/her intersting -- otherwise they're boooring. They can't be perfect at everthing. They have to completely mess some stuff up or it's just not believable. Take Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum -- she always blows up at least one car per book and she eats too many sweets, which creates the need for her to keep the top button of her jeans undone so that she can wear them.
In Kresley Cole's 'A Hunger Like No Other' (It's a great book!) the hero is nearly insane when the book opens up because he's been tortured for years with no end. I don't want to give too much away if you haven't read it but he has a major character arc by the end.
It makes the character interesting and unpredictable.
So flesh out those characters and give them some flaws. One of my main character flaws is procrastination. Uuuugh.
2 comments:
Interesting that you picked this topic, Angela. I recently came to the conclusion that my hero, in my current WIP has no real character flaws--he's too perfect. Now I'm in the process of deciding what flaw to saddle him with. Hmmm...
I love when characters have flaws they have NO control over. For example, a health issue or another person impacting their life.
WARNING: hormonal, opinionated female on horizon.
I am so tired of reading books where women ALWAYS have SMALL BOOBIES. OMG! I mean, every story some woman is like an A or B cup. There's NOTHING wrong with an A or B cup, but it comes across as - EGADS - the heroine has MIDGET BOOBIES - gasp, no man will love me because they're soooo small!
STFU.
So. What.
A - F or whatever size bras go up to - embrace the lace.
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