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First lesson about writing: Characters are what makes the story.

Think about your favorite story. Ever.

Well, I can't think about mine, so I'll go for "Which French anti-hero do I feel like fangirling for today?" Narrowly beating out the story about the tragic relationship between the bohemian sociopath with the amazing set of pipes and unfortunate skin condition (unless he's being played by Gerard Butler) and a Scandinavian soprano is The Count of Monte Cristo. That novel is, in its unabridged printing, thick enough to bludgeon a walrus with. It starts off pretty fast, but gets slow just as quickly. It's not a book for the short of attention span.

So why do I love that novel? For the titular Count. For the cast of cool main characters. For the One True Pairing of Maximilian Morrel and Valentine de Villefort. For duels and revenge and intrigue and character driven plot and a main character who is (and I am using the technical terminology, borrowed from tvtropes.org) badass enough to get away with it all.

Here is the Holy Grail* of writing today: awesome characters.

DISCLAIMER: I can't say that without awesome characters you can't get published. Crap gets published every day (and gets shoved into grab-bags at writers' retreats). Stephenie Meyer has endured thousands (perhaps millions, though that rings of blatant exaggeration) of complaints that her characters are nothing but character-less foils to live fantasies and project one's own emotions and desires onto. Objections aside, she's made more money than I have, sold more books than I have, and has legions of screaming (if… shallow, perhaps) fangirls. That—most importantly the first—speaks for itself. In dollar signs. Which is important. Because it's money.

But what do you remember about the stories that you love? The characters. People aren't kidding when they say that all the stories have already been written. You can nugget down a plotline however you want—Coming of Age Story, Boy Meets Girl Falls in Love, Defeat the Dragon Save the Innocent, Defeat the Evil Empire, Classic Quest, Undo the Mistake—but it's been done. And if it hasn't, it's too high-concept to share in a comment to prove me wrong. So why do we shell out cash hand over fist to read the same stories, watch the same movies, save our Tuesday Nights to watch the episode we've been waiting for all week? Because of the characters.

Take a plotline: Revenge! Revenge is fun to read about. We can experience our nasty little desires through someone else, and vicariously redeem ourselves when the character makes his final decision. Two plots about revenge: Medea and The Count of Monte Cristo. What makes them different, apart from about a thousand years? The characters. Medea and the Count both devote themselves to elaborate, karmic punishments for those who stole their beautiful futures and broke their hearts. What's the difference, apart from a bit of biology? The choices. They're both driven, commanding title characters and dang if they aren't going to bring the earth and society to its knees before they're satisfied with their revenge. Exaggeration? Possibly. Epic? Definitely. The characters are so good that I don't care I'm fudging the truth to make them seem as cool as they come across in the reading. But the difference is in the choices the characters make. The Count redeems himself from the sin of putting himself in the place of judge and jury, pronouncing judgment on the rest of a man's life. What does Medea do? Kills, kills, kills some more and then walks off into the sunset. Is she satisfied? That's left to character interpretation.

So, now that I've gushed about how awesome a revenge complex makes a character, let's get to something that involves me teaching. How can you communicate a great character? How can you make someone so compelling that it's worth a reader thinking about after they've put the book down, or navigated away from the page?

Well, that's what I seek to teach you in this next little series. What's gotten me onto this subject is the Written Revolution's Mentorship Program, and the fact that teaching the skill of writing good characters will force me to learn, and not risk writing Mary Sues or literal Draco in Leather Pants anti-heroes.

In the next few posts, expect MOTIVATION, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, SHOW DON'T TELL, BACKSTORY, ACTION AND REACTION, GETTING EMOTION, and IF IT WORKS. And stuff that I haven't thought of yet.

*Read BLATANT EXAGERRATION

Description
First lesson about writing: Characters are what makes the story.

Think about your favorite story. Ever.

Well, I can't think about mine, so I'll go for "Which French anti-hero do I feel like fangirling for today?" Narrowly beating out the story about the tragic relationship between the bohemian sociopath with the amazing set of pipes and unfortunate skin condition (unless he's being played by Gerard Butler) and a Scandinavian soprano is The Count of Monte Cristo. That novel is, in its unabridged printing, thick enough to bludgeon a walrus with. It starts off pretty fast, but gets slow just as quickly. It's not a book for the short of attention span.

So why do I love that novel? For the titular Count. For the cast of cool main characters. For the One True Pairing of Maximilian Morrel and Valentine de Villefort. For duels and revenge and intrigue and character driven plot and a main character who is (and I am using the technical terminology, borrowed from tvtropes.org) badass enough to get away with it all.

Here is the Holy Grail* of writing today: awesome characters.

DISCLAIMER: I can't say that without awesome characters you can't get published. Crap gets published every day (and gets shoved into grab-bags at writers' retreats). Stephenie Meyer has endured thousands (perhaps millions, though that rings of blatant exaggeration) of complaints that her characters are nothing but character-less foils to live fantasies and project one's own emotions and desires onto. Objections aside, she's made more money than I have, sold more books than I have, and has legions of screaming (if… shallow, perhaps) fangirls. That—most importantly the first—speaks for itself. In dollar signs. Which is important. Because it's money.

But what do you remember about the stories that you love? The characters. People aren't kidding when they say that all the stories have already been written. You can nugget down a plotline however you want—Coming of Age Story, Boy Meets Girl Falls in Love, Defeat the Dragon Save the Innocent, Defeat the Evil Empire, Classic Quest, Undo the Mistake—but it's been done. And if it hasn't, it's too high-concept to share in a comment to prove me wrong. So why do we shell out cash hand over fist to read the same stories, watch the same movies, save our Tuesday Nights to watch the episode we've been waiting for all week? Because of the characters.

Take a plotline: Revenge! Revenge is fun to read about. We can experience our nasty little desires through someone else, and vicariously redeem ourselves when the character makes his final decision. Two plots about revenge: Medea and The Count of Monte Cristo. What makes them different, apart from about a thousand years? The characters. Medea and the Count both devote themselves to elaborate, karmic punishments for those who stole their beautiful futures and broke their hearts. What's the difference, apart from a bit of biology? The choices. They're both driven, commanding title characters and dang if they aren't going to bring the earth and society to its knees before they're satisfied with their revenge. Exaggeration? Possibly. Epic? Definitely. The characters are so good that I don't care I'm fudging the truth to make them seem as cool as they come across in the reading. But the difference is in the choices the characters make. The Count redeems himself from the sin of putting himself in the place of judge and jury, pronouncing judgment on the rest of a man's life. What does Medea do? Kills, kills, kills some more and then walks off into the sunset. Is she satisfied? That's left to character interpretation.

So, now that I've gushed about how awesome a revenge complex makes a character, let's get to something that involves me teaching. How can you communicate a great character? How can you make someone so compelling that it's worth a reader thinking about after they've put the book down, or navigated away from the page?

Well, that's what I seek to teach you in this next little series. What's gotten me onto this subject is the Written Revolution's Mentorship Program, and the fact that teaching the skill of writing good characters will force me to learn, and not risk writing Mary Sues or literal Draco in Leather Pants anti-heroes.

In the next few posts, expect MOTIVATION, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, SHOW DON'T TELL, BACKSTORY, ACTION AND REACTION, GETTING EMOTION, and IF IT WORKS. And stuff that I haven't thought of yet.

*Read BLATANT EXAGERRATION