Do
you ever find yourself really dissatisfied after watching a movie, feeling like
you just wasted 2 hours of your life? I recently felt that after watching a
movie. It was a low-budget, independent film with a cast of 4 people and one
set location. Throughout the entire 2 hours, not a single bad thing happened to
the characters. I felt like they just frolicked through a field of daisies
throughout the whole thing, that’s why it was so boring.
What happens quite often to me is
that I’ll be writing what seems to me a perfectly fine story, where my
characters are adequately developed and my plot seems to be moving forward, and
then I’ll reach a stand still. So I wonder, what next? What’ll happen to my
precious characters? Something interesting I’ve learned recently is that that
next event that pushes your characters forward should be something bad.
Kurt Vonnegut once said “Be a
Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful
things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”
I happen to agree with him. Readers want to fall in love with your characters,
whether they are realistic or fictional, positive or cynical, good or bad,
readers WANT to be attached to your characters, that’s what they’re most often
hoping for when they pick up your piece to read. And as a writer, you’ll grow
very attached to your characters as well. They’re your babies, you’ve helped
them grow and develop. Naturally, you’d hate to see them suffer. Well, too bad.
I’ve come to believe that one of
the best things you can do for your characters is put them in awful situations.
Its when they’re in these situations that you, as a writer, will discover what
they will do and how they will react. Even if it’s not what you want for them,
or even if you know it won’t move your story forward, try it out. Let your mind
go there, string together a couple sentences letting your characters get his by
a bus or shot in the foot and see what happens. You may discover a deep
boldness within the soul of one of them, or discover an unforgivable cowardice.
Ultimately, you will show the reader what your characters are made of, be it
good or bad.
When thinking up ideas for a story,
or when you’re drawing out a timeline of your piece, try making it a time line
of bad events. Whether that bad event is a cancer diagnosis or eating expired
bread, put them in there. Push your characters to their limits, see how much
they can take. And if these situations don’t make the final cut, so be it. At
the very least, this has led you to discover even more about your characters,
and hopefully you can share those traits with your readers, enabling them to
feel more strongly for your precious children.
- Sienna Zampino
- Sienna Zampino
Hi Sienna,
ReplyDeleteI can really agree to the idea of your readers wanting/needing to be attached to your precious characters and that it is crucial to put your characters in the most awful situations that you can think of and see how they would react. The awful incidents that make our characters stumble across horrible events which they struggle to fix those issues can end up showing the true meaning of the individual in each character and how strong they are as a member of your story. Great insights and great work!
- Mina
Howdy!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated your little piece of advice on writing. I am sorta biased towards darkish things present in literature but I can still cut through all that bias and like...yeah... making people suffer is a great idea. Suffering is a part of the human experience and it's great (and hella stressful) to see your favourite characters go through terrible shit, and example that comes to mind is the comic book series "The Walking Dead" whose characters have been going through absolute hell for 10 years, but through that suffering they are made more human. Also it's sometimes a lot of fun to put your own character through hell.
-Harrry