superpowers: a list of stuff to think about

Okay so I'll just start out this blog post by saying that this is a subject very near and dear to my heart.The first story I ever started writing was about children with superpowers, and while I have never actually finished any story with superpeople at the helm, one of my life goals is to do so.

While I am no expert on the world of superpeople, I do think about it an awful lot because I love it so much, and I read a lot of other people's ramblings about writing superpowers and everything that goes along with that.

So, a few thoughts for pretty much anybody who is similarly obsessed with other people's ramblings about superpeople:


We should totally think more about team superpowers and how they work.

Like, seriously. Every time I have written a super group of people, they get their abilities because I go, "ooooh I have a cool idea! I want a character with that ability!" and then I make a character in the group with that ability. This is not such a hot idea for a few different reasons, I guess, but the one I'm getting at here is that in a story the different characters' individual skills and personalities should have a chance to shine and add a different and important dimension to the group. Same goes for their superpowers-- if their abilities aren't important to the plot, why bother giving them out at all, other than just for the "ooh cool!" factor (which gets a little dull after a while, since you can't realistically show something unimportant to the plot)?


Characters first, superheroes second.

Not gonna lie, since most of my superhumans were made up simply because I had a cool idea for a superpower, they were all originally nothing more than superpowers with a name. Personality? No. Appearance? Not really.

Fortunately for these lifeless superpeople I tend to go back to them and play with them and eventually turn them into something neat. Jake Thomson, lifetime winner of "Chloe's Favorite Character" award...

good job, baby, you won something

...originally started out as nothing but a name (Jake Thomson) and an ability (healing other people but not himself). Over a large period of time (we're talking years) I eventually threw the superpower out the window because it was hindering his development. Free from the burden of his stupidly assigned ability, Mr. Thomson became this simultaneously anxious and snobby British kid without many brains, relentlessly fretting about other people's safety since he was capable of healing himself and he didn't want these poor delicate normal people to kill themselves.

now I love Jake, I really really really do.

I really really really really really truly do.

But despite my love for him (And I know you don't believe me but I so love this guy) he is not really that wonderful of a character. I'm pretty sure I would get tired of him if I ever wrote a book about him, and I'm pretty sure other people would get tired of him if they ever read a book with him as a character in it. It isn't his fault, it's mine-- his whole character has been hindered by the fact that I put no thought into him. He was just this guy who could heal stuff, the end.



Telepathy is hard to write and makes for boring characters.

Everybody knows about ordinary mind-reader characters, right? They're notorious in their abilities to creep all the other characters out, even while being as completely vague about their supposedly all-encompassing abilities as possible.

Telepathy is hard to write for a number of pretty good reasons. (Bullet list time!)

• Good characters have secrets
• Telepaths remove all secrets
• (unless they are ridiculously useless and vague telepaths. me no like vague telepaths)
• Thus, good telepaths destroy good characters.
• and make your novel kind of wordy.
• and boring.
• why is this a bullet list??

Oh, that was supposed to be a bullet list of stuff that made telepaths hard to write. Ugh. Okay, I'm going to do a real bullet list this time:

• Telepaths cannot have ordinary relationships with people due to lack of privacy.
• Telepaths will always know an infinite amount more than any other character, and the reader, and the author. 
• You can't have a telepath filling up your novel with aimless and pointless words about a different character's musings of their childhood buddies (unless your name is Chloe. People named Chloe are the only people allowed to get away with filling novels full of random musings.) (That was a joke.) (I wish it was true, but sadly it just means I am a bad writer.) (I digress) To combat the issue of excessive rambliness, your telepath must have his or her voice curbed. The easiest way to do this is to only bring up their telepathy when they have something relevant to the plot to say, which makes them pretty much extremely boring.
• How do you write how a telepath thinks? Help!
• That's about all for this bullet list because I am getting bored.

These poor characters are pretty much just more trouble than they are worth.

All this said, I do have a telepathic character who is one of my oldest and dearest creations. I didn't specifically try to make him break all the annoying habits of telepathic characters listed above, but through his own general personality and my own weird writing style he ended up being a pretty weird example. My personal favorite thing about him is how specific he is in his mind reading. How much information does he glean from other people? 100 percent. How much of this information is he going to spill, as matter-of-factly as possible? As much as he can say while still breathing. More on him later.


We hear so much about not overpowering our characters. Why can't our characters overpower themselves?

Remember about five seconds ago when I said I'd tell you more about my telepath character later? Well, that time is now.  My telepath character, who we'll call Duncan, is a terrible character. (No offense, character who we are calling Duncan.) He's kind of in that stage that is a little bit like C.S. Louis's Wood Between Worlds-- a sleepy little place in my brain where the characters are thought about nigh-constantly, but nothing really helpful or exciting ever actually happens. (Is that actually anything like the Wood between Worlds? Not really.)

I will say one thing about Mr. Faul-- uh, the character we are calling Duncan. I really, really enjoy his telepathic abilities. I have had other telepathic characters, many of whom I spent far more time on than this lad. But this one takes the cake, by which I mean I would cheerfully bake him a cake with the words "Chloe's favorite telepath" in cursive on top.

I digress.

The best and most fun and most plotty-problematic thing about this kid is, quite simply, that I threw out all those rules you always see about superhero characters. You know the ones: "Superman is too strong", "Batman is too prepared", "Overpowered = unrelatable". When faced with the knowledge that my precious character who we are calling Duncan was becoming a tad too overpowered, instead of saying "NOPE NO MORE POWERS FOR YOU" I took his powers away, made them about 400 times more powerful, and then gave them back to him.

Best decision I ever made. The poor lad was so overwhelmed with his abilities that he went kind of insane and became unable to communicate with the outside world. He is now a poor overloaded computer of a being-- he has a hive mind connection with the entire universe and he cannot organize their thoughts well enough for his own brain to function.

He is so much fun to write.

Now, what is the point of this long and rambly bit of chatter? Basically, just me wanting to talk about my characters. But also, as personal advice. If you are writing a story, and your story has a character in it with superpowers, and this person is starting to be a little bit of an omnipowerful Mary Sue as far as powers go... don't take the easy route out and water them down a little bit. Give the ability consequences. Make it stronger than the character can handle. And have fun perfecting your evil author's laugh.


I will talk about superpowers more at some later date, probably, because I really love superpowers.

Also, if you have some kind of superhero story that you want to write with a partner, I will volunteer.

Also, SUPERPOWERS.

Also, read more stuff at this awesome website, which I am sure says all the stuff I just said except more clearly: SUPERHERO NATION

what's in a name? (ooh yeah, cliche title time!)

(Disclaimer: The name I chose to use today is "Mordecai Schneider, which I am fully aware is the most ridiculous name ever to grace a character.)


There are lots of things people consider when looking for names for their characters. Here's a list of stuff to think about, and then me talking about some of my character's names because I like talking about me.

Bullet list 1: Terrible naming advice.
(Or, advice I see all over the place and hate a lot.)

• choose a name based on name meaning
• that's it that's the list

But seriously, this advice is SO ANNOYING to me that I must talk about it for a second.

Nobody cares what a name means, okay? I mean, the author does, sometimes, but generally speaking no reader cares. Meaning is completely useless. If the name means "pure" or "sad" or "wolf" or whatever, that's okay, but really you do not pick a name based on meaning.

Also, name meanings are completely different from name connotations. For example, I have a character named Mordecai. Based on my research on various Baby Name websites, it appears that the meaning of "Mordecai" is either "bitter" or "slave of Marduc". Obviously, these meanings bring up a pretty specific character to mind. But, and this is a huge but, is anybody reading my novel actually going to ever look up those names? Ha, no. Are they going to know those meanings right off the top of their head? I doubt it.

Now, connotations. Based on further internet research (read: Behind the Name dot com) out of 47 people, a mere 61% think of "Mordecai" as a good guy name. High percentages of people agree it is a classic and mature name. 96% of these 47 individuals agree that it is a masculine name. In the comments section, several people say it is their "guilty pleasure" name-- a name they would never be able to name their child, but love to pieces anyway. Many more people say it sounds sort of evil, or creepily fantastical. As one person puts it:

I have no idea why you would use a name with the etymological element for death beginning it.

Amen, random stranger. Also, a third famous connotation: Mordecai was Esther's cousin in the Biblical book of Esther (one of my personal favorites). So there are definitely gonna be some people out there who remember the bespectacled, mustached singing grape from Veggie Tales. Also, it is a very Jewish name.

All this stuff? This is important. "Bitter slave of Marduc" is not important. (at least according to the me.)

(PS my character Mordecai doesn't really match his name, actually, but I literally chose it because it was the first name I thought of when I made him up and I totally didn't plan for him to become a character I actually liked. Sigh. Learn from my mistakes, folks.)

(also, a picture of my Mordecai so I can have a picture in this post:)

(the chick is his sister.)

So what else do I think is important?

• how it fits in with the culture of the character
• how memorable it is
• real-world connections to the name
• what the character's parents or whoever was thinking when they named them
• readability
• how distinguishable it is in comparison with the names of the other characters

I'll also talk about this last point: We all know the Swiss Family Robinson, right? Well, I read the book a while back and I can honestly say that the number one most distracting thing about the book was the two boys named Fritz and Franz. To this day I cannot remember who was who, and reading the book was awful because I had no clue who was doing what. Fritz and Franz? Honestly?

But that book taught me well-- years after reading it, I was writing a random story for my own amusement. I really, really wanted to name a certain character Noah. After writing about this character as Noah for a few pages, I realized that it simply would not work, because the main character's name was Nina. I was heartbroken. I tried my best to ignore the issue, but my brain chimed over and over again: "Fritz and Franz! Nina and Noah!" Noah eventually became Reese.

That said, as a general rule I always try to vary my character names-- not only in first letters, but also in number of syllables and ending sounds.Trust me, it's possible-- let's look at this cast of names I keep talking about:

• Nina
• Mordecai
• Reese
• Juliette
  (and minor characters)
• Tyler
• Jared
• Madeline
• Ruthie
• Beau
• Declan
• Fred the Pekignese

(turns out I actually drew this thing of the main four characters here at some point... I found it while i was looking for a Mordecai picture so. I love it when I find random poor drawings of my characters.)

While a good number of these characters have somewhat outlandish names, look carefully and you will see that, with the exception of Madeline and Mordecai and Juliette and Jared, every name has a different first letter and a different last sound.

Is this totally totally taking things way too far? Oh yes, definitely, but it at least proves that it is possible. And despite the fact that this is a crazy name group,  nobody I know ever mixes up names when talking about this cast.

Sibling names are also kind of important to think about-- just remember when naming siblings that their parents probably named both of them, and while real-life parents do actually give their children ridiculous combinations of names like Shyam and Mary or... oh, I don't know, Max and Kaelan-July, those really don't quite match enough to be believable withing a story. (Also "Kaelan-July" kind of fails the readability test.)

This is all I'm going to say of the matter, I guess, I just sort of wanted to talk names because they are my favorite thing everrrr. (Not really. But seriously, I do love names.)

(Also, my least favorite group of character names that I myself have? Probably my first story ever, featuring a cast named Laurel, Leo, Toby, Logan, Argentina, Felix, and Lou.)

sibling questionnaire

I wrote this all up in one night with questions from right off the top of my head. It is liable to be edited in following days, but for now here it is:

REALLY SHORT SIBLING QUESTIONNAIRE: 

(probably easiest to do with one pair of siblings--but that's not for sure because I've only filled it out once since I wrote it, ha.)

Basic Stuff

Sibling names:

Why were they named those names:

Do they think their names match:

Ages:

How do their ages affect their roles in the family:

Background Stuff 

Which parent does each get along with better:

One good memory they share:

One bad memory they share:

How close were they as young children:

How close are they now:

How well do they get along generally:

Physical Stuff

Give a general list of physical similarities between the two:

And now the differences: 

Do they have any similarities in speech patterns or accents?

What's one quirk of speech they would be able to point out about the other?

What sort of coloring do they have, and how is their coloring similar?

How would each sibling describe the other to a stranger?

How would they describe each other's hair in detail?

Random Personality Stuff

One thing they really admire about the other:

One petty thing that really bugs them about the other:

Who's the attention magnet:

Favorite thing to do when they are together:


THE END

(ps my comic started posting last week)

(and it is also my dog's sixth birthday)

character questionnaire? I think yes!

One of my favorite bogs, Inkspot by Anastasia Cross, just posted a really lovely questionnaire for one of her characters. Reading it (and you can read it here), I was of course filled with a desperate need to fill it out myself. I really love character questionnaires.

She filled hers out with her character Lukas Vetti, so my stupid brain refuses to let me fill it out with anyone other than my own Lukas, aka Luke “Lucky” Ostergaard. (I swear, I tried so hard to fill it out with someone of a different name. I really did. I filled it part of the way out for a woman named Ty, part of the way for a lad named Mordecai, and par of the way for Mordecai's sister Nina, but each time I ended up getting bored and coming back to my Luke. Sigh.) This is one of the main characters of my comic. (Which will begin posting in one week!) (AHHH) (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

1. What actor would play Lucky?

Brilliant. Question one is a question I would never be able to answer. I have never come across a human that looked like my precious child, but if I ever do I will let you know. Until then, his movie will be animated.

Since I don't have an actor, here's a random thing I drew of him and his best friend. he's the dude in the sweater with the newspaper and the hat.

Talking to Luke...

2. So, Lucky. Tell us a little about yourself.

Lucky: Oh, okay. Um. Well. I'm... I'm seventeen, and I live in Rosebury, Washington. Before I lived here I lived in Colorado, but I was born in South Carolina and kind of picked up my mother's accent... I'm sorry, I know it's annoying. Ugh. Um. Some people call me Lucky, but I really prefer to be called Luke. Actually, I hate being called Lucky. It's such a stupid nickname. What else do you want to know?

3. Do you have any family?

Lucky: I live with my father since my parents got divorced. I have a half sister, she's a few years older than me. Er. I have both sets of grandparents left, but one pair lives in the Carolinas and the other lives in Sweden, so I don't really see either pair. I don't really see my half sister, either, which is just fine with me because she is an inhuman jerk.

4. Who is your best friend and why?

Lucky: Colette Baker, because she's my only friend. But also for other reasons! I'm sure if I had other friends she'd still be my best friend. Like... oh gosh... um... she's just really great. She's sort of annoying. But great.

Inside the Character

Physical Characteristics

1. What color is his hair?

Light blond, which honestly annoys him a lot. His eyebrows and eyelashes are so light that they're practically invisible. It's a very yellow shade of blond, too-- kind of buttery colored.

2. What color are his eyes?

Very bright, pale blue, like baby blue. This kid is like as stereotypically Swedish in coloring as possible.

3. What color is his skin?

Pale pale pale, poor child. Probably from staying indoors as much as possible coupled with living in Washington, where it is always drizzling and the sun never ever shines. He tends to have a really pink nose and fingers, and flushes easily. You can definitely tell when he's embarrassed or angry because he turns bright red. When it is sunny out, he usually gets burned.

4. How tall/heavy is he?

He's on the short side of average, standing at about 5'8” when he's not slouching, which is admittedly pretty rare. He has a stocky bone structure with a very wide jaw and shoulders and powerful hands and wrists, but he's very thin, almost to the point of being skeletal. His best friend says he looks like a bull terrier, which annoys him.

5. Does he have any piercing, tattoos, etc.?

Nothing comes to mind.

6. What is the most attractive thing about him?

Probably his voice, which is funny in a sad sort of way because he's super self conscious about it and he absolutely loathes it. Obviously people have different opinions on what makes a voice attractive, but his is very deep and even but has a slight gravely tone that makes it interesting to listen to. He also has very symmetrical and typically balanced features.

7. What is the ugliest thing about him?

To be totally honest, this kid is a complete mess and you can tell from his appearance. He looks desperately ill all the time, sniffles constantly, and he typically wears expressions ranging from cynical uncaring of the world around him to scowling snideness to blatant hatred of the human race. He has awful posture. He generally looks pretty unkempt.

8. What does this lad usually wear?

He's actually a pretty fabulous dresser, if you don't mind hipsters. He always wears an interesting hat and a very nice sweater over his shirt and tie. He only owns two pairs of pants-- both of which are khaki uniform trousers for his private school. He has quite a few different pairs of shoes, which range from quirky to ordinary to downright attractive, although he usually wears either his red converse or his canvas shoes painted with Doctor Who, both of which are pretty girly looking and were given to him by his best friend.

BONUS: Why does he like this outfit?

Probably genetics. He got his love of hats from his father and his love of sweaters and shoes from his mother.

Emotional Characteristics

9. When he smiles, what does it look like?

Usually sort of shy and maybe a bit apologetic. He doesn't smile that much, as it typically isn't a very natural expression for his facial construction. One thing; he does have really beautiful teeth.

10. What is his laugh like?

He laughs a surprising amount considering his general personality-- he naturally he has a kind of booming belly-laugh kind of laugh to go along with his very deep voice, but that makes him so self conscious that he tries to control it and really can't. Instead of laughing he usually end up just sort of wheezing hysterically and coughing and smothering himself while rocking back and forth. It's really quite funny.

11. What does he talk like?

Deadpan. He's totally deadpan. Even his Colette, who's been friends with him for several years now, has a hard time telling when he's being serious and when he's not being serious. He's rarely being serious because he is intensely sarcastic, but you can't really tell because he is just that deadpan. He quotes movies, TV shows, musicals, and books (especially musicals and books) a lot. He can be very rude and a bit mean, usually when he's stressed out or uncomfortable, which is unfortunately quite often. Curses habitually, but has trained himself to curse in Shakespearean terms and is trying to curb the habit altogether. He can speak Swedish fluently but rarely does. He also speaks some Finnish.

12. How does he act when he's angry?

He... actually he doesn't really get angry. When he's angry with something, it mostly just melts down into fear and he panics and lashes out and usually ends up fleeing at high speed.

13. Does he cry?

He doesn't really cry, no. In situations normal people would cry in, he usually either passes out or throws up instead. When he does cry, it's usually after he's just thrown up or passed out, and then you know that something is desperately wrong with him and he needs serious help immediately. (Only exception to this rule: he cries every time he watches any of the Lord of the Rings movies.)

14. How easy is it for other people to read his emotions?

You'd think it'd be fairly easy, considering his sole emotion is “ashamed and scared”, but in fact most people just assume he's an emotionless jerk.

Beliefs

15. Is he religious?

He was raised atheist by extremely atheistic parents, and would describe himself as an agnostic, mostly because he's too scared to face the fact that he does, in fact, believe extremely strongly in the existence of God. He lives his life like a devout Roman Catholic convert but he can't bring himself to actually convert.

16. How does he view people of other faith?

Faith is something is cares about very deeply. He never talks about it but he always thinks about it, and while he would never say it (partially because it is incredibly hypocritical since he's a self proclaimed agnostic) he thinks atheists are idiots and he has extremely high regards for theists.

17. What are his core values?

Devotion, obedience, and honesty, in that order. He'd probably describe these three things as love.

18. How willing is he to fight for those values?

He's afraid he'd not be willing to fight at all, but in actuality he'd actually be willing to be slowly tortured for dozens of years until finally dying a painful and humiliating death all by himself.

Character Likes and Dislikes

19. What is his favorite food?

Tuna. I mean this kid really, really loves tuna. He could probably eat tuna turnovers every day of the week, if he didn't have a ridiculously weak stomach that would probably end up revolting against the massive amounts of tuna and make him sick. (TMI?) Someone else asked me this question once, here's the answer I gave them: 

He's actually just a big fan of boring food in general. He doesn't try new things.

20. What is his favorite color?

Blue or grey. They're nice boring calming colors and he likes boring and calming. He wears a lot more blue, because it looks nice with his coloring, and when asked he always answers blue because it's a less questionable choice than grey, but he probably actually likes grey better.

21. What are his sleeping preferences?

On his desk, during Algebra. No, just kidding. He always sleeps there, but that's because he has sleeping issues and can only sleep in weird places that get him into trouble. His sleeping preferences? He really likes the top bunk of his bed, but usually either can't muster the energy to get up there and instead falls asleep on the carpet, or he makes it up there and then can't stop thinking about what a slimeball he is.

Character Introspection

21. What is his biggest goal in life?

Biggest goal he never hopes to accomplish: BECOME A DECENT PERSON WITH AN INCOME WHO HAS THE ENERGY TO WORK IN CHARITY AND HAS ENOUGH SOCIAL SKILLS TO NOT MAKE OTHER PEOPLE FEEL LIKE HE HATES THEM

22. What does he believe is his greatest virtue?

Virtue? Him? Ha! Skipping this question because he obviously doesn't believe he has any virtues at all.

23. What does he believe is his greatest vice?

Probably his cowardice. He considers himself a very great coward and beats himself up over it a lot.

24. What motivates your character most?

His belief that even if he can't be a better person, he should be, and that there are values that must be upheld at all costs, and that there is a true and right path and if you can be brave enough to find that then you will be okay.

25. Is your character objective-oriented?

Extremely.

26. Would Luke rather be a good person or a great person?

First of all, he certainly reads that as “morally good” and “socially great”. He would much rather be morally good. Being a “great” person would terrify him to no end.

27. Would he rather be hated for who he is or loved for pretending to be someone else?

He fears it is the second, in fact he is quite certain that it is. It's one thing that he loathes about himself, his desperate destruction of his own being in order to be “loved” by another being. In fact, he would rather be hated. He just doesn't realize that yet.

28. Is Luke an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert?

The most introverted introvert who ever walked the planet, probably.

29. Is he creatively expressive?

He is, although most people would be surprised to discover that fact. His best friend knows he draws and writes, but she has never seen any of his creations, save a few random birthday and valentine's cards. As a matter of fact, he creates stuff constantly as a way to sort through his thoughts and begin to control his emotions. He writes several pages in his journal every day, and has done so for years (this kid has a ton of journals). He draws tons of stuff. He writes short stories. He keeps all his artsy stuff stuffed in portfolios under the mattress on the bottom bunk of his bed, where nobody ever sees it and he tries to pretend it exists. It's mostly stuff about horrifying and grotesque monsters.

30. What is Luke's disorder?

Depression. Also possibly some serious social anxiety disorders. I'm not sure what this question was asking, but technically those are disorders that he has.

31. Is he materialistic?

Not at all.

32. What is his learning style?

He likes to be able to see one thing a lot of different ways. Let's say he was trying to... I don't know, memorize the presidents. He'd first write out a list of their names. Then he'd print out pictures of them all and doodle traditional facial hair on them depending on what nationality surname they had. Then he'd take their names again and find out the etymology of each first name. Then he'd write the list out again. By the end of this project, he probably has them pretty well in his memory. When learning a new skill, he usually just has to be shown how and why that skill works the way it does, and then left alone so he can practice it by himself until he gets it right.

33. I am a ______. How would Luke complete that sentence?

I am a hypocritical and foolish loser with no place in the world.

38. Life is an act of ________. How would he complete that sentence?

Life is an act of mercy.

So there you have him, my sweet miserable little jerk, with as little story spoiling as humanly possible. I love character questionnaires SO MUCH.

(credit for this idea of character profiles goes to Bree Holloway, author of the blog Tea & Bree, which I am only just getting around to reading but quite enjoy thus far.)

a few disjointed thoughts about writing relationships

(mostly romantic relationships but also other relationships)

(these are my entirely subjective thoughts, as usual)

(also don't read this if you happen to hate disorganized rambling)

(maybe just stop reading this blog if you hate disorganized rambling, actually)


Okay. Disclaimers over.

I was talking to my sole friend this one time, and we got onto the subject of relationships in fiction. Specifically, we were talking about romantic relationships in writing and all the ways it seems to be done wrong, and all the ways we longed to see it portrayed.

So here I am, talking about relationships in fiction and all my many weird opinions about it.

First off, I'm just going to ignore how relationships work in our society at the moment because that's what I want to do. But I will just say that for all the fascination we have with human relationships in our writing we should really as an entire universe learn to depict it better.



Thought One: 

So many books now completely butcher the idea of romance (my friend pointed out Twilight as the obvious famous literary culprit). The characters in the stories, which tend to be ridiculously popular and read, have absolutely terrible relationships. These relationships range from obsessive to abusive, and I can't really think of a single good, healthy, pious example of a romantic relationship in mainstream fiction.

The Twilight characters, which are quite typical for characters nowadays, have a notoriously bad relationship. It is abusive, and I'm not even going to bother listing the factors that make it abusive because you can just Google it and find out yourself, easy peasy.

Twilight is also a great example of lustful relationships, overly obsessive relationships, and sort of boringly written relationships. The characters have a very bad habit of looking over each other's faults.

The really terrible part about fiction showing this junk positively is young people are learning to accept and even want that kind of relationship.Let me just say right off the bat: NO. DO NOT WANT.


Thought Two:

Romance is something that seems to be very poorly handled in general-- poorly plotted, poorly developed, and just generally all-around poorly written. Even romantic subplots are boring and house dull characters.

I personally feel like romantic relationships could be much better written if they were character driven rather than plot driven. (Goes without saying that if you are writing something like Dirk Pitt or something you should just ignore this advice, and probably all advice on this blog, because if you are writing Dirk Pitt it means you are writing full on action with no time for real character development. That's okay. You can give your books to my sister, she loves that stuff.)

I digress.

Most of the romance I see (and have written, ugh) is not really character driven. I have characters, they have to fall in love within a certain period, they have to follow this sort of vague plot... yeah. Pretty much 100% of my romantic relationships. Shoot me now.

Also like 90% of all the romantic relationships I have ever read.



Thought Two Part Two: 

Let us think for a moment about human relationships without romance: how a character meets, becomes friends (or not-friends), and how they interact all rests on the individual characters' personalities, habits, backgrounds, speaking style, etc.

Now let us ponder all the aspects of a healthy awesome character: they have a certain personality, certain thoughts, ways of expressing themselves, beliefs, families, friends, general lives.

Now romantic relationships, keeping these things in mind: two characters, who have individual personalities, habits, backgrounds, and modes of expression, meet and decide to form a relationship, which is either immediately or eventually romantic in nature.

So okay. Basically what I'm saying is that your characters need to actually... you know... be characters.

Or, to put it a totally different sort of way, your characters should not exist for the sole purpose of being in love with each other. They are individual characters first, lovers second.

Put it a third way: CHARACTERS ARE SO COOL GUYS

LET'S MAKE CHARACTERS

AND THEN SHIP THEM

Because the problem with writing the romance first and the characters second is that the characters will never be allowed to develop outside the story. If they can't do that, then it will be so hard to make them seem like anything more than two little cardboard cutouts with no lives and no chemistry.

(PS. This was hard to write, because this is basically me hitting myself over the head. Totally preaching to myself on this one.)


END PART ONE OF THIS POST (part two coming like Saturday or something)

character design: graphic novels vs. novels

(First off: I never claim to be an expert on stuff like this, because I am in fact the opposite of an expert.)

(Secondly, this will be illustrated with a lot of random character design sketches for one of my graphic novel characters, a short and very baby-faced twelve-year old boy named Orwell. Stuff to know about him: he's a pompous little grouch and I am really, really bad at drawing him.)

(he's the shortest one. he's also the baby of the family.)

So, today I will be blathering on about two things very dear to my heart: graphic novels and character design.

You definitely already have some idea of what character design is, because you aren't dumb. I trust you guys. I like to think I, too, am similarly not dumb, but literally every single time I begin drawing a character my brain goes: "WHOA WHAT IS THIS??? CHARACTERS? PEoPLE? DESIGHNSHAAAAAAA!"

I mean, that's... pretty ordinary... for my brain... but anyways.

Probably one of the weirdest things about creating this comic (and FYI everything about creating the comic is one of the weirdest things) has been the difference in how things are important.

Like, here's a (subjective) list of what isn't of supreme importance when you're explaining what your character looks like in a novel:

• clothing
• hair color, eye color, and colors in general
• exact height and weight, and how that compares to every other character
• most fact-y stuff in general 

And here's a (subjective) list of what is exceedingly important for you to know when you draw a character in a graphic novel type setting:

• clothing
• hair color, eye color, and colors in general
• exact height and weight, and how that compares to every other character
• most fact-y stuff in general

 (Pro tip: I totally just copied and pasted the "stuff that isn't important in writing" list.)

I'm not saying that I think knowing all that facts-y information-y stuff is useless for you to know when you write your novel. Far from it. But when you write a novel it isn't important for your readers to know that your character is 6'5" tall, 235 pounds, brown hair dip-dyed with black tips, green eyes, always wears jeans, and is about seven inches taller than his sister. I mean, sure, some of that information is pretty important or interesting but nobody is actually going to remember the exact numbers. (I dare you to minimize your browzer right now and try to remember that whole description. I dare you.)

Seriously. 6'5"? Who cares? Even I don't really care, I couldn't remember the number and had to look it up in my handy-dandy character file. A hulking giant of a teenager with hands the size of dinner plates and hair that looks like it was cut with a weedwhacker is, in my laughably non-professional opinion, way more interesting.

(And yeah, I just used one of my own characters as an example. I'm so sorry. I try not to do that.)

I think probably my favorite rule when describing characters in writing is this: first describe their most interesting features, and later add factual information in a way that makes it important.

(Am I good at this? HaHAHAAHAHAHAaa no)

Not so with graphic novels. With art, you aren't going to be seeing any numbers and descriptions at all, so for the artist to know what they're doing in the whole height/weight/hair color thing is exceedingly important.

Also, yeah, my pet peeve when it comes to describing characters: detailed descriptions of clothing. I don't mind if somebody mentions in passing what their character is wearing, but I see so many people who describe their characters' clothing in minute detail. That kills me a little bit inside. Clothing is very rarely actually important to plot or characterization, and paragraphs devoted to the colors and patterns of a character's shirt just... it just sort of hurts me.

But that's just me.

And actually, clothing is very important from a visual standpoint, and is thus very very important in the character design of a graphic novel character (which, by the way, is why there are like a billion drawings of clothing design in this blog post. Sheesh, so many clothes).

(Colors are also very, very important in graphic novels, because colors are one of the central aspects of artistic composition. You don't use the same sort of artistic composition in novel writing, so they're pretty much completely unnecessary. I mean, I think it might be nice for you to describe your character's hair color (because we are visual creatures and colors are important to us), but if you don't mind me going back to this angry rant, I'd be much more interested in a big muscular girl with a smooshed nose that in a girl with a blond wedge-cut and green eyes.

Let me attempt to further clarify what I am thinking. (Ugh the amount of times I use that sentence is alarming.)

When you read any story, you are most likely planning to develop a relationship with the characters. It's really hard to stick with a group of characters you don't care about, and I find that if I am reading something and I don't know anything about the characters when they are introduced, I don't keep reading.

Novels are all made out of words. Appearance isn't going to capture our interest immediately, (unless there are special circumstances), so I'd say my best bet while writing is to give each character a distinct personality the second they are introduced and leave their appearance until later.

Graphic novels are opposite: they're mostly constructed with pictures, so the very first glimpse you're going to get of every character is one of their physical appearance. In the typical format of a graphic novel, it is very very hard to actually let every character demonstrate their actual personalities right away. You have to make sure your readers are interested in your characters based on their appearance alone.

Notice: All character designs really are completely about personality. The design you show in a novel must absolutely develop the character further. The design in a graphic novel must absolutely develop the character further.

I don't know, I probably have way more to say, but I'm so disorganized that it totally doesn't matter.

Basically: Everything you share about your character needs to develop him in the medium you are using. You're only going to have a few thousand words to share entire lives and words: make them count.

Maybe I'll post some design forms or something? Nah, I have no idea. I'll just end the post here while I still have a tiny bit of dignity left. (My posts are completely made up of word salad, have you noticed?)

(Also, I may be terrible at drawing Orwell, but he is really fun to draw.)

The House Game: what it is and why it is awesome.

I'm a character nut. There, I said it, the end.

I tend to get really excited about things in general, and since I'm super addicted to my characters sometimes I just have to talk about them for five hours straight. It is little surprise that I have no friends.

Okay, actually I have one friend. We haven't lived in the same state for several years now, but she never seems to mind me talking to her for hours and hours and hours about how thick X character's eyelashes are. I love her. She's the best.

Anyways, last year I invented this game which I creatively called "the House Game". It requires two people-- one to describe a house in minute detail, the other to guess things about the person or people who live there.

Guidelines:

• Pick a character.
• Describe their house/living space in detail, but not telling anything in particular about the people who live there. (like, not how many people live there or the genders or anything.) 
• Give this description to a friend
• Cruelly force them to describe who they think would live there. Preferably in detail.

Here's a round I played with my very lovely friend (who, by the way, always lets me do the house describing). This also happens to be the very first round we ever played.

(picture taken from my guest article on the blog Nevermore November)

My description: a little single-wide trailer with a porch, with a small back yard where there’s a sizable vegetable garden. The inside of the trailer is cramped and cluttered with books, notebooks, cups of pens, and random weird knick-knacks from around the world. there are rugs of different sizes and textures all over the floor, along with a love seat and a small wing-backed armchair. the porch has two mismatched plastic lawn chairs, a cigarette pan set on top of a wooden produce crate, a really weather-beaten rug, and tons of hanging plant baskets and window boxes tomatoes hanging over the railings. there’s an enormous, stereotypical hippie VW van with bumper stickers parked outside. there are two pairs of rain boots on the bottom step to the porch.

My friend’s interpretation: A little white trash, kind of earthy and hippieish; vegetarian; someone who travels a lot and can’t throw anything away; there are two pairs of boots, so there are two people. I like to think it is a mother and child. The daddy left them, and the mother is kind of flighty. The kid is about six or seven, a girl. They’re always on the road, going somewhere and doing something cool and having adventures and making the best out of things; they sell a lot of things at the farmer’s market;


Okay, I won't tell you what my friend got right here: suffice it to say that most of it was right. (in fact, she only got two facts wrong. TWO FACTS. TWO!)


Now that I have laid out the rules of this little game, let me rant for a minute about why I absolutely adore it.


Reason #1: Descriptive Writing

I have never really been a descriptive writer. If anything, I suffer from "this is what happened the end" syndrome, without giving any thought to settings or other descriptive... stuff.

I always kind of thought descriptive writing was sort of boring and dumb. Writing these houses gave me a different perspective on that.


I write about them with such a specific image in mind. I know everything about the people who live there. I know their names and how they dress and what they eat, and I know everything that ever happened to them. (Reminder: I am a character nut.)

Picking and choosing what details to incorporate into the paragraph is weird. I pick the stuff that feels right to me-- I've found things tend to work out best that way. I keep it all factual. And, as my person eloquently put it, the house description should work like a word problem: everything that is said is important and helps you figure out something you need to know. No clutter. You should be able to easily pick out the information you need and solve the problem.

I'm not there yet (ha. sigh.) but I think that is a very interesting and good way to look at descriptive writing, and the House Game has been helping me learn how to do it.


Reason #2: You Get Heaps of New Info

When my person and I play the game, she's pretty amazing. She gets an incredible amount of very specific information right. On the one hand, it is fascinating to see that. I've watched in awe as she's accurately figured out things like "teenage child, lives with father, parents divorced" and "currently works in blue-collar job but has always wished for a literary career" and "one of them is a werewolf". It's really fun and kind of validating when she gets stuff right.

But sometimes things are wrong, and that's possibly even more interesting. Sometimes she gets the relationships just a little bit backwards, and character roles get flipped. That's still fascinating because she still gets the relationship mostly right. Every now and then she gets something completely wrong, although that is quite rare. I love seeing how she messes up, because you can really see how with the information that I added one would draw certain (wrong) conclusions.

It raises questions that I hadn't thought to ask. Things are worded in a way I hadn't thought about before, and gives me insight in my own head. It's a little bit like getting a second opinion.


That's all I wanted to say.

If anybody wants to give me their house descriptions, I'd be happy to try to guess stuff. (I'm really bad at guessing, but hey! I'm free!)

angry rant about "ugly" characters

Writers are always reminding other writers that is is okay, even encouraged, to make your main characters unattractive.  I must admit, I have never had a particular problem making my characters go outside the realms of my idea of attractiveness: my first actual story had a cast of characters who were kind of misfits:

• A big-boned, muscular girl with a smooshed nose (I think the smooshed nose was probably the most described feature in the entire cast),
• a very pretty girl with quite terrible clothing,
• a very overweight boy with dirty hair and a smile that showed all of his teeth and gums,
• a tiny pipsqueak of a kid with a lisp and a mouth full of braces and rubber bands (he was always, always described as being incredibly ugly, although I apparently never said why),
• and an absolutely gorgeous guy who always looked unpleasant, and who was often called snot-nosed by the main character, who despised him.

So, yeah. I loved these guys. They were the best.

But. Other people did not like these character descriptions, and did not hesitate to tell me so. In later versions of this story, I quietly left things out instead of having fun and writing it the way I wanted to. Snot-nosed gorgeous guy stayed exactly the same, because he was pretty enough to get away with bad expressions. Pretty girl with bad clothing stayed the way she was for the same reason. The others became:

• blond girl
• boy with goofy smile
• small boy with braces

It kind of made me lonely, because a blond girl is so much less interesting than a hefty strong girl with manly shoulders who complains about her ridiculous smooshed nose and teases other kids for having dirty hair or ugly faces. I was friends with Smooshed Nose. Blond Hair just wasn't the same.

At any rate, long after sending this story to the scrap pile, I still think about this little gang of misfits, and the people who didn't like reading about ordinary looking people. It took me some time, but I've gone back to my (annoying to other people but enjoyable to myself) method of insulting my characters' appearance at every turn.

People (mostly my siblings) still rib me upon occasion about this, but I do not care. If they don't want to read about a fourteen-year-old who looks like a homeless flower-child Cupid, then they don't have to read it. I'm not going to reduce him to merely the color of his hair. The end.