Monday, September 20, 2010
Characters
Characters need to be put at risk and they need to risk things to keep the reader involved. I’ve said before that you have to be cruel to your characters, make bad things happen to them, which will delight your reader or at least fascinate them (who can’t help looking at a train wreck?). But I would add that these bad things often come out of the characters’ acts. The characters’ mistakes are part of what keep us involved in her story.
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4 comments:
Hm, this just made me think about my current revision a little differently. Thanks for the reminder!
Thanks, Anna.
One of my favorite authors is Tim Powers and he's notorious for putting his characters through the proverbial wringer. They lose body parts. LOL I've always felt that if your characters wouldn't loathe you in real life - perhaps try to kill you if they met you - you've been too kind. ;D
That's hilarious. I'll have to check out Tim Powers.
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