Heroes

A while back, I had a poll up called "What's your favorite element of a story?" The answers varied: Characters, writing quality, setting, plot. Whatever you picked/would pick, my favorite will ever remain...


characters!

Characters make the book. Bad characters ruin the story for me. I mean, if they're not great, what's to keep me from putting down the book? (not much.) I am CONSTANTLY, and I will repeat, CONSTANTLY spouting my favorite character quotes. Bad plot? The characters can suffice. Bad setting? Bloom where you're planted. Bad writing quality? Well, there's really not much you can do about that. If the quality is bad, chances are the characters will be, too.

Heroes. What do you think of when you read that word? Some King Arthur type MC dressed in shining battle, swinging a sword? A naive peasant boy who discovers he's really the air to Such-and-Such and he's the only one who can save the kingdom from total annihalation? (sp?)

Heroes aren't what they used to be. Instead we're supposed to be content to settle with the perfect, sparkly, impossibly handsome guys like Edward Cullen (and for the record, he's really not cute). Whoa, perfect? Whoever said that was okay for a character? Don't get me started, as I feel very strongly on this subject. I have a post about it, "I tried to be perfect" here and another called "What Happened to the Heroes?" right here.

Nobody here on this earth can relate to a book character who's perfect. If the character is perfect at the beginning of the story, where will he be at the end? Oh, right. He'll be exactly where he started. Stagnant. Similiar to pond water in that he doesn't move, he can't make mistakes, and he can't learn.

Chivalrous? Oh no, we couldn't possibly have our hero be chivalrous. We couldn't possibly have him be a gentleman to the girls. That would be, like, weird. And it's out of the question that our heroines could actually be respectful and loving of the guys. The hero shouldn't save the girl; she can totally handle this on her own. She can spew disrespectful remarks in the face of the guy and he's supposed to just be cool with that.

Heroes aren't being chivlarous because heroines aren't being respectful.

He's more than just a plaything. The hero is more than someone to just toss when the heroine is finished with him. "Thanks, but I don't need your help. I got it covered." Can't we see some plain, old-fashioned decency on both ends of the spectrum? What happened to the Knights of the Round Table?

The waterworks. Right now I'm listening to Praise You in This Storm by Casting Crowns, and it's brought something to mind. Do our heroes always have to be rock-solid and emotionless? Would it be so bad for the heroes to shed some tears, too? Isn't that what's real? Or would that just be an insult to their honor?


Alright. I think I got it covered. If I left anything out, just tell me!

Next post--my favorite heroes. And then...heroines.

Oh, and by the way--I've started a book review blog! Go check out Today Was a Fairytale! I love my followers and I ADORE your comments!!!

I tried to be perfect...

Perfect characters.

Oh, what are we to do about them?

Take a peek at these at these lyrics from the song Pieces by Sum 41:

I tried to be perfect
But nothing was worth it
I don’t believe it makes me real
I thought it’d be easy
But no one believes me

Read the third line again.

I don't believe it makes me real.

I have stated at least once on this blog how much I HATE perfect story characters. Let me explain to you why...

1. They aren't real.

Real people have faults. Real people will make mistakes and mess up, and that's part of life. That's happened since the garden of Eden. Since there's no such thing as a perfect person, except for Jesus, we can't relate to them. They are unreal, lofty, and not at all realistic.

2. Jesus was the only perfect person.

Yes, it is our goal in life to try to become more like Jesus every day, but we are not perfect people, and neither are our characters. It kinda strikes me as a mockery to have a perfect character when Jesus is/was the only perfect human being.

3. Perfect characters are not well-written.

Unless your favorite book is Twilight (and it's probably not), take a look at your favorite character. Most likely they're very well-written and complex. And where does the complexity come from? Faults. Quirks. Little things about them that make them different. They are well-written because of their humanness.

4. Perfect characters are flat.

This relates to what I wrote above. Faults, mistakes, are what make us human; they are what make our characters human. When you have a perfect character, there is no room to go, no room to expand on them. They are just THERE and they do no growing. This quote from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde illustrates my point perfectly.

Jack: Might I say, you look quite perfect today, Miss Fairfax.
Gwendolen: Oh, I hope I am not that, Mr. Worthing. That would leave no room for development, and I intend to develop in many different directions.

Coming back to what I said first:

5. I don't believe it makes me real.

And it doesn't.


Don't forget to enter 30,000 Words in 30 Days; you have until June 1st! See the previous post for details.

So go make those characters real, my writing buddies!

What happened to the heroes?

Last night, Paige and I were talking about how, in books, what has happened to the heroes? The main guy characters who are like the knights in shining armor, the ones who don't get made fun of (that seems to happen a lot in TV shows), and the ones who make a difference. That makes me think of characters like Dick Grahame from The Sherwood Ring and Geoffrey from A Murder For Her Majesty. It seems to me there's a lot of books being written that are just sugar. If they were a kind of candy, they'd be a pixie stix. They taste good, but they have no substance.

In my books (i hope!) I try to create strong male and female characters. I don't want the girls to be nasty, too stubborn, and controlling, but I want them to have spirit. My guys shouldn't be cowards, made out to be stupid, and basically just punching bags for the girls. That isn't to say that the girls can't be stubborn; or that the guys aren't nervous going into battle, because that's what makes them human-- and I think another reason that the heroes don't seem to be heroes anymore is because they're becoming way too un-human. Isn't that what we love about our favorite book characters? Their weaknesses. Their downfalls. After all, a perfect book hero is an uninteresting book heroes. They become interesting when they become human; that's who I hope I created with Julian in one of my books, Cymbeline. He's vain; he's stubborn; but he's also brave and selfless and would put his own life in danger to save Finna. Do I understand what I mean? I think we're losing the real heroes to guys like Edward in Twilight.

I was just listening to The Saltwater Room by Owl City. I love his songs; a lot of them are romantic, but they're really sweet, not angsty. Maybe that's another point I'm trying to prove:). Sometimes it's nice to have clean love songs, without worrying about what they're going to say next.

I'm going to compile a list of the heroes I think are the most real-- the ones have weaknesses, strengths, who are really human and therefore more lovable.

Finn, Razo, and Geric from the Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale
Dick Grahame, Pat Thorn, and Peaceable Sherwood from the Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Jacob Grimm from The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
Percy Jackson from Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Artemis Fowl from... guess where... Artemis Fowl! by Eoin Colfer
Geoffrey and Orlando from A Murder for Her Majesty by Beth Hilgartner
Sheftu from Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw
Johnny Tremain from Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
This one is for Paige-- Gen from the Attolia books by Megan Whalen Turner
Howl Pendragon from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I'm sure there's a few I'm missing... but that's all I got for now. Have fun, keep writing, and make those characters real!