(no subject)
Jul. 17th, 2005 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyI have this problem in my writing. My characters are too nice and too accepting. They HELP each other, and never mind boggling at a camel--they'll cheerfully swallow a whole menagerie.
I correct for this by deliberately writing difficult characters, prickly characters, mulish, intractable, rebarbative characters.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala says all my secondary characters are assholes, and she's really not wrong. But if I stop paying attention--if, for example, I'm trying to FINISH THE GODDAMNED BOOK ALREADY--I backslide. My editor says the end of The Virtu happens too quickly and too easily, and she's really not wrong, either.
The line of demarcation is quite appallingly clear. The end of Chapter 10, we're all arguing and scheming against each other and saying catty things. The beginning of Chapter 11, suddenly everybody's taking their Prozac and skipping hand in hand through fields of flowers like Maria and Heidi. And while this is all lovely and heart-warming, it's also WRONG, and I have to fix it.
And I have no idea how. I've been staring, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, at the beginning of Chapter 11 for three days. Be mean to each other! I say to my characters, and they look at me in bewilderment and say, But we don't want to. Look--we've grown as people! Isn't it wonderful?
Wonderful, I agree, my teeth gritted. Now cut it out and revert to form.
And they start to sing "The Sound of Music."
Maybe it's time to start listening to Depeche Mode again.
I correct for this by deliberately writing difficult characters, prickly characters, mulish, intractable, rebarbative characters.
matociquala says all my secondary characters are assholes, and she's really not wrong. But if I stop paying attention--if, for example, I'm trying to FINISH THE GODDAMNED BOOK ALREADY--I backslide. My editor says the end of The Virtu happens too quickly and too easily, and she's really not wrong, either.The line of demarcation is quite appallingly clear. The end of Chapter 10, we're all arguing and scheming against each other and saying catty things. The beginning of Chapter 11, suddenly everybody's taking their Prozac and skipping hand in hand through fields of flowers like Maria and Heidi. And while this is all lovely and heart-warming, it's also WRONG, and I have to fix it.
And I have no idea how. I've been staring, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, at the beginning of Chapter 11 for three days. Be mean to each other! I say to my characters, and they look at me in bewilderment and say, But we don't want to. Look--we've grown as people! Isn't it wonderful?
Wonderful, I agree, my teeth gritted. Now cut it out and revert to form.
And they start to sing "The Sound of Music."
Maybe it's time to start listening to Depeche Mode again.
