I Saw it Once -- A Big Pile of Shit

That's right, a huge, enormous pile of stinking shit that just flew through the fan and landed right smack in your lap. What am I talking about? Character in writing, and why most of the time its non-existent. Even I can't say I've got character in writing; just another scathing pile of mutated brown stuff thrown at you for your reading pleasure, and you'll devour it, say it’s good to my face, and then wander around back to puke your guts out. Leaves a rather sour taste in your mouth, don't it?

Nobody likes being force-fed random shit, but we do it all the time. In dueling and role playing, we write a lot, but for all the writing that we do, most of us just lack the knack of putting some character, some emotive force behind the words to actually get the audience to feel what we're trying to make those words on a page or screen to feel.

Character in writing is just that: to infer enough emotion and meaning within the words so that the reader takes something away from it, that they will feel and empathize with the words you've just regurgitated from your mind onto paper or screen, that there is personality behind it all. Sometimes we hit the nail on the head, we get it right, and the reader does feel what we intend for them to feel. But most often, we're just stuffing their face full of puked up words reminiscent of the brown stuff.

You can't get any more brutally honest than that, folks. You have to step back and look at your own writing from time to time. Is it doing what you want it to do? I can't say that my own writing evokes a sudden warmth from the reader for my rather 2D characters on the screen, but I hold out a bit of hope that they might cherish those characters as much as I do. But of course, with all those convergences of words, putting together the wrong combination will produce a bland, boring and unsightly mess. Grab a rag, kiddies, and clean off that screen. Gotta start the process all over again.

A thought, at least on my part, is that perhaps all this idea of character in writing is also a direct tie-in to style of writing. Perhaps, as it turns out, some styles are more conductive to producing the feeling within our readers that we want and giving them none of the bad-taste-in-mouth we're trying to shy away from.

So, where does it all end? Where do we find the proverbial character-in-writing ability? Where is the sacred chalice that will grant us the not-write-like-crap ability? Truth is, I don't know. I can't say I'll ever know, but what I can say is this: the only way to improve is to step back, grab a shovel, and see if we can't dig our way out of the mess we've made.

We're trying to convey emotions, character, meaning and substance--we're trying to achieve a truly 3D character, with personality and more. The moment you begin to lack that is the moment your writing starts browning over with growths we don't even want to consider. If you can pull off what you want to do with your writing, more power to you. But I'd rather not have to wade through five+ pages, or even a few paragraphs worth, of mindless banter. You might as well be throwing mud in my face. And let’s face it, nobody likes to eat shit, least of all me.

 

I have to actually throw out a thank you for this one, since it was Kiori Hayabsua who got me thinking on the subject. Kudos to him, even if I don't agree with his personality most of the time.

 

- W. Visarett