Perfection

Rant Level: Medium

I’m not going to name names here or get too specific, but a while back I was reading a book where the main character, a teenage boy, wondering what made him so special to fight the forces of evil, and being told by another character just how good and kind and downright awesome he was, proven by the fact that even after someone being attacked, all he felt was pity for the person who tried to kill him. Annnnnnd I stopped reading.

Okay, I get it. He’s on the side of good. But does he really need to be the living embodiment of perfection, to the point where he’s so sickeningly sweet that I need insulin?

Perfect characters have always bugged me. I’m not talking about the ones that are super beautiful or super smart (although those kinds often overlap with this one). I mean the ones that are just so good and nice all the time and are never irrational or selfish or freaking human. Ever. They never hurt people or cause bad things to happen, except by accident, and of course if they did they would immediately jump to rectify the situation. And I hate them.

I see myself as impossibly imperfect. I do selfish things, on purpose, and I know they’re selfish, and I feel horribly guilty afterward, even if it’s nothing truly bad (like skipping a party because I’m feeling asocial). So, knowing all these imperfections I have, and realizing that, come on, at least most of the world is flawed like me, it bothers me to read about characters who are so. frigging. perfect. There’s nothing to relate to! I suppose they have “ideals” to aspire to, but that doesn’t make them a character. It makes them an unachievable dream.

Too often these days I’m seeing characters that fall into this trope—and worse, they seem to be popping up in YA as morality lessons for why you must always be good so good things will happen to you. I think those are really dangerous lessons to teach kids. One does not equal the other, the same way evil doesn’t always lead to bad things happening (just look at banks for a good example of this). And you know what? Sometimes you do have to be tough and mean or otherwise people will walk all over you, not instantly become your friend because you’re the paragon of niceness.

I know the satisfaction of reading books comes from seeing a world that has some sort of order to it, where evil is punished and the star-crossed lovers are happy and together forever. But there has to be struggle, there has to be sacrifice, there has to be growth. If a character doesn’t come out of a book different—not just traumatized by events, but actually and significantly changed—then the story was just a plot, the characters just tools. With a perfect character, there’s nowhere to go but down.

All right, maybe the rant level was more “high” than “medium”. Whatever. What do you think of perfect characters? What about flawed ones?

Nerds

I’m a nerd. Most of my friends, past and present, are nerds (or geeks, or whatever you want to call them). So I feel I’m at least somewhat versed in what makes up a nerd, and I’d like to make a few points based on what I often see nerds portrayed as in television, a few books, and, well, every form of media ever.

1. Not all nerds are unpopular.

Maybe it was just my high school, but several of the nerds I knew were fairly popular. They had a lot of friends, were well liked by even those outside their circles, and weren’t picked last for sports teams during gym class (that was always the freshmen). And things are a lot different as an adult, but the rule still applies. A nerd probably isn’t locked in his parents’ basement playing video games. He’s probably at work like anyone else.

2. In general, nerds are not socially inept.

Over the years, I’ve known several people who were socially awkward (myself included). Not all were nerds. In fact, most weren’t. The people I know who like comics, video games, and anime among other things aren’t the type to show up to a black-tie event wearing jeans and sneakers. It just means they like “nerdy” things.

3. Just because someone is ridiculously smart, doesn’t mean they’re a stereotypical nerd.

The valedictorian for my high school class was super smart, like straight A’s since middle school, perfect attendance, and tons of extra credit assignments. She was also a huge athlete and one of the most popular girls in school. She was one of those people who does everything and does it well, and no one held it against her because she was a really nice person. The next highest GPA belonged to a girl who was the same, minus being a big athlete, and plus being a hardcore party girl. These days, it’s pretty much the same. The smart look like everyone else. Where’s that in your TV nerds?

4. Most nerds don’t dress wacky.

Seriously, what is up with this trend? The women always have flamboyant hair and three-inch nails while the men are always wearing nerd glasses and miss-tucked shirts. I have never in my life met someone who dresses like that, not in high school and not now. Most of the nerds I know dress exactly like everyone else. Not that there aren’t people who dress to get attention. It’s just…that isn’t the calling sign of the nerd.

5. Not all nerds are bullied. Not all those bullied are nerds.

On TV and usually in books, high school nerds seem to be bullied all the time. But in my experience, not so much. The bullied were shy, awkward and bad socially, but not nerds in the traditional sense. Not that nerds weren’t made fun of for their tastes sometimes. However, that isn’t unique to nerds. Anyone who liked something that could potentially be made fun of was most definitely made fun of. It’s called High School.

Even More Characters That Need To Go Away

Yeah, another one of these because there’s supposed to be a hurricane and even if the chances of the power going out are remote, I like to be prepared and as such I’m posting something I’ve had lying around for a while. I’d hate for you to be left without my opinions for more than a day.

You know you love them.

So here are more characters I can live without:

The Detective that’s not even a cop

Now, this isn’t to impugn cozy mysteries, where the character probing a crime/strange goings on isn’t a detective. This is more the characters that go investigate crimes like they’re cops all the time. They ask questions, take evidence (even if they’re not qualified to and from what I gather, that creates a big stink during trial), and are always treated like they’re cops even though they’ve never gone through any of the training and years of experience that’s standard for becoming a detective. Either this has to stop or I’m going down to the police station and demanding they let me investigate crimes. I’m sure you’ll read about how that goes in the newspaper.

The Super Soldier

Usually it’s a man who is the amazing, ass-kicking, martial arts master with the reflexes of a cat on Adderall, but occasionally it’s a woman. Either way the character has drifted into cliché territory. Not every character has to be the best fighter to be interesting. You can—gasp—give them other traits that color their personality and make them actual people.

The Jerkass with a Heart of Gold

If a character is surly, rude, and pushes everyone away, you just know they’re going to turn out to be the good guy. I’ve seen this a little too much in YA romances, where the brooding, aloof male doesn’t get along with the female at first but once she catches him in an act of kindness they overcome their differences and fall in love. It’s basically PRIDE AND PREJUDICE except, I don’t know, maybe Darcy is a vampire this time.

The Amnesiac

From what I understand, amnesia where you totally forget everything about your life, name, family, whatever, is really rare. When it does happened, it’s usually not from a simple bump to the head but from a mix of psychological and physiological traumas. As with most things, I blame Hollywood for this.

That’s all for now. If you’re NaNoing right now...what are you doing reading this? Get back to work!

More Characters That Need to Go Away

A few months back, I did a post on what I think are the most annoying character types. It included the genius serial killer, the awkward genius, the jerk with the heart of gold and the beta guy who never gets the girl. And of course, I found more that just make me roll my eyes whenever I see them.

Genius Detective

I hate genius detectives so much. It’s like Sherlock Holmes worked as a character once and people have been trying for that same success. And failing. Miserably failing. Real police work is talking to people, analyzing their reactions, and gathering information, not walking into a crime scene and suddenly knowing how the killer’s mother wasn’t nice to him when he was little. Ninety percent of these genius detectives should have failed the psychological exam needed to enter the police force. Also annoying? When they aren’t even cops, yet get treated like them.

Out for Revenge

Another staple of crime fiction. Now, this isn’t referring to a Genius Serial Killer—that’s a whole different overused trope of its own. I mean the “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” kind Su mentioned last time, where the character is avenging the death of a loved-one (or more than one). Your Punishers, your Batmen, your millions of other comic book characters that got into superheroing because they lost family. They really do seem to mostly be in comics, like it’s automatic backstory for every single hero. It’s kind of ridiculous.

The Protector

I don’t think Protectors are always men, but they are always protecting women/girls. They’re the type who might not want to help the damsel in distress at first but is moved by her plight into taking up her cause. He (to be general) will end up in a faceoff with the Big Bad and will probably be hurt, but saved by the lady to show that, hey, she’s not so helpless after all. Just ugh.

The Gay Best Friend

Not because of the gay part. More because the gay best friend is always the catty, effeminate, promiscuous guy the main character (usually female) confides to when some unfortunate misunderstanding comes between him/her and the love interest and he might as well be a picture on a wall for all that he’s listened to. He has about as much depth as a picture, too. I hate romantic comedies so much.

The Action Girl

My current WIP is, for once, not Post-Apocalyptic. It’s just regular Apocalyptic. The main character is a seventeen year old named Cassidy and she’s only about seventy five percent sure she’ll live to see eighteen.

As I’ve been writing her story, one thing has become increasingly obvious about her: she’s not soft, not particularly nice at times and most of all, not girly. On a scale from Bella to Katniss, she’s definitely on the Katniss side of things, perhaps even more so. She doesn’t have a cute younger sister to take care of, either.

It makes me a little nervous. What if readers don’t connect with her? I totally think she’s awesome (well, for the most part; she has her problems, believe me) but I’m not buying the book. People might not like someone who stifles their emotions and can be cold and calculating. She may not be boring, but who wants to read about someone they don’t care about?

Still, I’m not going to drastically alter her personality since without it, pretty much nothing would happen. Cassidy is the driving force behind most of what happens because she is driven, fierce and she won’t sit around waiting for problems to solve themselves. I’d hate to lose any part of her.

 So what are your thoughts on the matter? Do you have any characters you’re worried people won’t empathize with?

The Top Four…

…Character Types I Don’t Want to See Anymore.

This was originally going to be five but I got lazy ran out of time before I could think up another one. Honestly, these four stink enough that it makes up its own fifth entry.

The Serial Killer Out For Revenge

This one has been done to boring, hackneyed death. Mostly it’s on television, but I’ve read more than a few books that have to beat this dead horse, too. He (because it’s always a male) is fixated on the main character, breaks out of jail and stalks him/her, is Hannibal-esque to varying degrees. It was probably done the worst in the Alex Cross novels, but then again nothing in those books resembles sense anyway. This trope is often done to give a Sherlock Holmes a Professor Moriarty as if it will somehow make the story interesting. Hint: it doesn’t work.

The Awkward Genius

This is something books rarely use but television almost always does. Because if someone is incredibly intelligent and adept at problem solving, then they obviously have no idea how to interact with people. Apparently social skills are the only thing about their brains that isn’tsupersized. They also have to be huge fans of Star Trek, Star Wars, and all manner of comic books. Intelligence does not equal isolation. I wish people would remember that.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold

Or basically, a guy (usually) who seems like a jerk but is actually misunderstood, usually by the heroine who ends up falling for him. There’s usually a flimsy excuse for his jerkass behavior, like a difficult childhood or the death of a loved one. These characters are so flat, they aren’t even two dimensional—yes, they only exist in the theoretical first dimension. True, there are examples of this being done well—Bruce Wayne in the Chris Nolan Batman movies, Sawyer from Lost—but a lot of times they just seem like excuses for a woman to “save” the heart and soul of a broken man.

The Beta Guy

You know, the Jacob, the Gale, the one who tries and fails to end up with the main female character. I dislike these characters for the same reason I dislike the Vengeful Serial Killer—they’re there to create something (in this case romantic/sexual tension). Granted, they can be fully fledged characters in their own right, but it always takes a backseat to the dreaded Love Triangle, leaving them underdeveloped and no one surprised when they fail to win the lady’s hand.

Any characterizations you’re sick of?

By Any Other Name

It’s always fun when you give a character a name that is absolutely perfect for him/her. You can always tell when an author puts effort into naming, too. One thing that always impresses me about THE HUNGER GAMES is how appropriate Katniss’s name is. The plant she was named for is commonly calledan arrowhead. I wonder how long it took Suzanne Collins to come up with it.

When I name a character, it’s usually pretty quick. Honestly, sometimes I choose names based on what’s on TV when I’m writing. I take a little more time when I’m picking a main character, but I don’t search for something steeped in meaning. I go with what feels right. I can tell I picked a good one if I don’t think about it anymore. I’ve changed names thirty pages into a draft because every time I typed it, my fingers stick on the keyboard.

What’s your opinion on character names? Do they have to be perfect for the character and the story? Or do you pick a name and go with it? What are your favorite character names and why? Is asking all these questions a total cop out to a real post?

For that last one, I’m thinking yes.