I recently acquired a fabulous audio book called Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. I love it for two reasons: The first is that the author’s soothing voice never fails to lull my kids to sleep at naptime, but also it has a TON of fabulous principles that can be applied equally well to those of us who write books as well as screenplays.
One of those principles has to do with the importance of a writer loving their characters. Makes sense, right? He points out that sometimes you can really tell that a writer hated a particular character when they write it, and that’s no good. “Absolutely,” I murmured, as my head bounced in agreement like one of those bobble-head dolls. “Why would you write a character you don’t like?”And then one day I am reading critique notes from a fellow writer on a novel I had written. “Your protagonist is dull,” he tells me. WHAT?? Why I never… Oh, but wait a minute. He’s right. All along I had known that there was a little something missing from the character and I couldn’t put my finger on what, but that was it: I didn’t like him.
OMG!! How did I not realize that??? And as Robert McKee said, why did I create him if I didn’t? Well I think the answer lies in the big mistake that a lot of rookie writers make. I created a character in my own image. Not entirely, of course (he’s a vampire for crying out loud, whereas I routinely enjoy sunlight), but many of the things I didn’t like about him were things I didn’t like about myself and I wasn’t really giving him the respect of his own personality. Moreover, I felt pity toward the guy. So I wasn’t willing to torture him sufficiently to give her story the tension it needed.
