First off, please, please, please forgive my absence. The holiday season has hit and that's thrown my entire blogging schedule off. I actually meant to do it yesterday. Apparently that got me nowhere. I'm going to work on getting it in for most of the week, though, so stay tuned!
So I've covered some of the usual topics such as what your character loves. But I know that we all have those days where you just sit down and think, "Now what could I do to make so-and-so's life worse?"
Just as everyone loves something, everyone hates something. No matter how convinced you are of being invincible, you're going to be scared of at least one thing.
Like no longer being invincible anymore.
Maybe it's not something so simple. Maybe it's more complex, like Garth. Garth had no power as a child when he was beat and tortured. Now that he has power, wouldn't you think that he'd be terrified of losing it?
Like so, things in our past upset us--make us leery of them for the rest of our lives. While it could be something so simple as becoming sick of chocolate because you just so happened to eat a chocolate bunny before catching the flu, it could be something big like a near death experience.
Or watching someone else nearly die.
Some characters might try to hide their fear from you and everyone else, but it's there. No one's fearless. And no one's loveless. There are always ways to make things worse on them. If you really want to reach a new degree of evilness, combine the character's love and hate.
Love/hate relationships? What if your character's family was killed by that country, but the woman he loves happens to be from there and strongly loves her homeland?
Or what if you take his/her love away with what he hates? What if the ocean terrifies your character? What if what they love is taken away by the waves?
There are plenty of other ways to get creative with this. Even if you're not looking to cause your character more pain, it's a good thing to keep in mind that they have things they hate or are terrified of.
-K.G.
Of course I forgive you. I understand completely.
ReplyDeleteI seriously don't understand you people loving to torture your characters, though...
Conflict, my dear. Conflict. Characters have to have problems to face. It touches the reader the more it hurts the character, and it often causes the character to learn more. Believe me, torturing isn't always fun. It mainly is if you're mad at the character. Mainly, if you do it, there should be a viable purpose behind it. Like, if this wasn't taken, you'd never learn to move past your problems.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know. But ya'll talk about how much fun it is all the time.......
DeleteAhh another epic post Kels! I forget sometimes the things my charries are afraid of, this helped remind me to keep that in perspective. Glad to see another of your posts! (I still want to talk to Freon some time soon, don't forget) :P
ReplyDelete