I had a writing epiphany yesterday, and like most of my writing epiphanies, it’s something relatively basic I just never took the time to think about until now.
It started as I was struggling over a new chapter in my circus book. The MC has (almost) hit rock-bottom, having recently screwed a number of things up in her life and learned some things about her past that she didn’t like. Now she needs to go obtain a piece of information that will progress the external plot to the next stage. The information is in the spaceship recycling system, which happens to be inhabited by Something Alien. My initial thought was “Oh, she can fight it”, because this MC’s primary strengths are her bravery and physical abilities. To reduce things to gaming terminology, if Fortunata was a bard (strong in words and wits) and Prunella was a mage (strong in magic and knowledge), then Trix is a warrior (hit it! hit it again!).
The problem is, I myself find just hitting/shooting things boring most of the time. There needs to be something critical and meaningful at stake, or there needs to be witty banter, or it needs to be spectacularly beautiful (which generally means it has to be a movie/tv show – I do love a good kung fu movie!). Otherwise, the story takes on a certain video-game quality: Fight X, get Y, Fight Z, Advance to level Q.
Looking back to my last two writing projects, I realized how fun it was to set challenges in front of the main characters, because they couldn’t just fight their way through them. They had to be clever and think outside the box, and sometimes they failed, but they kept trying. Their limitations were as inspiring as their strengths.
And that’s when I had my epiphany: I need to throw some things at Trix that don’t play to her strengths. Giving her something to beat up is too easy. I need to confront her with something that targets her weaknesses. As soon as I thought that, the whole scene started outlining itself in my brain.
What about you guys? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your favorite characters? And if you’re a writer, how do you balance strengths and weaknesses of your characters?
Tags: circus galacticus, writing
