TERRIBLEMINDS: Chuck Wendig, Freelance Penmonkey

Hateful Avatars: How (Not) To Create Characters

Every story I write, I have this one character I use. Sometimes I call him Pete Smith. Sometimes, Pete Jones. Once in a while, I mistype his name without the ‘t’ and he’s just “Pee Smith” or “Pee Jones.” Whatever. Who gives a shit? He plays the guitar and he surfs and he’s fast with a shotgun, and he’s always killing zombies and banging ladies. I know how every goddamn hair on his head lays. He’s got a fear of… I don’t even know, manta rays or something, I forget. I make it up as I go. He doesn’t have any weaknesses. He’s super-strong. He’s super-smart. His fist could punch God to death. He’s the same dude in every book. Victorian romance? Modern tragicomedy? Splatterpunk? Cyberpunk? Steampunk? Donkeypunk? Same damn dude with the same damn leather jacket and the same cool catchphrases.

You know why?

Because characters are totally overrated. Oh, I know what you’re saying: “Buh-buh-buh! Characters are the whole point of the story! A good story means nothing if translated through bad characters! A character is luh-luh-like a vehicle that carries the reader through the stuh-stuh-story, and that vehicle has to be –”

Let me stop you. I have already faded out. Curtain’s closed. I’m asleep. Stop with all that prattling and mewling already. I mean, really. You’re like a keening banshee over there. Quit it. You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.

Listen. Characters don’t matter. Cool plots about space dragons matter. Bad-ass descriptions about those particular space dragons matter. Don’t worry about character. Worry about using shit-tons of exclamation points. That’s what gets readers excited. That and big fonts. Like, what’s that one that everybody likes? Comic Sans. That’s it. That’s the one.

So, you wanna know how (ahemcoughcoughNOTwheeze) to create characters? Gotcha covered, faithful Terribleminds readers.

Step 1: Choose A Retarded Name

That old question asks, “What’s in a name?” The answer: not a goddamn thing. Names are dumb. They’re like buttholes: everybody has one, and they all stink of weeks-old Indian food. Don’t spend a lot of time on a name. Just make one up. Don’t think about it. Look, I’m gonna make up three right here that you can use anytime you want, free of charge: Damien Knobcocksmansworth, Freebird Wiznewski, and Jane Janeson. Done! Right there, three characters for your .44 Magnum Opus. Boom. Wuzza? You want three more? You greedy squirrels. Fine! Here goes: Bill William Billytown, Big Chief Secretary Doublenuts, and Codpiece Johnson.

Trust me, names don’t matter. Sure, sure, a reader has to see that name over and over again, but the reader’s needs pale in the shadow of your tremendous demands as a writer. Spend zero time on a name. A name shouldn’t ever reflect the character. And it shouldn’t ever feel appropriate to the genre. Alien dude on an alien world? Name him like, I dunno, Tom Smith. Have yourself a character in a Charlotte Bronte-style period piece? Go with… I dunno, off the top of my head… Chun Li. Or Chewbacca. Or even Canon XSi Rebel.

Okay, I maybe pulled that one off of my camera label, but so what? You can do that. I had one character named Toshiba Laptop. He was the best.

Step 2: Arcs Are For Geometry, Lightning, And Animals… Not Characters

I used to do this thing where I would plot two or three points for a character on his so-called “character arc.” You know, Character starts at Point A (Adoring Mother), ends on Point B (Vengeful Sociopath).

What a dumb thing that was. I got no payoff. Do I look like a bestselling author to you? Exactly. So, I threw that garbage out of a moving car and got on with my life. My advice to you is, fuck the character arc right in its flared pretentious nostrils. We don’t want our characters to change. We damn sure don’t want them to grow. What are they, vegetables? You know what grows? Carcinomas. Skin cancer. That’s right, I said it. The character arc is just like skin cancer. It’s a plague on our flesh.

The best characters are unchanging. Like, say, a wall. A wall is cool, right? Holds up the house. Is made of awesome bricks and shit. Can be used to bounce a basketball off of — or even, I mean, I feel crazy for suggesting this — a tennis ball.

Step 3: “Trait” Rhymes With “Hate.” It Does. I Looked It Up.

Another thing I used to do? And oh boy, is this one dumb. I used to list three to five traits or themes associated with a character, and then I’d go through a draft on every pass and highlight those areas where I was emphasizing a trait or theme of that character to make sure I had coverage and was firing on all cylinders.

Stupid move, Wendig. Stupid move. That took me like, hours to do. Characters possess whatever traits you want them to have whenever you want them to have them. Just make it up, man! This isn’t rocket science. It’s freewheeling creative writing. You can pull some sick stunts. Suddenly, Freebird Wiznewski can pick locks and kick holes through dragon hearts and romance the ladies and emphasize the theme that love bites, love bleeds, it’s bringing me to my knees. Right? Right.

Step 4: The Only Motivation Is The Motivation To Be Fucking Awesome

Someone once said that that characters comprise two key things — wants and fears — and that the story is about what blocks those wants and incurs those fears. I forget who said it. A writing professor, maybe? Probably a hobo. I’m betting a hobo. A schizophrenic hobo, and you’ll find no less trustworthy a hobo.

Point is, the only thing a character needs to want is the same thing that you as a writer want: to be blindingly awesome. In fact, most characters don’t even need to want this anymore, because if you play your cards right, they already are awesome.

Step 5: The Only Fear Is The Fear Of Sucking Open Ass

Same nonsense: wants, fears, snore. All your character wants is to be awesome, so all he is afraid of is not being awesome. That’s it. That’s a character in a nutshell. In fact, you ask me? I wouldn’t even make him afraid of that much. Fearless characters are all the rage. They shouldn’t have anything to lose. If they have things to lose and potent fears to share, you know what happens? The reader starts worrying. The reader’s all like, “Oh, man, I hope Toshiba Laptop is okay, I hope those ninjas don’t explode his girlfriend.” And suddenly, the reader grows troubled. He has to take Tums to calm his anxious diarrhea. He starts pulling his hair out in clumps, and because readers are all basically insane, he’ll start mailing you his clumps of hair. I’ve had it happen. Six times. Six separate occasions. Best thing you can do for your readers is to ensure that characters fear nothing and have nothing to lose. Recipe for success. Total tranquility. Zen shit.

Step 6: Convoluted Backstories? Yes, Please!

Look at your story this way: it’s just a nipple poking out of the water. The rest of the milky teat is hiding under the water. That nipple means nothing. The breast is everything. Way to handle this is to create the most complex, convoluted backstory for your characters as possible. Betrayals and love affairs and gnarly family trees and explosions and  legacy of alpaca farms — all kinds of bad-ass stuff. You want to reserve all this sweetness for before your actual story begins, because you don’t want to bog the tale down with all those damn details. (Remember, the Devil is in the details. And the Devil wants your anal virginity. And sacrifices. And he’ll give you a swirly in the boys’ bathroom.)

You want to get clear of those nasty details right of the gate, with only the occasional bone tossed toward the enigmatic labyrinth of your character’s backstory. “Holy crap! Why does he have a chinchilla tattooed to his inner thigh? Why are there three clones of his mother? Dear God, who is Codpiece Johnson?” So many good questions!

Don’t answer those questions. Let the reader be confused. A confused reader is like an old person. They’ll just keep stumbling forward with the promise of ice cream and answers, and you’ll give them neither. It’s the best approach. Keeps ‘em coming back for more.

Oh, and by sequestering all the juicy plot details to before the story even begins, you also lessen your workload. Bam. Now, more free time to play World of Age of Groghammer.

And trust me: this shit shouldn’t be work. It should be a breeze. No harder than napping.

Step 7: Spend At Least Seven Full Pages On Character Descriptions

One thing you do want in the draft is tireless physical descriptions of your character. How else are you going to prove how awesome he is — and, by proxy, how awesome you are — if you don’t spend seven or more pages doing just that? How many rivets on his leather jacket? Tell me about his pruned, perfect fingernails. What brand jeans does he wear? Describe the smell of his cologne blend (Stetson Black + CK1, bitches). And don’t forget, this can translate over into his living quarters, his motorcycle, his cat, everything. I’d say spend about seven pages on each.

In those descriptions, don’t be afraid of using lots of words. Lots of big words, too. Sesquipedalian. Pneumococcus. Horticulture. Encephalograph. Don’t hesitate to use “very” with great frequency. An advanced technique might be to use “totally, actually, really, totally” a few times as a “combo chain” worth tons of points. A super-crazy-holy-crap advanced technique would be to invent your own words right out of thin air.

So, an example might be something like:

“Big Chief Secretary Doublenuts was a very, very bad-ass horticulturist who wore Levi jeans with five-rivet pockets, and in those pockets he totally, actually, really, totally had a pair of psychoschizopotamus glands that encephelographed his rad awesomeness very, very much, again and again. And also, his hair was very black like a raven’s tailfeathers.”

That should go on for seven more pages.

Remember: character development is mostly for brain-damaged helper monkeys, but the one part that does matter is how cool he looks.

Step 8: Sameness Is Comforting!

I only put one character in my books, scripts and stories. It’s much better that way. The only other characters are the things Codpiece Johnson punches. Like sharks. Or flying attack guitars. Or armies of department store mannequins. But, hey, I get it. Your mileage may vary. You might have a different (read: weaker) approach, and that approach might be using multiple characters in a story.

Fine. I can accommodate that approach. Here’s the trick: you need to ensure that each character is roughly the same. Do not give them all kinds of precious, special traits. The nail that sticks up is the nail that gets hammered down. Same thing with characters. Or erections. We punish diversity in this world, and so it shall be in your fiction.

Here’s what’s going to happen. The reader is going to pick up your book, and he’ll be all like:

“Whoa, whoa, what? This author is a barking spiderbat! First, I’m introduced to this Bill William Billytown character, and he’s all cool and leather bejacketed, But now there’s this woman? A woman? Jane Janeson? She’s got blond hair to his black? What the hell is happening? Holy shit! I can’t keep track of all kinds of hair colors. I’m dizzy. I have the vapors. I need to lay down.”

You’ve gone and given the reader an aneurysm. Nice work, writer. Did you hear that? The reader has the vapors. That’s basically tuberculosis.

Next time you try to use all kinds of characters, make them as alike as possible. They should speak the same way. They should look the same. They should all be working toward the precise same goals without conflict. It’s like white bread and white rice. Easy on the stomach.

Step 9: Stereotypes? Don’t You Mean PureGoldeotypes?

We’ll keep this short, but remember — stereotypes exist for a reason, same as urban legends and religion: because it’s all true. The lone hero? The preening maiden? The Jew with gills? The black dude who eats caramel nut bread? The tampon-maker? The Kung Fu hipster? Archetypes are for prissy pretentious pissy-pants pussyboys. Stereotypes are where the men play. You want cool characters, you’ll clumsily reach into your sack of age-old tricks and haul out a few killer stereotypes. People relate to stereotypes. End of story.

Step 10: Lone Wolves And Chosen Ones Rule This Wasteland

Final point: lone wolves and chosen one characters are not at all played out. We need more of them. We liked Jesus, didn’t we? Jesus was a ronin. He was out there for forty days and forty nights all by his lonesome, punching sharks and flying guitars and department store mannequins all sent by the Devil. And we’ve already talked about the Devil. We know how evil he is.

Seriously, the coolest characters are all those who have no connections to other characters. If you could stick Wolverine, Neo, Rand al’Thor, and that jackass from Pokemon into a cup of Jesus Juice, you’d have the best character ever. We’ll call him Neoverine Ash’Thor. That shit will sell a fillion copies (a “fillion” is one million Nathan Fillions — and, in fact, Neoverine Ash’Thor will be played by Nathan Fillion in the TV-to-film-to-TV adaptation).

Conclusion

Characters are stupid. You should expend no effort on them, except when it’s to describe how cool they look fighting guitar sharks.

That is all. You may now go about your day, confident that I just upped your talent with a snap of my magical fingers. Snap. Bam. Done. Game over.

Posted in: The Ramble

Tags: Advice You Should Probably Ignore, Stuff About Writing

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 12:01 AM and is filed under The Ramble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.