Lazy Advice R Us

I just stumbled across this in a blog . . . it's from someone who sells their services to improve manuscripts. The author shall remain anonymous because I'll soon make fun of them and don't want to get sued . . .

"If you are writing a book that has fictional characters, the reader should be able to connect to the characters on a personal level. Make the characters real and interesting, made [sic] good descriptions of them, bring them to life. You want a reader to feel like he/she is right there in the story interacting with the characters."

Okay, that's real nice, but how does one "make the characters real and interesting"? I mean, seriously. HOW DO YOU DO IT? How can you write a character in such a way that the reader connects with them on a personal level? How do you bring the reader into the story so they are "interacting with the characters"? Whatever that means.

Gadzooks. It's nice double-talk, but really. HOW DO YOU DO IT? Tell me, because I WANT TO KNOW.

This is the problem with most writing advice -- blather that is bland enough to the point of uselessness. The writer may even feel MORE lost because they think they've missed something everyone else, apparently, knows.

I also like the typo -- a great advert for a so-called "expert."

But wait . . . it gets better . . . (not really) . . .

"To help make a character, you could model them after someone you know. That makes the characters seem more real because you know what that person would do in a certain situation."

Oh my gosh, that is BRILLIANT. No one has EVER thought of that before. Give this "expert" a Pulitzer or something.

The truth is, I could write about my wife all day long, and still make it as boring as oatmeal because I don't know how to transfer that person I know into a character that is "real and interesting." And my wife is both real and interesting.

This kind of lazy advice is like pouring water on a drowning man. Don't you think most writers intend on writing fictional characters that are real and interesting, bringing them to life, so that the reader could connect on a personal level? Of course they do . . . but . . . for Pete's sake -- HOW???

An open statement to this "Professional" courtesy of The Writing Freak: Be the expert you claim to be and actually help somebody for once. Stop patting people on the head and give them true, honest answers. And if you won't -- or can't -- then shut up.

Creating good, believable, "real" characters is one of the most difficult aspects of fiction writing. Transferring what you see, think, FEEL in your head onto a piece of paper is not a simple task. Some folks never get it. Others do it as easily as breathing -- which means it's like a lot of other things in life: Easy for some, not so easy for others.

I have written on the topic of Cardboard Characters and hopefully it offers some actual useful advice on breaking characters out of your head and into the hearts and minds of the reader. Will it make you the next toast of the town on Oprah? That's up to you, but it's certainly better than telling writers what to do . . . instead of showing them.

Show, don't tell. That's the first step in bringing characters to life.

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