I gotta be honest…there’s probably a million and five things I want to talk about, but I keep waiting until “just the right time” to talk about them…that time isn’t getting here. So, I’m going to talk about something I thought about nine or so months ago.
Have you ever envisioned yourself as a character in a book? That’s a stupid question; we all have. I don’t mean in the Mary Sue “I’d do it perfectly and life would be like this” kind of way, but as a real character. All of your traits, flaws, habits, personal sayings, etc. would be demonstrated in this character. Something I realized thinking about this is that I, as a real person, would be completely unbelievable as a character.
For example, one or two characters in a book may have a saying that they have that is weird and off the wall—like the way I use “lightning strikes” instead of “holy cow” or something similar. But rarely do they have multiple sayings: in addition to lightning strikes, I say “barnacles” (which, yes, I stole from SpongeBob Squarepants, but I do say it in real life. All the time, actually). I used to be more likely to call you a lackwit than stupid. Plus, I use many words that most people don’t use in typical conversation (that’s because I’m a geek though).
I also have way more interests that a typical character. Characters who like as many things as I do get confusing and it seems more like the author is just trying to please everyone than actually create a real character. One person isn’t generally just as good in calculus and biology as she is in writing and English. One character isn’t, either.
The goal of a character (a good one, anyway) is for them to seem like a real person, with emotions and goals and passions that drive them. Why is it, then, that real people would make horrible characters? Of course, it might just be me.
The thing is, we only see characters in one aspect of their lives. We only read or write what is important for that point right then. If I were to write a character based on a person (be it myself or anyone else), I wouldn’t actually point out all the traits of that person in the story. They could be there, but the reader would never know unless it was important. If I tried to show every side of that person, it would result in a forced narrative. The person would not make it as a character. You can’t highlight every facet of a gem at the same time; some will be in shadow.
This is something you have to keep in mind even with characters you create. There will be things that people never know about. Don’t mention it unless it’s important, or you are in danger of creating a Mary Sue. Incidentally, this is possibly the greatest Mary Sue test I have ever seen.
