I no longer read my reviews (I likely haven't had any new ones in months anyway), but a few of those I did read were rather harsh. Don't get me wrong; I've also had great reviews, but what writer ever remembers those? It's the critical ones that stick in our minds.
I've only gotten this comment once, but I think I remember it because it's probably true: "How old is this woman anyway?"
While in real life, I'm well past my maturity date, my main characters do tend to be naive. Not childish; naive. A drawback of writing in first person POV, for me, is that I see events through the MC's eyes, and thus she's more reactive than active. In my current novel, it goes farther than that. Leah doesn't seem capable of thinking up solutions on her own; she needs another character to provide them, and her reaction is, "Oh, okay." That's not good.
I could make excuses for that ~ so I will, not that it necessarily matters. She's been thrown into an alien world; not an actual alien world; I'm not writing sci fi, but a world she knows nothing about. Every situation she encounters is brand new, and she has no clue how to navigate it. Let's say you show up in the audience of a cooking show and the host suddenly takes ill, so the producer grabs you and tells you, "You're the host today. Here's what you're going to whip up." It turns out you have no idea how to cook anything; you're only there because The Price is Right's audience was already full up. You don't know where the mixing bowls are stashed or if you'll even need a mixing bowl. There's a refrigerator on set, so you open it and start grabbing items that "look right" for the dish. Surely they wouldn't be stocked if they weren't needed, right? Okay, now what? You found a bowl and some ingredients. Now the camera's red light is on ~ have fun!
Are the viewers at home thinking, "Look at her. She's so immature! How old is she anyway?" It doesn't have anything to do with maturity or age. You've never done this before, so how are you supposed to act?
Leah is offered a recording contract out of the blue; she sure wasn't pursuing one. In fact, she was perfectly content singing with her small-town band. But when her former love moves on with his life (with another woman), her emotions propel her to accept the offer and move to Nashville. There, she's tasked with writing a song with a hot songwriting duo she's never met, she gets sent for publicity photos, she has to play a showcase, she's soon sent out on the road for a mini-tour with three unfamiliar musicians. She has to hire an agent; she needs to find a contract attorney. Every single one of these things, she's never done before.
But my novel isn't a cooking show starring a non-chef. Leah probably needs to assert herself more, even if she's completely lost and confused. I'm not saying she's never assertive, but by the time she is, readers have already formed their opinion of her.
If I don't make changes to show that she's not a helpless baby, I'm going to get the same criticisms. I can picture it now.
Writing an appropriate main character has always been my struggle. I keep coming back to this, but with my second novel I received feedback that the MC wasn't likable. I'd written her as cynical and sarcastic (again, there were reasons for that, but again, that doesn't matter). It was the first professional feedback I'd gotten and it stung, so I subsequently went the opposite way. I don't know where or how to draw the line.
"Likable" apparently requires elements I don't understand. This article defines that (of course, it's opinion, but it sounds about right).
They must have flaws.
Does being a scared little mouse count?
They must have goals and motivations that are relatable.
Well, Leah really has no goals, unless you count wanting to escape difficult situations.
They must show vulnerability.
She most certainly does ~ too much. She cries all the time. I hate that.
They must make mistakes.
She does with relationships, absolutely. And by doing whatever she's told.
They must have traits that set them apart from other people in their world.
I don't know; she's a good singer? Isn't that a given?
They must act realistically and truthfully.
*ding *ding *ding! Leah is probably more pliant than any actual human would be.
They must have conviction.
She does, when it comes to important things, but she's also not out there challenging someone every day.
Their positive traits must be their defining characteristics over their negative ones.
That's kind of namby-pamby. Yes, Leah cares about people and she's emotional (I'm not sure that's so great), so I suppose those outweigh her...passivity and blandness.
My first reaction upon reading this definition is, come on! I suppose if I set out to write a parody I could wrap all these traits into my main character. It reads like a female superhero. Oh, here's the scene where Magical Super Lady shows her self-doubt. Oops, now she's made a mistake and beat up an innocent bystander. But wait! She has conviction! She'll master her goal of saving the world in the end!
It's almost as if the expectation is to create a flamboyant character, and Leah is definitely not flamboyant. She likes the attention when she's on stage, but in her regular life, she's quite happy to go unnoticed. To me, that's realistic.
Bottom line for Leah, she has to be caring, yet assertive; she must stay true to her convictions without inconveniencing anyone else; she has to stop crying all the time, but instead, I guess, convey emotion with her (dry) eyes?
I'm truly not making fun of the characteristics listed here, but it sounds way easier than it is. I'll work on making her more bold, but that and the crying are really the only things I'm able to change at this point. I like her, but I also liked my cynical, sarcastic character, so I'm a really poor judge of make-believe people.
I guess a likable character is hard to define (the article I cited notwithstanding). You just know them when you meet them.
No comments:
Post a Comment