Christopher Pike's Writing Advice

Chapter Seven: Should Your Characters Act Real?

This is a tricky question.   The obvious answer is, "absolutely yes."  However, I'm tempted to say yes and no.  Before I explain why, let me travel back in time to how I felt when I was in high school. First off, I felt different than anyone else. I thought about stuff that no one else thought about. I felt I was more sensitive than most people, more kind, more thoughtful. Also, I knew I was smarter than pretty much anyone in the school.

Of course, what I didn't realize at the time was that everyone else felt exactly the same way I did. We all feel special, even as we strain to do something in life to make other people think we're special.

Given that, how are we to go about creating characters in a novel? This question requires at least two answers.  One that relates to main characters -- specifically, to point of view characters -- and one that relates to secondary characters.

 The hardest thing to do in fiction writing is to create a hero that's unique. It's much easier to create background characters -- to give easily identifiable quirks to people who are not telling your story. When it comes to this issue, most beginning writers usually end up running into an infamous wall. Their main characters -- having to be so charming, so brave, so sensitive, so loving, and, of course, so clever -- quickly dissolves into a vast soup of every major character that's ever been written.

Does this mean it's a mistake to make your main character intelligent? No, the majority of people like to read a story told from the point of view of a smart person because most people like to think they're pretty smart. I usually have clever heroes. However, I try my best not to have heroes who have too many virtues.

It's one thing to create a hero that's bigger than life. Vito Corleone, The Godfather in Mario Puzo's famous novel, was one of the greatest men to ever jump from the pages of a book. (And yes, I know, he's not a young adult character and I don't care.  I read the book in high school -- everyone my age did.)  He was the embodiment of clever. But he had his flaws, not the least of which was the fact that he was a murderer. Yet even that flaw -- Mario Puzo somehow made it into a virtue. How? By making the personal flaw an unpleasant necessity given the world the Godfather found himself in.

I'm trying not to get off track here and failing miserably. It's a subtle point. A hero in a book can be as awful as you need him or her to be as long as the reader doesn't cease to empathize with him or her. Let's be blunt, it's easier for most people to relate to someone who's not perfect.

To sum it up -- try to create a character that YOU find fascinating. Don't worry about what the readers will think of your hero. You can't please everyone. All you have to do is please at least one editor who is in a position to buy your book.