Odds and Ends about Writing

Let Your Characters Take Over

"Good storytelling is good because the characters - not the author - are in charge"
- Write, Publish, Repeat by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant

I was re-reading Write, Publish, Repeat (which I would totally recommend to anyone looking to self-publish) and came across this line.

This is so true.

I've read so many stories where the author is clearly pulling the strings, and in all those stories, the characters never come alive for me. They might hit all the right boxes - has a flaw, has a goal, etc, but they're so clearly puppets with no hope of becoming Pinocchio that something always feels off.

This can come in a bit of forced dialogue (especially forced witty dialogue in places where it doesn't belong. Think "romantic banter in the face of danger"), a villain that always makes stupid mistakes (really? You're a super-evil genius. Why is the hero escaping so easily) or someone moving from hate to love so quickly you might suspect that brainwashing occurred off the page.

Other things that come to mind involve protagonists getting magical powers or non-magical skills that so conveniently save the day, or meeting someone that just so happens to know what they want to know.

As an author, I totally understand that you may have a story you want to tell, settings you want to show, and for that to happen, you need your characters to do certain things and go certain places.

But what's the use of making your characters suffer through the story? If the characters don't take over the story, they probably won't take over the reader's brain either.

P.s. And oh wow, I'm writing this on mobile for the first time, and it's actually easy to use!