Archive for the 'Writing' Category

I’ve been trying to write a new short story lately. I have a great title for it, but the story just isn’t coming. I know what I want to say with it, but therein the problem lies: the complexity of real life is incredibly difficult to achieve in fiction, especially short fiction. Life is so screwed up that if you actually try to create something real to life in literature it seems convoluted, contrived, and simply fake.

I suppose what I’m running into is the creation of multiple, flawed characters whose flaws are first and foremost not readily apparent, but which come into direct conflict.

Actually, when I put it like that it seems very easy. Here’s the quirk: the flaw is actually associated with a specific event. Either it’s amplified by the event (very likely), or it appears as a result of the event (unlikely) or it is embodied by some issue unrelated to the event, but which when the event occurs takes a different form of expression (which most mirrors real-life psychology).

So here’s a question for all the fiction authors out there: how do you handle this sort of interaction? How do you create characters with flaws which fall into the four standard categories [(a) flaws you know that no one knows, (b) flaws you know that everybody knows, (c) flaws others know that you don't know, and (d) flaws that you don't know that nobody knows]? Continue reading ‘Complex Characters: How do You Go About Creating Them? And How Complex is Too Complex?’