Don’t you hate it when people do stupid things?
How about when characters in a book you’re reading do something stupid? Or a character on a television show or in a movie? Doesn’t that annoy you? It’s certainly one of my biggest pet peaves.
“Wait, why would he go in there without his gun??”
“Didn’t she learn the dangers of that magical sword in chapter six??”
“WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT??”
I think many times when this phenomenon happens, it’s a case of the writer directing the course of events. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I’ve said in the past that this is unacceptable when writing characters. If a character has proven himself or herself capable of making dumb mistakes, then that’s one thing. But if the character has never shown that sort of inclination and in the course of the story makes a stupid mistake or misses a key point of information that he or she should have understood, then it’s the writer taking you for a ride, and I don’t personally like the steering wheel being jerked out of the hands of the characters.
And I get it. When you’re planning out a story, you have a pretty good idea of what you want to happen. In your head, it’s perfect. And then you start writing it, bulldozing ahead with your perfect idea, but unaware of the damage you’re causing around you. Characters do and say things for the benefit of you, and suddenly become inconsistent and confusing. Sometimes it seems like they just do something for no apparent reason, leaving the readers to scratch their heads. But worst of all, when you plow forward with your perfect idea, you lose the opportunities for other ideas.
Every one of my stories – every one of them – started off going in a particular direction in my head. Then, when push came to shove, I’d get to a turning point with a certain character and the plan would come to a fork in the road. In one direction was my original idea, already laid out for me to send my character down. But it would mean forcing the character to make a decision that they normally wouldn’t. In the other direction was… well, I never quite knew. But that was always the direction that made the most sense for the character to go. And from there, a new story idea arose, sometimes birthing new characters, new places, new sub-plots.
The general rule of thumb for me is that the character knows more than I do. I’m just the monkey typing away at the keyboard. Ook ook.
Peter Tarkulich 