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This is partly inspired by reading a number of insipid fantasy novels and by looking at my own, with its lack of anything but introspection. Yes, I need to revise it very much.

Alright. Cue typical fantasy scene.


Marianna looked at Decinde, looked at the entrails he held up to her in a bloody offering and, worst of all, the head that stared at her with empty eyesockets, its tongue cut out and nailed to its forehead.

She staggered backwards. "Oh... God," Marianna whispered, crossing herself, "oh god in the heavens."

Decinde dumped the collected organs of her lover on the floor in front of her, wordless, then turned to leave with a flash of white teeth in the dusk. Marianna managed a word out of her mouth as a single crystalline tear slipped down her face.

"Why?" Her voice was quiet, quavering in the deepening darkness.


Dramatic? Yes. Overdone? Oh, hell yes.

So what's wrong with this scene?

The quick would say it's the crystalline tear. Yes, a very overused imagery-- however, that is but a symptom of the real problem.

And here it is.

There is no passion.

All heroes or heroines appear to be the sort who don't want to cry in public, or whose shoulders shake quietly instead of bursting into tears, or who growl with rage instead of bursting into white-hot fury, or who get all depressed rather than turning it into negative emotions to fuel whatever's inside of them. Certainly, everyone responds to events differently, but I am very tired of every single character reacting the same way. Oh, unless it's the love interest, in which case she's allowed to cry her heart out prettily.


You know what?

I am very tired of this. So very tired. Please, give us some characters who act like normal humans and scream, yell, snap with frustration, and sob their hearts out even when there are people around. Emotional people aren't always pretty, either; people seem to forget this. Characters' eyes can blaze with anger, but their face never contorts and their mouth never twists or opens in a sick smile. Characters can shed single tears, but they never break down sobbing and have their nose and eyes turn red. We, as humans, are not generally pretty no matter what emotion we're going through. Keep this in mind.

Let's go over the emotions.

Anger. If a character feels anger in stories, it is often cold anger, anger that refines their senses. But why not make it the white-hot rage that sets your tongue going faster than your head, makes your vision blur, and makes you want to reach out and snap someone's neck? We've all been in this situation. Yes, we're scared of the ones who don't seem to get angry, but if you've never been in a room with someone who is scream-and-yell-and-break-things angry, you have never really known how ******** scary it is. Not all people who rarely get angry have cold anger; I know several, including myself, who when provoked enough will snap and do feats that they're normally not capable of. I've lifted a kid twice my size off the ground by his collar because he irritated me enough. I've bashed a wall until it dented, caring nothing for my fists. This is, on occasion, healthy. I'm very frustrated with fantasy authors who treat this as "berserking". People do it. Most everyone does. And it is, on occasion, liberating.

And no, having a Goodkindesque rage wherein you are perfectly serene and calm and yet kill people and s**t doesn't count. let there be fire and brimstone and screaming and crying, because, damn it, if I end up snapping and yelling and beating someone up, I cry while I'm doing it because it's just too much.

Oh, and stop denying your characters the chance for anger. Don't have their friends come along and explain everything away until it just simmers down. Give them some time to be purely angry and to do stuff that angry people do.

Righteous anger will also take this form, a hell of a lot more than it will take the form of the calm kid who kills a bunch of people. Righteous anger doesn't sit there like a lump in your stomach. It burns, and not that tame sort of "I am going to go out and kill him" kind of burn. It burns in the way where you imagine every single rock on the ground to be your enemy's face, and you pound it into dust because you feel you ******** deserve it. Righteous anger is also dangerous, something that few people seem to touch on, and fewer seem to do correctly. Righteous anger doesn't just work for the good guys, or for whoever you want to be seen as an avenging angel. It's ugly. It works for whoever believes in something. It works for terrorists, for crazy bastards, and for your hero whose mother has just been killed. And righteous anger doesn't stop where justice stops. Give us a hero whose mother has been killed, so he viciously, ruthlessly, angrily goes to the villain's girlfriend's house and rapes and murders her, leaving a grisly message in her entrails.

Sadness. Ooh, this is a big one.

First item: Stop the SINGLE CRYSTALLINE TEAR bullshit. Everyone does it. It's no longer unique. If your character is the sort who wouldn't cry in public, don't have her cry at all- or have her, shocked, let five tears roll down her face and then flee to somewhere private. Instead, try writing a tragic scene where someone actually sobs until their nose runs and their eyes are puffy and red. Yes, people cry differently. Yes, they react to tragedy differently, and that's precisely the point. As readers, we're tired of single crystalline tears. Really.

Second item: Take note of the stages of grief. I think that's all that needs to be said.

Third item: Decide how your character reacts to a tragic incident and deal with tragic incidents accordingly. Does he or she just look on in silent stoicism? What about with a quiet, seething anger that'll boil out as soon as they leave the site of the tragedy? Or just sorrow? Or a gut-wrenching grief? What about someone with a determination not to let it happen to them, who looks down at his dead pa and says "poor b*****d"? You've got that in your head, now? Good. Now have that character blatantly respond. That doesn't mean a stoic character just looks at the body of his dead father; that means he goes and gets a mop and a bucket and starts to clean the entrails and blood off the floor. Things like that, yes. Don't have characters just feel, have them act.


Love: I am not speaking as someone who has been in a relationship for any length of time, or as anyone with a broad amount of experience. However, I'm speaking as a reader and an observer of high school romance.

Let's put the passion back into it. Let's add characters who aren't just themselves outside of a relationship, but they're themselves inside a relationship too. I don't want to see Mr. Stone McStoic with tears in his eyes as he holds a woman and says that she's the only one who really gets him. Come on! And that fiery woman, the one who knows what she wants and goes out and gets it? When she walks in on her husband in the arms of another woman, let's have her march over to him and demand to know what's going on-- because she loves him and hates Big Misunderstandings.

And I'm not just talking about what happens when they discover love. I mean when they're with their loved ones. Let's not have unsure kisses or tentative romance or stories wherein the most independent of women just sits there and lets her beau run his hands all over her. She knows what she wants? Good, let's have her kiss him, or be forward, or just be passionate about it.





Well, I think heroes and heroines just need to be more outgoing and less passive in general. Oh, sure, when they're fighting a dragon-- oh, wait, dragons are passe-- a DEMON, they can be forward and stab it through the neck, but they don't dare show their emotions, no matter how fiery the author calls them.


Semi-coherent.

I needed this. A lot.

Thought I don't read fantasy, published or not, I agree with where you're coming from.

I'm not sure where all this stems from, if it's a lack of character depth or an inablility to create original characters which leads people to make these sort of bland shadows of real characters, void of all things that gave them dimension. You know? Like, they took a character they liked and sort of raped everything that made that character special and then set up a card board copy...I don't think I'm explaining this well. Someone, just agree with me or wait till I can come back and make this better.

Additional note about "Crystalline tear" bullshit:

Who the ******** describes tears as crystalline? I mean, really, wouldn't they bring on a feeling of pity or helplessness in those around the crying individual, rather than "Oh, hey, look at the way the light hits that tear! It looks like a crystal!"

Do single tears even happen in real life?

Thanks for this. One thing I would like to add, about love. It's not always true. He or she is not always the one. It is not always requited. I am kind of sick of all romances working more or less the same way. People break up or get divorced or never go out in the first place despite attraction at least one way for reasons. I'd like a main character who's crushing badly and the feelings aren't returned. Or a character pity dating who dumps the person later. Something different.

Do you have suggestions, by the way, for panic? I'm wrestling with that at the moment.

Kudos to Flore!
Personally, I love a character who constantly flies off the handle when push comes to shove. Or, when a normally calm and easy-going character snaps after enough little pushes - maybe because it seems especially realistic to me, as I tend to be like that.

Either way, love what you have to say. Nice post. mrgreen

I add my kudos to the ever growing stack!

Yeah, I usually have my characters scream and throw things when they're angry, they do not handle anger very well- it's more fun to read, and more fun to write biggrin