Character

Hello, Mr. Writer! I'm glad you decided to introduce me in this story of yours. Tell me, what's my purpose in it?

If I'm the protagonist of the story, please make me someone who is humble and has a miserable life toward the beginning of the story. I'm pretty certain that if you try this, your reader will feel attached to me and the story itself if you do this. We'll both win, in the end.

Now, if you decide that I would make a good antagonist, I'be got something for you that you could really work with: make your reader hate me.

Go ahead, I don't mind being hated. I just want to be memorable. It'll also make your story memorable on top of that. Once again, we'll both win. But remember what I said, make people hate me. Make me steal something. You can even have me murder somebody, if that's what it takes to get some attention!

Sorry. That got a little dark. You know, let's drop that subject for now. There's other things we've got to cover, so let's get down to business. Tell me, what kind of tasty plot do we have ready for the world to see?

If it's one of those fantasy stories, your probably one of those types that like other stories about knights or peasants going on some kind of adventure to find gold or defeat some kind of beast. Speaking of beasts, are you someone that's a fanatic when it comes to dragons? If you are, that's fine. It's pushing the limits a little bit, but I can't expect that much from you. Most beasts or monsters are fine. But I'm warning you, you better NOT put giant spiders into this story. I can definetly name one author that's already done that.

Say you're one of those folks that likes fictional stories that are realistic. You know, like a reality flick. Just without the "flick," if you get what I'm saying. This is literature, different world we're talking about.

Anyway, most settings for those kinds of stories are pretty good. A millionaire that somehow gets bankrupt, a hobo that comes across a stray cat and becomes an unlikely friend that he or she talks to, you decide on your setting. Just one request, though: don't start the story with an overweight government worker who sits in a cubicle and taps away at a typwriter or computer. Seriously, that's already been done way too many times.

You know, all this discussion over plot is starting to tire me out. We could go on for paragraphs! You know, I want to go back to talking about my purpose, again. Because there's something I forgot to consider.

Are you planning on killing me off? There's a lot of writers that do that for suspense or to play with their reader's emotions. But do you plan to do the same thing with me? I know I haven't made things easy on you. But you can't have that much of a grudge on me to just let me die, that would be pushing the edge a little bit.

If you are going to kill me, just make sure it's memorable, all right? That's all that matters, in the end. But you already knew that. You're the brains. You can create anything you want for the world to see. You just have to do a good job at it.

There's no pressure.