Black, White, and Shades of Gray
I go through life loving a lot of things. Canada Dry Ginger Ale for example. I can wax poetic on it. I love snow. Fresh tomatoes with a hint of salt on a summer day. I love Beethoven's 9th. I love my children. I love flowers--English garden style.
I go through life hating things. Cigarette smoke. The behavior of people who are rude to waiters and service people. More serious things like racism or poverty. War.
As a person who TRIES to be compassionate, there is a gray place. A middle path. So while I loathe behaviors, I try not to hate the people who do those behaviors. I try not to become enraged by drivers who cut me off. Why waste the energy? I try to reside in the middle place. I don't always succeed.
But when I think about characters . . . in trying to define them, you want the extremes. At least at first. The middle place isn't a good spot for fictional characters. We like characters who are ripe and juicy with conflict and strong opinions and traits. We like to form strong opinions on them . . . and then spend a book finding the shades and gradations of their gray places.
So I tried this for my wip. Aleks loves Russian literature and ice cold vodka. He loves Evie. He loves his dog. He doesn't like listening to music since he prefers silence in the quiet times with his lover. He loves science. It is his God. He loves real bread with a strong crust on the outside and a soft center.
He hates the military and government bureaucracy. He hates the virus. Loathes it. He hates how men so quickly become beasts when society breaks down. He hates small talk. He hates incompetence.
His gray places are what he is willing to do for the sake of science. Can the ends justify the means?
So what does your character love with a passion. What does your character LOATHE?
16 comments:
I've been writing different parts of Harvey's past and realized that it's possible his father was an alcoholic so does Harvey hate alcohol and if so why does he make it?
Richmond:
If it were me . . . I would say that despite his dad being an alcoholic, there could be warm memories based around it. Or he could be highly practical--moonshine makes him money. Also . . . back then, it's likely that people had different ways of explaining away alcoholics.
E
Colt has a love/hate relationship with tobacco I think maybe only a recovering nicotine fiend (moi) would understand. He loves guns, good whiskey, fishing...all those manly things. He hates injustice, even more so if it's toward a child.
Jude:
Ahhh . . . good whiskey.
My guy, Alex, is fifty-five and has created a well-strategized life, never wavering from "the plan." A good looking divorced man, his buddies assume women fall at his feet, which they do, but the ones who do look for a commitment he's not willing to offer. He mated for life once - that was part of "the plan," no repeats allowed. He friends for life, yet hates the first best buddy he ever knew, his father.
He keeps in his pocket a small spiral pad that lists goals he set at nineteen years old while sitting in a tree somewhere in Cambodia. As each are accomplished, he checks them off. Nothing new added to the list over his years. Yet one fateful night in his fifty-fifth year, he briefly strays from "the plan," forever changing his life.
Kath:
I think that sounds like a very realistic character . . . . You sense his "principles."
Awe man! I feel like I was just given a homework assignment.
:P
Posey:
I will accept an apple in lieu of the finished assignment. ;-)
E
Nessie loves her waist-long hair, pizza and cinnamon rolls
She hates liars, backstabbers, and girls who toss their hair when they flirt.
Nadine:
I love her already!
Trinidad loathes himself.
He loves Christ, children, his sword, his priest, his lover, his church.
Tarik fiercely loves his family and friends, despite their flaws... if they are true to him. Anyone who inauthentic with him, he has no time for. He is stubborn to the point of doing the wrong thing just to do it his way. He is unwilling to give up, no matter the cost to him personally... all of which stems from when he lost his mother as a young child, and then watched his father kidnapped by daemons and tortured as the story opens. His shades of gray are going to show up when he has to start trusting and relying on people/beings he has no reason to trust, and giving up being right... poor kid, I almost feel for him.
Daisy hates lies -- and because of that, she tends to be suspicious even when she doesn't need to be.
Starbucks:
Ohhh. I like that!
Ewoh:
Sounds like an arc! Wonderful growth.
amy:
I don't go through life very suspicious . . . so for me . . . that sounds like an interesting character to tackle.
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