I was inspired by mynameissarahgrace's thread is there such a thing as a too unique character ... One of my short story is now unravelling in a novella. But my problem is the "voice" character. He is not of this world, he is not of the dead, nor is he of the living. The best way I can describe him would be a ghost who can sustain corporeal form by absorbing all forms of energy that surrounds him. His corporeal form would be like a regular human, maybe a bit paler and colder, and in the beams of direct sunlight he can be translucent if he does not keep absorbing energy. Also, this energy or life force can be transferred into others in times of need and that's how he saves a young girls life. When he depletes all of is own "life force" into someone else he hovers close to the earth - floating pulsing wisp of mist. I do not have a name for what he his, I just know about his special ability. Would you consider him to be unique and intriguing or too weird and not credible?
Well, my first impression was "Cool!" I don't really think you can ever have a character be weird, unless you write them that way. I think that when people write they are creating their own world. Even if the story is sharing our own planet earth, and everything seems the same, it has a personal flavor from the author, because that's who is describing it. We see it through their eyes. So if your character can adsorb energy in order to maintain an existence, that's just part of who he is. I think that it's perfectly credible. But then again, every reader will interpret what they are reading differently. I personally love stories where the characters have special features, it makes me want them too! Anyways, to summarize, as a writer, your character is what you make them: weird, believable, unique, average, ordinary, extraordinary. The trick is to write tham so that no matter their talents, you write it to seem natural. It is then up to the reader to judge whether that character is real to them personally or not.
Unique and weird! But that's a good thing coming from me. Check out shows like Smallville and see how bizzarre some of those characters; abilities are. You have nothing to worry about.
there's probably nothing left to be 'unique' about by now, or even 'weird,' since someone's already done everything... but that doesn't matter... all that does is whether what you write will be interesting to the reader... and whether it works story-wise...
Um..I was just wondering is it a good idea to bring a character back to life. Since the beginning of the book she's been dead, but you hear people talking about her, giving the readers this image of her. So i wasn't sure should i bring her back to life?
no one can tell you that, since we can't know what happens in the book or what reason there would be for her to be able to be brought back to life... if it makes sense and makes a better story, it could work... if not, it might not... all depends on what you actually write and how well you can write it...
One good advice my father gave was "Before you can write, read!" So my advice to you is read other stories in this genre & analyse what made them work; what made these stories worthy of being published. It did years of reading before trying to seriously write. I also took adult courses in creative writing to understand the process of fiction writing. You've got to take in before you can produce.
I would add to this, you can also learn from awful writing. Even published work contains some truly terrible writing, even from highly regarded writers (I won't mention any King names, though). It's worthwhile to take a close look at the flops as well as the great writing, to understand what makes the writing stumble.
It;s worthwhile to take a close look at the flops as well as the great writing, to understand what makes the writing stumble. ...good advice, but only works after one has read enough of the good stuff to be able to tell the diff...
Well, I think you can often tell bad writing by how much you have to struggle to stay awake and interested. Even if you can't pick out all the fine points, and you won't be able to without practice, there are certainly times you can sit back and say, "This is absolute rubbish!"
