About Me:

My Name? Yeah... I made it up when I couldn't think of anything else.

Um... I'm actually a rather private person. I like to debate philosophy (though arguing isn't debating) and I love to learn more about why people think/believe what they do. I believe that the act of trying is more important than the success it might achieve. Success is built upon a foundation of failed attempts, after all.

Rambling Thoughts Ahead:

I like original ideas and stories where the author has elected to turn left where others have turned right. While I do understand that doing so can be a bit of a challenge on one's writing skills, I enjoy exploring a story's universe and the possibilities that may occur as a result of different occurrences/happenings/choices/etc.

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I find that I have lost my (admittedly puerile) fondness for over-powered characters. Quite simply, I find that there is no literary challenge in beefing up a character with unrealistic power. If you want to avoid that route, but find that you're slipping towards it, then perhaps you could put a limiter/punishment on it that would lessen its usage.

Maybe it would be good to then also show the ramifications of the power. How do others react to the power? How does it impact the character's society? How does it influence the wielder's personality? Is s/he tempted to use it to ill-effect, or for more personal uses? Why or why not? How will this character be tempted to use it, and how will he or she feel about the outcomes of those choices? After all, maybe it didn't turn out the way s/he planned in his/her head, or maybe it turned out exactly as planned, but the character didn't find his/her success as sweet as s/he though s/he would?

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I believe that the best (or rather, most realistic) characters are complex characters. Characters that are deep and complex and imperfect because real people, too, are imperfect.

For a rather common example: as much as we may love/hate Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore (for a wide variety of very valid reasons), they are two of the most realistic characters that I have ever stumbled upon. And that is because of their imperfections, their flaws, and how the two aren’t simply one thing. They, like real life people, are complex and flawed and so utterly real that we felt something for these fictional, made up characters (“Of course it’s happening in your mind, but does that make it any less true,” or in this case, any less important?).

Snape may have been emotionally abusive to entire generations of children (to the point where N. Longbottom, a child whose parents were literally tortured to the point of insanity, feared Snape more than anyone else) but he also spied on the Darkest Wizard of the generation. He may have been capable of so much bad, but he also retained enough humanity to care for Lily Potter (whether or not he "loved" her is a debate worth having at a a different time).

Albus Dumbledore fought the Dark Lord Grindelwald (whom he loved, and perhaps always loved) to a standstill. Albus defeated him, imprisoning Grindelwald in a prison more secure than Azkaban for the remainder of the man's life. He also fought Lord Voldemort, another Dark Wizard, when he arose. And yet, Albus Dumbledore knowingly left Harry Potter (a child) in an abusive household.

So: Make your characters detailed and broken and complex because real people are exactly that.