Fatal Flaws and Redeeming Revenues

"You can make anything by writing," -C.S. Lewis

First of all, ya'll should follow me on Instagram - @_wordshaker_

Anyways, I found this post on the infamous Tumblr that perfectly represents what us writers think when we say our characters are perfect.  It is as follows:

What I mean when I call a character perfect is "wow look at how flawed you are, how broken and three dimensional and well written. Look at how much of a disaster you are.  Look at how you are constantly torn between right and wrong, and you make so many mistakes along the way.  Wow, look at how human you are."  So basically, when I say they are perfect, what I mean is thank God they aren't. 

Sometimes, Tumblr just hits the nail on the head.  This leads in to what I want to talk about today, which is how every good character needs a fatal flaw and a redeeming revenue, hence the title. 

I am going to be using my wonderful characters from my WIP for examples, along with some other famous characters I am familiar with. 

But to start off, what makes or breaks a character is an imbalance of good and bad. For the protagonist (hero) the scale should, generally, be more towards the good side.  For an antagonist, vice versa.  But when things get interesting is when they are all shades of gray. The problem I have with older stories, and fantasy like stories, is how some of the characters tend to have an imbalance in their character traits, which I find unrealistic.  

For example, Terra. She's intelligent and resourceful, determined and emotionally vulnerable.  However, she's selfish.  She's passive aggressive. She's standoffish. Terra has enough good to make her a heroine, but enough bad to make her human. 

And take Jack Shephard from Lost.  Many fans of Lost dislike him because of his blaring negative traits, like being controlling and obsessive.  But, in defense of one of my favorite characters, Jack is also self-sacrificial, a natural leader, and a generally caring and fighting-for-the-greater-good kind of guy. Jack has the redeeming characters that make you like him, that make you want him to win, make you cheer for him and want things to all work out in the end.  But then he has his flaws, which make for more bumps in the road to getting there. Which is accurate to life, which I quite frankly love. 

And what I'm trying to say by all of this is that your characters need a good balance of good and bad  - and this will all depend on the characters themselves - to make them three-dimensional, making them more relatable, and in turn,  creating memorable characters for ages to come. 

~The WordShaker

Good Gifts

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things - you're doomed," -Ray Bradbury

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened  to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which of one of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

Lately, this has been my life verse. I have asked, many times, yet I have not received.  Yet. But I keep asking in blind faith that my Father will give me good gifts, because I am his child.

Faith has never come easy for me. Skepticism rules my mind.  If it doesn't make sense to me, then I don't believe it.  I scrutinize each doubt I find in my mind, leading that doubt to grow like a cancer.

But I ask anyways.  I have finally come to the fork in the road, where I cannot keep stumbling along mindlessly, unsure.  This is the straw that's going to break the my back. It's either the world, or God. The option feels caustic in my mouth, but it must be done.  I have to make a choice.

I am finally coming up off the cusp of a season I had been in for a long time.  I won't go too deep in that, because that's not what this is about.  This is about me documenting my conscious choice to ask in blind faith, and wait for an answer.

So, I ask, brothers and sisters, keep the faith.  And I promise I will as well.

And of course, I'll find a way to incorporate this into my current Work-In-Progress.

-The WordShaker

Where Are You? A Love Poem by Yours Truly

"Poetry is language at it's most distilled and most powerful," -Rita Dove

Every once in a while, I actually do write a poem, but the mood must strike me.  So, enjoy this small and rare gem about my future husband. 

"Where Are You?  A Love Poem by Yours Truly" by Olivia J

Copyright 2015 Olivia J

Where are you?

That's what I really want to know.

There's a part of me that knows

that knows you exist

that knows you're out there

breathing

praying

living

but for now

you'll remain a figment of my imagination

as blurry as the clouds.

Where are you?

I know that I already love you

for our relationship is the epitome of God-ordained.

But where are you?

I'd really like to know

for here,

where I am,

it's lonely

it's hostile

but I hope it's not like that for you.

Where are you,

my sweet puzzle piece

for I already long for you to love me

so I can love you.

I look out at the world

every day

wondering where you are

if I just bumped into you in the hallway

or saw you in Walmart,

but everywhere are blank faces and disappointments

none like me

and I hope none like you as well.

Where are you?

For my youthful body

already lusts after yours.

I long to be intimate with you

just you

and me

and God

and skin pressed against skin

to form a bond no power of hell can break.

And I suspect you yearn for the same.

Where are you,

my husband?

Are you sitting on your bed, too

pining away for the woman of your dreams

just as I am.

I hate to break it to you

I'm not perfect

I might not be the perfect wife

I might not always do it right

But I will love you

And I will submit to you

And someday

I hope we can love God together.

So,

where are you,

Romeo?

For I'll be out there

waiting

watching

loving.

~The WordShaker

Recaps and 'Running'

"If I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write at all," -Anne Tyler

Hey, my zero readers!  Nice to see you again.  Sorry I haven't posted in a painstakingly long time, but I hope to get back to it. To satisfy you, here is a piece of writing I wrote earlier back.  This was chosen to be in a published book that my high school puts out annually, so I am thrilled about that! Also, four others in the Creative Writing Club that I started got their submissions accepted into this book.

So, here goes nothing.  And, Copyright 2015 Olivia J.  If you steal this, I'll virtually bite you.

"Running" by Olivia J
Copyright 2015 Olivia J

Air jerks in and out of my chest like the mechanical motions of a machine. My chest is being pulled apart and then slammed back together, over and over, as each toxic breath enters my system. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the hot breath curling out of my mouth like gnarling fingers of an old woman as she tries to push her way out of my system.  However, each time I inhale, I suck her back into the depths of my soul.  These agonizing breaths ring in my ears, drowning out my gripping thoughts.

With each contraction of my leg muscles, the screeching pain spreads, undulating in a perverse rhythm. The panic is like a huge hand, pushing me forward, refusing to let my pumping legs stop. My rapid motion only fuels the fear inside of me, burning like a fire.  Every once in a while, my legs will fail me, and my stomach will lurch forward, threatening to burst out my chest.  The hand of panic, however, keeps pushing my crumpled body along, taking no care for the gashes it opens on my face and the way that it crushes my skull.  Somehow, every time I fall, I manage to pull myself up again and, then, seeing what's behind me, I panic again and run along with the impending hand.

My hair, whipping around my head like writhing snakes, pokes me in the face and purposefully obstructs my view.  The fuzzy blackness ahead blinds me, and like smoke, it coils around my eyes. I break my neck from trying to be free, my arms occupied by trying to pump me forward. But once I whip my head around to look at what's chasing me, the black smoke releases its grip on my eyes, and I can see clearly again.  But when I turn back around, panic filled at what I saw behind me, the choking blackness is ready to blind me again.

It's none of these present things that truly terrify me, though.  It's what I'm running from.  Elusive, haunting, and yet omnipresent. If it wasn't there, I surely wouldn't be running blindly into seeming nothingness.

This cycle of tripping, looking back and being shoved along and drawn forward, is seemingly the only life I know. When I'm drowning in this, it is all consuming, swallowing, drowning . . .

It's not until my legs tangle up like spaghetti for the final time. I am thrust forward, and I skid on the dusty ground, the hand looming over me, grinding me into the ground with shame. Beaten, bloody, and bruised, I refuse to get up.  I refuse to run, for my fear of the future is much greater than my fear of the past.

The hand, however, stops - pauses. I roll my head to look up at it. Wrinkly, yet with taut skin that is a flaky gray. Plump, but with rippling muscles that serve no other purpose than to inflict suffering upon me.  I can see each and every angular bone, like a poorly assembled swing set. Suddenly, it dives down and coils itself around me and jerks me around, until the smoke is to my back and I am facing the monster in all of it's pathetic glory.

And I am struck with a new breed of terror, because the horribly disfigured monster who was terrorizing me, chasing me, swallowing me whole, is none other than who I used to be, surrounded by the caustic acidity of my past.

~The WordShaker

Questions Without Answers

"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't I would die," -Isaac Asimov

My current WIP (Work In Progress) is about two 15 year old teenagers who get in a four-person plane crash in the remote Sonoran Desert.  One boy and one girl are the only survivors.  They have to learn how to survive and get along (they are strangers) and use the knowledge their parents gave them, while relying on their instincts, to get back to civilization.  It's actually one big metaphor.

These kids are lost in the desert, otherwise known as the wilderness.  That can be considered the "wilderness" like time of adolescence.  It's also a bit ironic, because they are physically lost, and mentally lost, as well.  It's their own "coming-of-age" that finds them.  The girl's father and the boy's mother both die in the plane crash, leaving them alone, to navigate the world by themselves, kind of like how it is when teenagers vie for independence but find themselves on their own too early.  Also, you really are slowly coming into your own a the age of accountibility, and you have to rely on the tools and knowledge given to you.

Throughout their expririence, they tackle the tough questions in life, examine their own selves, and form their beliefs about the world around them, and, most importantly, questions about God, exactly like a normal, functioning teenager should.   But this got me thinking.  How am I any different than Terra or Wyatt?  I'm wandering through a metaphorical "wilderness" of my own, just now coming to the age of accountibility, being pulled back and aimed like an arrow, to pierce and fly through the air, directed by my parents (holding the bow), but the flight is all up to me.

And lately, actually more like the past two years, have been my wilderness time, my "coming-of-age" story, my own personal age of accountibility.  And, sure, I've been questioning other things about life and myself and things like that, but this is the first time I've really tackled the questions about God.  Are all of the things my parents taught me real?  Should I believe them?  Why?  Does God exist?  If He does, does He care about little old me down here?

Growing up in church and being a good girl, I could answer these questions right off the bat if a stranger asked me them on the street.  But just because I know it in my head doesn't mean I believe it, or can feel it, right deep within my soul.  I'm just looking, just asking, for a stamp of sorts, to seal the deal.  To make everything that I've seen, that I've heard, that's been spoken over me, real and personal.

And here's the kicker to all of this.  If you're like me, coming-of-age and tackling these kinds of things, I want you to know one thing - just ask.  Whether Christian or Athiest, just ask God.  Are you out there, and do you hear when I cry?  He might not answer you right then, he never usually does.  And, don't expect something obvious and clear.  It also might not be the right time.  But ask and you will receive (John 16:24b  NKJV).  Eventually, He'll answer you.  I don't fully believe he's answered me fully yet.  But He's God, right?  So I know He will.  Eventually.  Maybe.

Best Regards,

~The WordShaker

About Me

"Writing is a struggle against silence," -Carlos Fuentes

I'm not going to tell you too much about myself, other than that my name is Olivia J.  I'm a writer, obviously, or else I don't think I would be starting this blog where I write.  I'm planning on posting weekly, hopefully on Fridays or Saturdays, with a book or movie review each month.  The other weeks, I will be just writing my observations, things I find interesting, a particular subject.  You might even find me trying to persuade you, the reader, towards something.  I will also share some wisdom, a little about my life, and just things that happen in my day to day life, and each post will contain a new quote about writing.  Most of the time, I will go by the pseudonym The WordShaker, as in reference to The Book Thief.  This is my first blog, and I am just learning how to use Blogspot, so bear with me please.  I hope you all will enjoy reading whatever seems to puke out of my head each week!

-The WordShaker