Learning to Write XXXI

12th June 2007 with 1 Comment

How do you weed out characters that aren’t earning their keep?
A character doesn’t earn his or her keep when they do nothing interesting with or in opposition to the leading characters in your narrative. If they are your leading characters you need to stop writing and return to the stage of thinking about your novel. [...]

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About Writing:

It is a cheap trick merely to surprise and shock the reader, especially at the expense of logic. And a lack of invention on the writers' part cannot be covered up by sensational action and clever prose. It is also a kind of laziness to write the obvious, which does not entertain, really. The idea is an unexpected turn of events, reasonably consistent with the characters of the protagonists. Stretch the reader's credulity, his sense of logic, to the utmost — it is quite elastic — but don't break it. In this way, you will write something new, surprising and entertaining both to yourself and the reader. Patricia Highsmith

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