Disturbing Characters

    I have a book that lists among my weaknesses the word, ‘DISTURBING’ Just like that, all caps. The only thing that disturbs me about that is that they consider it a weakness. Hell, if I can disturb somebody and there are no consequences, like getting arrested or fired, I’m going for it. Besides, we’re all disturbing in one way or another. Religion, politics, social and societal convention, we are all disturbed and disturbing by and to someone. The question is: should you make your characters disturbing?

    Hell yes. Even if you are writing a piece about well meaning people on two sides of a divisive issue and everyone will be redeemed in the end through compromise and group hugs, someone needs to be disturbing or the boredom will be excruciating.

    I can hear you thinking, ‘Huh, I’ll just have my antagonist be disturbing.’ Does it disturb you that I can hear your thoughts? Now, you can have your bad guy be disturbing, most of them are in one way or another; they’re bad guys. So make them disturbing in their actions. Have them swerve to hit bunnies on the highway, pee in the office coffee pot, try to see the future in the entrails of their victims, etc. That’ll disturb some readers but we expect that sort of thing and we expect bad guys to have disturbing thoughts if they have a POV. By all means, make the bad guy disturbing but also do the unexpected. Give your protagonist disturbing thoughts.

    Heroes are better characters if they are flawed, we all know that. This is just one more way to bring them to life. I don’t have room here to give examples because there are too many possibilities. Think sex, murder, torture, violence, kinky sex, violent sex, torturous sex, vandalism, suicide, autoerotic asphyxiation, homophobic, homosexual, pee in the office coffee pot thoughts.

    I can hear you thinking again and some of you are reluctant to sully your good guy with less than heroic thoughts. You love him because he is so strong and brave and virtuous. He is your idea of a perfect person. You can’t have him think stuff like... No!

    Okay. Many books have been written and published with nary a thought out of place on the part of the hero. The tension comes from insurmountable odds, the hero’s fear or feelings of unworthiness, or his desire to save the villain, etc. There is a large audience for that.

    Not my cup of tea.

    I prefer Han Solo to Luke, Rooster Cogburn to Marshal Dillon, Ironman to Superman, Grace Anadarko to Joe Friday. I want heroes with grit. I want them dirty, nasty, sociopathic in their thoughts and borderline criminal in their deeds. I don’t care if they fight their demons or embrace them. I just want them to have demons.

    Now, I realize this sort of thing can be overdone. So don’t obsess over thinking up and putting in inappropriate thoughts. But there are situations where a reasonable person might think something that would get them arrested if they said it out loud. If one occurs to you, try it out.

    What do you think? Gonna do it?

Character Kinks

    Yes, it's about exactly what it sounds like.

    Hey all, I’ve been really busy with...stuff and such. But, I’m here now and I think a short set-up for the blog topic is in order lest you think some untoward thoughts about me. Not that they couldn’t be true but I want to keep up appearances in case I ever want to run for public office. I just finished reading one of my crit partners subs. In it she, or rather, one of her characters refers to Spanx Shapewear. I wrote in the margin, (Spanx = Spanks. Is she Kinky?) From there my mind went hither and yon as anyone who knows me can imagine. So, lets get to it.

    Some of you may avoid putting kinks in your characters because you don’t want people to think you enjoy a good spanking yourself. Okay, that might be valid but I write female characters and nobody thinks I’m a woman. My reason for not putting them in is that I just hadn’t thought of it...yet. Oh sure, I’ve got Katerina who is a nut and a deviant of sorts, but that’s just her. I haven’t given any sane characters kinks and I’m rather disappointed with myself. How could I not have thought of that?

    Now, I’m not suggesting you start writing bondage erotica but if you have a sexual component in your work, put a little something different in it. Suppose your heroine is a bit of a sadist and she is attracted to your hero. That’s going to put a whole new level of tension in there: first, in her internals and second, in their interactions. Now, for a happy ending, he’s going to have to be a bit of a masochist whether he knew it before or not. But, what the hell, it’s fiction and it ought to be fun. And what’s more fun than kinky sex?

    Now, suppose this same heroine needs to get some information from a bad guy. Ha, she’s got a set of skills that the reader knows about and she can really show her stuff. I’m laughing just thinking about it. The hero is a little reluctant to use force and she just wades in and starts clamping stuff on. He, the hero, is incredulous and much to his surprise, a little turned on. Now we’ve got some fun stuff happening.

    And you can go the other way. A strong willed heroine likes to be spanked. She obsesses over his hands: their size, just right shape, how rough and rugged they are, perfect for spanking. Or, a determined hero has a foot fetish that distracts him. How fun would it be if the hero kept looking at the heroine’s feet, enough that she notices and says something. Freudian slips create awkward moments. Thoughts unbidden create distraction and attraction. I can hardly wait to start something new to work this in. And research. I’ll have to do research. What fun. I usually hate research but now I’m excited.

    But, don’t go overboard, I’m prone to that. Just put a little in. Unless you want to write bondage erotica, then go for it. I’m thinking of using it to round out the characters. And not every character and not in every story. Maybe even keep it within the character and never let it be known to the others. A festering kink yearning for expression could be worse that unrequited love.

    A kink will influence a character and that’s what I’m after.