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November 16, 2004
Stretching literary muscles
Alesia, from yet another deadline central...
I’m writing a character in my new book, NICE GIRLS FINISH FIRST, who is giving me fits. Literally. I mean, there’s twitching. It’s just not pretty.
Why? Because she’s genuinely nice. Brianna is the good old-fashioned, sincere, earnest, kind, full of goodness and lemon-scented nice. Brianna works for Kirby, who is a snarky smart-ass trying to make it big by being tougher than the next guy. I adore Kirby. I empathize with Kirby.
To paraphrase the delicious Brendan Fraser in THE MUMMY, “Kirby, I get. Brianna, I don’t get.”
So my question of the day is: Do nice girls really finish first?
A huge part of the chick lit voice, for me, is the funny, cynical, ironic, and realistic take on life, love, and all the other craziness. It fits me perfectly, because I AM that person. That voice you hear when you read my books – that’s the real me, not some artificial persona I put on like a red leather glove when I’m writing. (Although, writing with gloves would be difficult, but you see where I’m going.)
Part of me has always been a little cynical and a little skeptical of people who seem to be genuinely nice. I watch them and wonder when the crack in the niceness veneer will happen – when the true, evil self will rise up and smack somebody down. (This is a flaw in my personality; I can admit it.)
Or else I wonder what they want from me.
So writing a truly nice person is a literary stretch. I keep veering over to just a touch of snark in her introspection, or else I mock her a teensy bit without even realizing it, by having her say the equivalent of ‘Gee Whiz’ in dialogue.
So my new strategy is: Embrace the Nice. Stop Battling the Nice. Now I’m writing Brianna as someone who is kind and caring and sweet, but maybe needs to learn how to be a little bit of a diva to realize her goals. I’m still stretching, but not so much racked with pain.
Have a good week – Embrace the Nice.
Hugs,
Alesia, trying to be nice. Or, maybe, just a little nicer.
Posted by Alesia at 6:52 PM | Comments (1)
Comments
I've found with characters that are too good to be true, they usually do have some sort of flaw, as you've already suggested-- it doesn't have to even be a character flaw, just something like they don't make their bed, or don't do their laundry until they're out of clean skivvies. Generally, the sort of thing that they themselves aren't even aware of as being out of character for how others perceive them, but if someone like Kirby saw it, it might change her perception of this seemingly perfect character.
But Diva is good. Diva is always good. :-P
Posted by: Barb at November 17, 2004 9:43 AM
