So here’s a huge beef I have: cardboard characters. I’ve written them myself. I hate to admit it.
What are cardboard characters? They are people who aren’t real. They come into a story because the author needs them to do something. They act without motivation, to do the thing the author needs them to do, and then they leave or stand quietly in the corner until they are needed again.
In my first novel my hero had two little sisters he cared for. The sisters were twins and one was talkative and tom-boyish and the other was quiet and feminine, but they weren’t real. They just kind of stood around and cried when I needed them to cry. They didn’t react to situations the way real flesh and blood little girls would react.
I was talking to a writer several weeks ago who suggested that since boys only read books with male protagonists we should write books with male protagonists. I said I had trouble doing a boy pov because I didn’t understand boys’ minds. She said that wasn’t really a problem because we can write a book with a female main character and then, after we are done, we can change it to make her into a him.
Um…not really. You can’t just make a girl into a boy. You’d have to change the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she viewed other boys and the way she viewed girls. You can’t just make a character into anything you want that character to be.
If you view your character as a prop that can be twisted into whatever sex you want, if you can put words into your character’s mouth, then the character is not a real person in your mind. And if your character is not a real person in your mind, then he won’t convince readers to adopt him as a friend.
No, your characters aren’t real. I’m not saying you need to hear them speak to you. I’m saying that you should know them so well that they feel real. I’m saying they have to have personalities of their own.
