What characters do you refuse to write?

I posted about favourite characters a couple of months ago. It’s a popular subject for us authors, after all. It’s always easier to talk about the things we love to do. But today, I want to talk about the characters we just can’t write.

I’m sure that there are writers out there that can write any kind of character. I’m not one of them. I really struggle with passive female characters. Mine always come out as whiny. Not all passive women are whining in real life, I know. However, put me in charge of one and she’s guaranteed to be a whiny, sniveling, annoying thing.

Likewise, I find it hard to remove snideness from the attitudes of anything I write in first person. I am naturally snide and that inherent attitude creeps into the voice of characters. It’s one of the reasons I rarely write in first person; I can’t keep my voice out of it.

Writers – what characters do you struggle to write?

Posted on Sep 3, 2010 in Author Clinic | 5 comments
  • http://www.ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com Sandra Almazan

    Passive characters don’t make good MCs, though I suppose you could include one as an annoying secondary character if you wanted to.

    It seems that a lot of 1st person POVs tend to be snarky (at least in some of the urban fantasy I read), so that might not be a bad thing.

  • http://www.kristadball.com Krista

    I find the majority of female characters in SF&F are passive characters, who do nothing but have men conduct the affairs of their lives. :p

    Perhaps all of the urban fantasy authors have the same trouble as me; they can’t keep their snark to themselves ;)

  • http://www.authorkatholmes.webs.com Kat Holmes

    I like writing urban fantasy. It helps to relieve a lot of stress cause you can get as bloody as you want. Very theraputic. LOL. Characters I just can’t write would have to be cowboys. I don’t know why I’m just not into either historical or modern western stories.

  • http://mariazannini.blogspot.com/ Maria Zannini

    I struggle with ‘sweet’. Every once in a while I have to write a character who is sweet or is unusually sensitive. It’s even harder when that character is a man.

    Maybe that says more about me than I’d like. LOL.

  • Krista

    I an unable to write sweet women. Unable. No talent whatsoever for it.