Wrecked Canvas

  When it comes to characters or stories, it seems like a lot of writer's end up wrecking the canvas. Not ruining it, but causing a little chaos. The usual way people develop characters is by growing them out of their problems and making them better people but I like to do it a different way. To me, breaking down a character over time is a much more interesting process.

 Building a character up to their peak and then tearing them down into something else. It's developing but in a more realistic way. Or at least that's my opinion. Not to mention it's much more interesting and rare to see a main character break down instead of grow.

 The only way I like to incorporate this in my stories is when the main character has grown to a certain point. When they're at their potential, so to speak, I've always had a habit of bringing them down again. Usually in horrible scenarios, but that's just the writer's way.

 Inverting the process is interesting to me, and in a way gives the author a better chance to show more angles of the character then before. How they react, how their personalities change, if new habits arise during their downfall... All of it, I think, helps develop the character even more. Even when they're falling.

 Like I said before, a lot of people grow their characters from the start and keep going. There's nothing wrong with this process, but as a reader I've never really felt concern over something that's happened to the character post-story. Say, if a story starts with a character who's parents are dead. I don't feel anything concerning them, it's just a fact. Now, if this character's parents died later in the story, I would be heartbroken and feel sad. It's all about when.

 Watching a character you've read about grow can be great. You feel happy for them and proud that they've come so far. Watching the same person deteriorate would be just the opposite. When it comes to writing, I've always felt that sad or ominous stories have a greater emotional toll, and in my writing I try to play on that as much as I can without over-doing it. Writing that can invoke emotions is the greatest kind, in my opinion.

- Laura.