Don't Create Stupid Characters!

 When I was a kid, around 5 or 6 years old, my mom used to load a stack of records (okay, youngsters reading this: we had a big box thing, with a stereo, and had to place a pile of vinyl records on it to play music-- as one album finished, the next in the pile dropped down, so the needle could hit it and play) every Friday since it was cleaning day. There was a song called 'Running Bear' (Apologies upfront, as this is not a new century PC-correct song: I think the song is from the '50s or '60s). I didn't like that song because the people were "stupid". 

A stereo, like I grew up with: Radio on the left, records play in the middle and are stored on the right

Here's why I hate that song and said the people are stupid:

In the song, a Hero is on one side of a "raging river" and the heroine is on the other side. They can't get to each other because of the "wide raging river", and overcome with longing one day, the Hero "goes in the water" and the heroine does too and as they meet in the middle, grab hands, and kiss, the "raging river pulled them down" so they were "always together in their happy hunting ground".

Do you see why these people are stupid???

Here's why (using me at 5-6 yrs old as I recall this conversation then):

Me: Why did they drown?

Mom: Because they wanted to be together so badly they risked death.

Me: Well that's dumb. 

Mom: No, it's romantic. They loved each other so much.

Me: It's dumb. They died! Why didn't they just go around the river?

Mom: Because the river was so wide. (also a line from the song)

Me: Well, yeah, THERE, but all they had to do was follow the river until it narrowed or wasn't so raging and crossed it and then they were alive not dead, and together in love.

Mom: It ended in a waterfall. (not in the song, but Mom could improvise with the best, and I was her youngest, so she had had a lot of practice by then)

Me: Then they could turn around and go to the other end. I mean the WHOLE river wasn't big and raging and mean. Even in Little House (my favorite books and series at the time) Pa found a shallow place to cross the river so Ma could drive the horses and they could get across and--

Mom: Well these people couldn't, because it was a big wide river with no way to cross.

Me: Well why not build a bridge or a boat if they were too lazy to follow it to the end? They could build a raft too, I mean even Gilligan tried that on an island, and the ocean is a whole lot bigger than a river so-- (Gilliagan's Island, another show that I never understood WHY they didn't try to find help-- and how they baked all those coconut cream pies with no milk and oven)

Mom (exasperated by me now): You're missing the whole point of the song! That's not what the singer is trying to say. Or why. It's about loving someone so much you give up everything for them.

Me: What is the point then? Love will make you stupid so you die? And why do I hafta give up anything for some boy to love me? I mean, it's not gonna be a great life if we're both dead and can't enjoy it.

Mom: turns on the vacuum to drown me out and sweeps for a long time hoping I forget

(NOT my mom, btw, in the above picture. My mom had dark hair)

See why these are NOT smart characters? Sorry, I detest the whole Romeo-and-Juliette love so much they die for each other bologna in movies and books. You shouldn't have to die to prove you love someone. Unless you are a hostage at gunpoint, and you offer yourself instead of the person you love to be killed, but that's a whole other story.

But here's my point: Characters in books should have a conflict SO wide and raging that it's not easily solved. Don't make them stupid (and yes, I know the point is true love is supposed to conquer all, but since they both drown in the song, obviously it didn't!) Give them reasons not easily solved to be apart...and then show how they conquer those reasons against all odds to be together.

THAT's the sort of song, movie, and story I like. And I write.

For example, in the movie Bram Stroker's 'Dracula' (with W. Ryder & G. Oldman-- the BEST Dracula, btw), his wife gets a vengeful message he has been killed, and unwilling to live without him, she leaps to her death--he then spends lifetimes in vengeance against God trying to find her again and finally gives up his need for revenge against God once he thinks he does, but realizes she has moved on & isn't 'his' anymore, and he can be with his lost wife once again by letting go of his vengeance so he does-- there's lots of other explanations and sub-stories, but that's the jest). 

The Hero, such as Dracula is, dies, but he is finally reunited with his lost love after learning centuries of lessons (and being really evil) and has to work to be redeemed (which some will say he didn't get redeemed: I believe in letting the present day Mina go, he redeems himself, because she was, in every way, to him, his lost love, so he's losing her all over again--until he does release her and ask for death, which he's always avoided, he's evil--asking for death, and for her to kill him, is his way to redemption, and to release Mina).

Le sigh...

So after waiting for Mom to turn off the vacuum and realizing after a while she had no intention of continuing our discussion, I went to my room and decided to re-write the song. I can't find the version I wrote, which would have mostly been pictures for me at that young age, but I've always remembered that when I want to write my own books.

Like this...

In the song I would write about a raging river separating the characters, I'd add about the hard work of building a raft or a bridge. Poor heroine broke her saw and couldn't find another. How can she make a raft or a bridge if she can't cut the trees? And please do NOT have her just sit by the river, day after day "blowing kisses 'cross the waves" (yes, a line from the song) to the hero and waiting for the big strong man to rescue her. She needs to actively WANT and WORK toward finding a way across that raging river.

And the poor Hero...as he's walking to find a better spot to cross on the river...he's attacked by bears and then nursed back to health by a medicine woman who doesn't want him to leave (shades of 'Misery' anyone?). OR a neighboring group of people captures him and he has to do booms for them to release him so he can find the heroine again. (Like in 'The Last of the Mohicans').

Now THERE's a movie: omg...It was also filmed near where I live, so that's an added bonus for me.

(SPOILERS>>>DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T AND WANT TO WATCH THE MOVIE). 

You have poor Daniel Day-Lewis trying desperately to save Cora from a vengeful warrior who has killed her father and now takes her for 'judgment' and the judge's decision is to kill her so Daniel, after trying so, so hard to track and save her, including getting tortured by the people who have Cora hostage, offers himself for her and then goes after the warrior who has taken her sister, and loses his beloved brother in the process..there's much, much more to this story (including some very graphic violence) but that is the heart of the love story. And when he tells her: "No matter what, you submit, you do whatever they tell you and you stay alive. I WILL find you! I will come for you! No matter how long or how far, You stay alive and I will find you." (paraphrased)

Stay alive! I will find you.

Okay, safe now. Read this paragraph:

For that matter... make this the heroine! She is captured or has to evade the evil tribe of bandits. She helps build the raft or the bridge. She finds the shallow part of the river, swims across, and has to rescue HIM from the villains.

 SPOILERS AGAIN!!!!

In the above movie, Cora is no shrinking violet who waits for him to find her. She leaves him signs so he can track where the warrior bad guy (and man, he is a mega bad guy!) is taking her...she pleads with her father for Daniel's release...she follows him when he says, Come with me...and fights to stay alive and keep her sister alive, losing her whole family in the process, and her whole way of life).

(Okay read now )

See where I'm going? That's a MUCH better way to show true love conquers all. So make your characters FIGHT and be strong. 

For the book I'm writing now...Becky and Chip are lifelong friends who have (in her case) finally decided there might be more than friendship between them. But Chip is fighting some very, very dark and heavy demons in the form of severe PTSD and Becky needs to learn how to deal with less than 'fairy-tale' life. This is a couple I root for, having lived through much of their situation, and also, a more mature than my usual twenty and thirty-somethings (even more than my forty-something ones in Harry & Alyssa and Charlie & Christine). Stay tuned to find out when you can see how Chip & Becky write their own happily-ever-after in the actual real world.

And if you think any of my characters are "stupid" please let me know so I can update them. :)

If you want to hear the song, it can be found here: Again, it's not PC and was a big hit in 1959, so please consider that was another time, place, and generation.

https://youtu.be/1PfrpcqLyzY