Admitting to Weak Heroes

I am excited to be writing on the script side again rather than prose, composition, or the like. I’ve needed to do soul searching to help overcome certain aspects in my personal life which formed walls around actually being able to write strong script. When I started this journal for the first time two years ago, many of my thoughts were coming from a critical and theoretical perspective, partly because that’s what I happened to be dabbling with. At this point, I’ve gained more in my writing perspective and definitely understand the form and theory behind the written universe to a greater degree than in my undergraduate years, which was based primarily off intuition and exposure to what I considered transcendental storytelling. (Granted, I really shouldn’t knock my critical / analytical skills from years past.)

 Honestly, one of the main reasons I decided to pursue graduate school was to have a more structural eye to the blueprints behind writing. I want to build a mansion with writing, not a coffee table. I think knowing the cogs working behind it all any art form will help one to become more skilled in said medium. I think for this semester my journal entries will hit more on storytelling and personal fictional areas that I seem to be consistently struggling with (now that I have a stack of unpublished papers that I can peak through to find patterns.) The critical theory eye is still present in me and will probably appear-- as it has for this entry.

 What I have noticed consistently is my struggle with protagonists. This is compelling because my entire story worlds are developed through dedicating a significant amount of time in developing first the main hero. On more than one account I’ve found my auxiliary characters growing beyond what was expected and in turn almost surpassing the foundational character to which they were technically born. I have a wall to break with the main character because in essence the entire universe I create is connected to them, but many of them (especially in my longer prose) are not finding enough zest, pizzaz, or zeal.
 Part of this may be due to the emotional distance I have with the focal character and my unwillingness to make them as vulnerable as some of their counterparts. I think handing more of the juicy, heart-throbbing sequences would help not only bring out the characters, but bring in closer audience attachment. Caden has been a character I’ve worked with since my teenage years (yikes). He’s actually one of eight that I’ve had in my head for nearly ten years -- and each of those characters has a completely different universe in which I could build, so if any of these stories takes off I probably will have enough ideas in my imaginative bank to write well beyond my own death -- sadly there’s no way all story ideas will make it outside my brain.

 Nothing would exist in Caden’s world without first him. But what is making him so difficult to stand out as clearly as perhaps the female leads, the villains, or even two dimensional side characters? That’s one area in my writing I want to explore and help transcend what it is currently. Perhaps some of the strife here is... Caden isn’t altogether human. The more human I can make him the more people will buy into that twist. He has a strong moral compass and is far more innocent than many of the other characters, which this plays heavily into his flaws since he can be tricked easily, be too heartfelt toward the weak, and too merciful to actually be bent on necessary justice.

 I don’t doubt this character will grow and end up triumphing over his cast. He is in more a state of blossoming, and perhaps the main hero needs more time to cook because the sense of direction they carry should be what leads the rebellion against the status quo which I think is what the audience wants to see. My amnesiac-invincible, celestial superhero literally has to contrast against the rest of the dystopian regime, but when in the same universe there’s Lise who in her own backstory has seen countless murders and is hanging onto the narrative track by a thread, it’s hard not to look at her and be caught up in the freedom she’s pursuing. Lise was originally created to fill a hole in a short story I wrote where essentially geometrically I was thinking of the space and felt it needed to have its points fixed by a brash, sexual, and desperate woman. She was mostly two dimensional, but I kept adding to her and kept listening to how the character wanted more plot. I came to her know in my mind as a good friend who I would meet in coffee shops to discuss politics, books, and religion. This character didn’t want to be left with poor detailing. I admit to spending too much time coming to know her narrative, as with her foil Rebecca who has just as much suffering but handles it with more grace and class.

 My goal will be to strengthen Caden. He needs to be the man we’re all searching to have in a world with few men left. Even if he isn’t altogether man -- he seems to think he is. He needs a stronger foil to help balance him out, and I think that’s why I keep being drawn to one of the last additions to this story world: Edgar. He’s the prince in this one world government, and I think though he is destined to be a part of the system that’s committing massive euthanasia for the sake of an elite immortality, I think he’ll fight against it because his moral compass is too loud, too distraught for meaning and purpose.

 In the end, maybe one needs to be the justice we need in humanity and the other is the coin of mercy. Caden’s destiny is to end the flawed system running the world, but maybe he is called to be a more tender warrior, a shepherd, a being so gracious that this quality in itself obliterates the makeup of a dry, decaying world.