November Is Writing Month

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Wouldn’t you know it—just as Questionable Content's Marigold’s starting to annoy me, along comes this excellent bit of silliness and she's adorable again. Jeph Jacques wins at Comics this week just for that.*

I love that QC’s characters are all so darn pragmatic and communicative. What with the entire internet NaNoing right now, I’ve had a bunch of writing discussions, and wound up lamenting to both fadethecat and my sister that I need dumber characters, because it’s a lot harder to manufacture conflict when your people are willing to Think Things Through, Question Their First Impulses, and Sit Down And Have A Conversation (speaking of Digger).

MY SISTER: Yeah, my dumb character gets into the most fun situations by far.

ME: I can’t do it. I’d be the worst sitcom writer ever. “Jane hears Sarah talking about pregnancy and sees her shopping at a maternity store. She wonders if Sarah’s pregnant, and considers throwing her a surprise shower. First, though, she asks Sarah if she IS pregnant. Sarah says no, she was buying clothes for her pregnant cousin. Jane is glad she didn’t jump the gun and mention this to her friends.”

MY SISTER: “Shawn sees Evelyn having coffee with some guy and worries she might be cheating on him. So he goes over and says hi, and Evelyn introduces him to the guy, who turns out to be her brother, Kevin, and Shawn joins them for some biscotti.”

ME: “Bob’s parents come to visit him, his roommate Lily, and his boyfriend, Phil, but they are under the impression that Bob and Lily are an item. A few confusing conversations later and they realize the misunderstanding, clear it up, and have a nice dinner.”

MY SISTER: You’re right. I’d never watch that.


And yet I love QC and Digger. Smart characters mean you need more interesting conflicts to work through. You just need a smart writer to figure them out.

And hey, if that smart writer can write wonderful badfic, well. Bonus points and candy for him!


*Ursula Vernon won last week. Y'ALL, I WAS INCONSOLABLE FOR THREE DAYS.

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I've also developed a means to write dialogue with people much smarter than I am: I write the conversation as normal, and then cut most of it out, so that they seem to be making astounding leaps of logic and human understanding.

Hee hee! That is an excellent strategy!