Making Fiction

Fiction is a fantastic form of written literature. One moment you can be flying over the expansive planes of (insert world name here) to being a shadow cloaked rouge in the city, possibility is boundless. My personal favorite aspect of fiction is the sheer number of ideas and theories that people come up with, the many creations they scatter about their world. Every part of a story speaks  of the author, what they think and how they view the world. Though out of the concepts that I think are most important, characters tops the list.

A good story has to have good characters, yes it also needs a plot and coherency, but without characters it all amounts to moot. A character needs to be relate-able, the reader needs to feel like they are actually getting to know a real person and for all intents and purposes that is true within the story. People will involve themselves into the story if they can associate and like a character because it is the only window they have into that life, and that is what gets people to like the story: immersion. At the same time you cannot generate a character that is a "Mary Sue", each character will have some role to play and they need to play it well.

Finally there is a small matter at the end to deal with; nothing lasts forever and all good things must come to an end. A story will have an end, what kind is up to the author, but it must have an end. the end should not always be happiness and bliss, sometimes a person dies and needs to die (usually a character you have developed and the audience has become somewhat attached to) to develop a dynamic environment, give it a sense of realism and weight. Ultimately, however, fiction is the expression of the authors ideas; a world created in their head.

"When reading, we don't fall in  love with the characters' appearance. We fall in love with their words, their thoughts, and their hearts. We fall in love with their souls." - Anon

"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." - Paul Sweeney

(Couldn't decide which quote to use so I used them both, as they are both so true.)