Right now I’m sitting right on 22,000 words for the month. I’m planning a fairly epic writing day tomorrow to catch up to my target and then keep on going. In that 22,000 I’m counting almost 16,000 words that I wrote…. and then deleted because they were in fact, very bad. I do still have them on my hard drive, but they sit in the darkness alone and unloved.

The write is actually going very well though. I’m doing horrible, terrible things to my main character and that’s the way it should be. If your main character isn’t suffering in some way then you may need to make them suffer more. A great writing quote from screenwriter Martin Roth: “Chase your characters up a tree and throw rocks at him, to see how he responds.”

It’s a great quote and god advice, but personally I recommend also setting the tree on fire.

Not only should your main character be the person with the most to lose, he should also be suffering to keep it. That’s what grabs my interest as a reader, I want to know just how much your protagonist is prepared to give to keep what he loves. Grim anti hero’s with nothing to lose are fine, but they;re only interesting when they are threatened with pain and loss. No one cares about the emotionless killing machine, they can make a good villain (although they’re even better when the villain too has something to lose) but in the end your audience must root for your character to win, you first have to have something to lose.

This turned into a much bigger post than I was intending. Perhaps I need more beer….