A Lack of Character(s)

Posted by pschultz

March 1, 2009

I’ve come to realize that one of the toughest challenges that I have in my attempts at writing fiction is creating believable characters. It may in fact be the hardest part of writing for me, and I have yet to overcome it. That’s why I haven’t managed to finish a story completely – I become dissatisfied with my characters and my writing just tails off. This realization hit me when I started jotting down notes for a short story that I thought up in the shower – my world building is decent, but when it came time to bake up the people involved I fell short.

In other news, I don’t know if I mentioned that I shamelessly stole the idea for a bar from my friend Kevin, but I finally started putting it together this weekend. So far it’s been slow going. My dad and I put the base and one of the shelves together. Part of the reason that it goes so slowly is that we are pretty meticulous when it comes to this kind of thing, which means we put an extra effort into getting everything squared up and glued. It should be cool when it’s done, though.

Speaking of the bar, one of the people I follow on Twitter linked me to a pretty thorough guide on how to make Skittles-infused vodka. Being an impulsive person, I decided to try it out for myself. I think it turned out pretty good, so now I just need to get some other people to drink it with me.