The Other Side of the Mirror

This is just a piece of drabble I wrote up last night. I’ll be in Tennessee through Sunday, so have fun!

She stops to look at me every time she passes. Some days she smiles; she tilts her head left and right. She might even grin at me, showing teeth not exactly straight or white, but it’s a lovely smile anyway.

Other days, she sees me and frowns. Her eyes grow red and shiny, and she says things to me; hateful things. Ugly, she hisses. Fat. Nobody thinks you’re pretty. 

I watch in silent despair as she cries, or glares, or just stares at me with dead eyes in an expressionless face.

I never know how she’s going to be when I see her, but I know that looking at me will change her day. She will either grin and nod. Very nice. Or she will darken and hurry away. Don’t look at me.

I want to tell her what I see – unruly hair full of life, eyes that sparkle like sunlight on the ocean. I want to tell her how her strong nose suits her, that her mouth is perfect but that what it says is most important. She should know how beautiful she is; that her weight or height or complexion doesn’t make her ugly, it makes her her. The only one of her kind. Flawed and flawless.

But what can I do?

I’m only a reflective surface.

The Unveiling

Okay. So I’ve been falling behind on my book reviews, but now that I’m about to graduate and I’ll have more time to read, I wanted to re-vamp it. And then I thought “Well…’the book fae’ doesn’t really FIT me.” And then I thought “It would be cool to make it a Tumblr; I could reblog other cool book stuff.” And then I asked my writing group, the Tea-Spitters (awesome girls, every one of them) what I should call it. Scarlett suggested I call it “Mirriam’s Peic Book Reviews” because ‘peic’ is a word we created, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I give you —-

Peic Books: The good, the bad, and the other in (mostly) YA lit. 

I hope you have fun – expect lots of peic things!

“I guess I’m just a good man. Well, I’m alright.”

I touched the subject of ‘character perfection’ in my last post, but I decided to dedicate an entire post to it. Yay! Now, you all know how I feel about the Perfect Characters (hence the reason I can’t stand Elsie Dinsmore, excellent values though she may have) – I don’t like them. They give an unrealistic air to the entire book, and it’s hard to take them seriously. Some writers, though, have trouble with creating characters who AREN’T perfect – I mean, we want the best for our characters, right? We want people to like them! Trouble is, we tend to swing the other direction. Characters come out as either angels or demons, when what we really want is a human being.

So, here are a few helpful tricks for turning your Perfect Character into someone a little more realistic – and, in the end, more likable.

1. Give a negative side to a positive attribute. A cheerful personality can become TOO cheerful, and therefore, annoying. A character who always tells the truth could go too far and be rudely blunt to everyone. If a person is shy, it could be taken as rude or self-centered. A polite person could become foppish and condescending. The possibilities are endless! *wink*

2. Pick flaws that suit your character. If you’ve got a huge, brawling cowboy, his flaw probably won’t be the condescending politeness I just mentioned. Likewise, if your character is a slight little thing, they won’t constantly be beating people up. (Unless they’re gifted with special powers.) For instance, I have an imagination that never quits – even when it should. Like at funerals, or during serious conversations. I also get bored very, very easily, which is frequently mistaken as “Just shoot me now.”

3. Put your character into a situation where he’s pushed to his limits. Maybe someone insults him to his face until he can’t take it anymore, or hurts someone he loves. Maybe his reputation is sullied online or in town or wherever his reputation could be sullied. Find out exactly how they would react in a stressful situation.

4. Remember, your character is as close to a real person as words can get. Therefore, they should change and grow like a real person. He might be one way now, but maybe by the end of the story, he’ll be different. And, if you’re lucky, you might even grow along with him. I know I grow along with my characters, particularly Mir. He showed me a lot of things.

Now, I have to stick this in here – don’t hop on the pendulum and swing so far trying to make an imperfect character that you make him downright bad, unless he’s intended to be. I write a lot of dark characters, but I do my best to balance their darkness with light. I also write light characters, but they have hidden darkness. Make your characters real, make them unique, and let them grow. End speech.

“Daddy, is he a good man or a bad man?”

“Honey, there’s no such thing.” 

- Jericho