Ruined Forever

Ever had a character who was utterly Ruined Forever in your mind? And your writing or even life will never be the same again?

Nope. Can't say I have.

My subtext detector's pegged and I suspect there's a "This has happened to me, please ask me about it" behind your post.

Doesn't necessarily mean that. But it might have and would be scary to happen.

Ha ha. Yes.

So this guy. We'll call him Bob. I paired him up with another one of my characters, Alice. I really liked him because he was happy and optimistic and kind and a good person.

The character was really good friends with another guy, Charlie, and jokes started getting made about them as a pairing. I made the mistake of giving Charlie an unrecruited crush on Bob.

I say mistake because it made me realize that Bob was actually a huge dick. He was always oblivious to people's feelings, but it started getting to the point where he was hurting other people, such as Charlie and Alice. I also realized that the traits and actions I had that I had perceived as good had an entirely selfish motive behind them. Bob's a huge attention whore and only acts nice and does good things because he's hoping to get noticed. It's not an entirely conscious thing on his part, but it's there.

I put him on a bus. If I had kept him around, I wouldn't be able to write him. I also couldn't kill him because canon. Despite this, I'm still trying to clean up the mess he left behind and the affects it had on some of the characters. Jesus Christ.

I don't have a problem with characters that are dicks. But for some reason, realizing this about Bob just ruined him for me? Maybe I just have issues with characters that are jerks and don't realize they're jerks. Either way I can totally relate to this.

edited 15th Dec '12 1:21:36 AM by Hermiethefrog

Is there a reason Bob couldn't have just undergone character development?

On topic: strictly speaking, Ruined Forever is an obnoxious whiny man-child audience reaction, and so doesn't apply here. But there have certainly been characters (or other plot elements) that I decided were beyond salvaging.

Ditto. (And if it's what I'm thinking, this is actually a pretty appropriate attitude to take).

It's entirely possible, but I have no idea where to begin.

I would be interested in knowing your personal experience, Psycho.

As for me, no. There was one time I created a character I found rather attractive, and realized I'd partially based him on my mother...

Never characters alone, though sometimes characters and works together.

A character in that place is good for one thing...a paper airplane. Fold the page you wrote their last relevant action on into a nice glider and toss it gently into the air. Let it coast to the ground. Let your pet cats tear it into little pieces. Congratulations, that character has been Ruined Forever.

Have I gotten to this point? No. Because characters -just like real people - can always potentially rise above their problems. If you as the writer cannot figure out a way for them to do this, perhaps your problem is too perfect.

"Always potentially", perhaps. But I think the question might be better put as "is this character worth the effort to salvage?"

That depends on a lot of different factors in and of itself...

edited 20th Dec '12 1:32:35 AM by JHM

I had a similar experience. I think I'll share it. Get ready for some headaches, folks.

Parallaxus started as the Knight of Cerebus to end all Knight of Cerebus enemies in the old iteration of New Dawn. He drove away the by then more comical DRA, and began running around killing entire planets worth of people, as well as being a visually intimidating gigantic dragon whose true features are almost never shown, except for Red Eyes, Take Warning.

However, he also brought with him a confusing time travel plot, which led to lags in writing as I tried to map out an increasingly kudzu-like maze of continuity. One person is dead in the main time line, but he's alive and very, very well. 'Llaxus unkilled an old enemy by re-unbetraying his old friend, which Retgoned his enemy's girlfriend, who was the reason said enemy was an enemy, which in the process Retgones the hero's girlfriend.

When I returned to work...I couldn't remember what his plan was any more.

Thus, due to these confusing subjects, I am not touching Parallaxus with a yard stick. He turns everything utterly ridiculous.

My characters are flatter than Parappa the Rapper anyway, and I have no idea how to add dimension to them, so I've never had any ruined.