Awards for Good Character(s)

Post by Jenny

Thanks to my MSN homepage, I know that it is officially awards season. Yes, we have an entire so-called season devoted to recognizing celebrity achievements and critiquing celebrity wardrobes. I’m not much of a Hollywood follower and am always at least a few years behind the rest of the movie-watching world. (How about that Tom Hanks in Castaway? Right? Hello?) But I will freely admit that awards season beats West Nile season hands down. Plus, those mosquitoes know nothing about fashion.

In the spirit of awards season, try this: give one of your characters a red-carpet award. Imagine how s/he approaches the podium, what s/he is wearing, how composed s/he is when giving the acceptance speech, who s/he thanks, who s/he forgets to thank, how s/he handles it when the music starts playing before s/he is finished. (Or, in a nefarious twist, don’t give your character the award and imagine how s/he smiles and applauds while all the while plotting revenge most foul.) And then, for some real fun, follow your character to the after-party.

But maybe your character is too humble for the red carpet and has as little chance of winning an Oscar™ as I have of winning NASA’s Most Awesomely Mind-Blowing Rocket Scientist of the Century Award. (I’m pretty sure that’s a real thing.) Try giving him or her a blogging award instead. In case you’re unfamiliar, they work something like this: Here’s your fun award, fellow blogger! In your acceptance post, tell us seven things we don’t know about you. And then pass this award on to 413 other bloggers who do not already have the super-cool badge displayed on the sidebar—and are not robots/squirrels/zombies/genetically-engineered dolphins posing as actual blogging people.

Assuming your character is not a vampire or Galapagos tortoise and therefore has a normal human lifespan, s/he can skip the second part and focus on the list. What will s/he put on that list? Well, we’re writers, we can help with that. I’ll start with #1: Once swapped tequila shots in an airport bar with Nicholas Cage. As to whether our character is a Navy SEAL or a retired librarian, I’ll leave that up to you.

What would you add to our character’s list of seven?