You know, I can’t find any fault with this:
If it doesn’t load or gets lost in the ether, it’s a list on a whiteboard from a friend’s small child.
A Good Day Needs:
a nap
a fruit
a walk
alone time
a chocolate milk
a book
a drawing time
and a hug
What do you need for a good day?
How about your characters? How do you show them having a good day?
Go forth, and make your day a good one.
Mad Genius Club 
5 responses to “A Good Day”
I often feel like my characters are surrogates in bits. Without being explicit or neurotic about it, some character will do something in passing (pet a cat, solve a trivial problem, notice a friend, calm a panic,…. whatever…. that resonates with me. It’s true to the character, but it’s also true to me, in the old sense that we are all human and nothing human is alien to us.
But… I have a hell of a time with villains, the ones that do things I could never do myself. The ones with evil intent, with indifference to harm, who relish pain in others, esp. the hot-blooded (psycho) versions. I’m much better with, say, business or personal rivals who, while conniving, are motivated primarily by their own gain rather than the pain of others. Even those that seek bloody revenge are motivated by outrage and justice, rather than an active joy in destruction.
So I have to be careful not only to give my various surrogates good days (as well as bad), but also find ways to humanize my villains, which is much harder. My professional rival characters might also want a treat, and get one, but I don’t like my nasty psychos well enough (resonate with them enough) to indulge them with something that might make me smile.
I was always taught that part of “putting your heart” into a creation is exactly this.
That’s why you know someone has some beauty in their soul when they make beautiful music– and why folks talk about “delving into their deepest darkness” for writing villains.
For what it’s worth, if your point is to make a villain that is… kind of a human version of a hungry wolf, they eat you because they are hungry and you’re there?
You don’t need to humanize him. It’s alright, I as a reader say you don’t have to drag your mind into things you don’t ever even contemplate doing.
I like having the Hungry Wolf villains. Simple motivation, even if it’s evil, and it makes sense. Can do that.
…. I also really like the Garak villains, who may even be antagonists that sometimes help.
Garak is a very bad man. The smart thing to do, if I ever met him, would be to shoot him. And make absolutely sure he’s dead. And even then, it’s probably too late.
But I also adore watching him chew the scenery and be utterly indispensable for shared goals, and I deeply empathize with him, and feel bad when he’s hurt. (Feel more bad than he’s willing to show he’s feeling, at that.)
Which is also a freaking awesome villain. Who might stop in the middle of a fight to correct how someone is holding a knife, because that just offends their sense of propriety, no you hold it like this to stab someone, or you’re going to break the blade.
…dang it, now I want to do a writing exercise where vaugely-authory-plot-character brings the character a hot mocha, and “ok, what happens next?”
Just to try to figure out the characters better.
Indeed a good day. I’d add things like “A quiet dinner at home or a nice restaurant.” Or “A gentle rainstorm followed by a glorious rainbow.”
I can’t help thinking, though, what a Ringo or Kratman character would have on their whiteboard…
Business goes smoothly, the weather cooperates, a loved one is home or is doing well elsewhere … Or a new recipe works out better than hoped, or it’s just a cool, quiet evening spent strolling with a beloved and thinking nothing much at all.
Yes. Yes, this is absolutely a good day, can I have one?