writerly ways

a day late and probably a dollar short. I've been thinking about something I've talked about before: characters doing stupid things.

The one place I got enough guidance from the rejection was that sometimes the characters did stupid things. One was meant to be stupid (and it apparently fell short of my intention) and the other was something I feared was done (and I've talked about lately with that other novel I just finished reading.)

for example, in that novel besides the two characters coming together one of which has vital info for the case, and instead of relaying it they have sex (this is the stupid one I had in story), and then go on and do it three more times in the story.

What would you think of a character who knows what the killer is after but doesn't tell his cop boyfriend (or her cop boyfriend since I see this constantly in amateur sleuth stuff) and then decides to go after him without calling the cops in because the killer knows the one detective (like he's the only one in town).

I had this same issue with Angel and Buffy a lot. I didn't mind Xander doing bonehead things but when the supposedly intelligent characters did moron things. For example, when Angel and company set up Cordy to be exposed as being possessed/evil/whatever they thought she was and they know Connor is completely enthralled with her, instead of keeping him with them as they expose her, they let him stumble into it. Head desk.

So where am I going with this? I literally have no idea. I'm just rambling and ranting. And am disappointed to have read several really stupid moments lately. Ditto the one I'm reading now, not that the characters are acting stupid but rather that something got published containing multiple fights at school and NO ONE gets expelled.

I have to put a word count on this some day but not today.

I'm also getting ready to send in my novella and I'm sending it to a different publisher first. I'll see how that goes for me.

Day 19 451 words