Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

Last week we delved into some of the characters that are the most fun for me to write. This week I’m going to dive into the opposite, those character archetypes that are the more difficult, annoying, or frustrating for me to write. This is where I get to jump into my social media side comes out, and I get to bitch and whine. Kidding, of course! It’s much more fun to dig into the reasons for things. Now let me say, these have nothing to do with being good or bad characters. This has everything to do with what is tough for me to write.

First is the professional military personality, primarily with the more modern, “man’s man” kind of attitude. I think it is the no-nonsense, no sense of humor attitude combined with that mindset of not beginning until you have a plan A, B, C, and D all laid out and prepared. I also think that, thanks to my father and many movie stereotypes, I am really not a fan of the closed-minded prejudices and hair trigger attitudes that come with this type that make them difficult for me to really get in their heads, and just unpleasant to write.

This next one is going to get me lynched if it is not presented and then understood properly. Clevenger is losing his hair watching me constantly get in my own head. I do it constantly. And the character that will twist me up in my own thoughts the quickest is trying to write a feminine character, trying to do feminine things, and acting feminine. I can write a woman being a character in a scene no problem. She is going to be just as competent, intelligent, and capable in the scene as any man can be. But I am a gay man that has never had a girlfriend, and never interacted with women in an intimate or dating-type scene. Any time I have to try to write a woman in that kind of scene, I always think of all the people claiming, “men can’t properly write women”, I get in my head, and obsess over every word. Any time I have tried, if feels fake or forced, and I feel like I am going to get screamed at for doing it so herribly. I really think if I had to write a cis, straight sex scene, I would probably rewrite the entire plot to avoid it.

The last character I want to talk about is here for a really different reason. When it comes into abusers, tyrannical authorities, and the like, they are far too frighteningly easy for me to write. They come to mind in such a way that they almost pull themselves out of the keyboard and onto the page. Unfortunately this is because my past is packed full of them, and I have allowed them to have far too much impact on my life. They may be physically easy to write, but they take a heavy emotional toll on me, and I have fought to remove this type of person from my life.

So that’s it. Overall, it is not really a technical thing with any of the characters in my stories. I am confident that I can do at least a passable job. It usually just comes down to either getting in my own way in writing certain types of characters, or having to deal with the emotional aftermath of delving into that particular mindset. But there you have it. I’ve told you who I love writing for, and now I have dipped into some that are more difficult for me. Make of it what you will. Until next time.

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham