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This week: Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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I'm the best there is in what I do. But what I do best isn't very nice.
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Characters
In last month's newsletter, I wrote, concerning things that made Star Trek (and other imagined universes) popular: Memorable characters. In the TV series, many of the most memorable characters were aliens - but as writers of fantasy and science fiction, that's perfectly acceptable for us.
So what makes a character memorable?
In my opinion, it takes a combination of things. Since I've been talking about movies, and I just went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I'll use Logan as an example. Don't worry - no movie spoilers for that particular movie here.
Wolverine has long been one of Marvel's more popular characters, especially with the adolescent-to-young-adult male demographic (which is, after all, comics' traditional demographic). Even when he was pretty much confined to four-color comics, 'way back in the dark ages when I was a kid, a bunch of us managed to convince the school board via student voting to make our new high school's mascot a wolverine, mostly running it on an X-Man platform (though we didn't tell the school board that).
For those of you still living in the dark ages, Wolverine, aka Logan, is a mutant with remarkable self-healing and regenerative powers. Kinda like Claire in Heroes, but way older and lots uglier [This was before most women and not a few men started drooling over Hugh Jackman -Ed.]. At some point - it was a long time before the specifics were revealed - he'd somehow gotten his skeleton laced with "adamantium," an indestructible metal. He also has these razor-sharp claws that he can extrude from his hands, also made of adamantium and...
But none of that really matters, does it? I mean, it does... but as writers, we're less concerned with what a character can do (superpowers or more "realistic" abilities) than we are with what a character will do - or won't do. To switch universes briefly, we all know that Superman can fly and kick anyone's ass, but also that he's guided by a strong sense of empathy that keeps him from, say, smashing the Earth to asteroids.
Logan's ethical compass is... a bit more complicated.
Besides, he's a smart-ass. Now, we've all had it drummed into us that nobody likes a smart-ass - usually after we make some smart-ass remark. But see, that's not true - readers love it when a character can get away with making some remark that we can't. It's not the whole mutant-healing-ability thing that makes Logan memorable; that's a side issue. It's the mouth.
And - I'm sure this was controversial somewhere, but I never heard anything about it - dude smokes cigars. Now, he can get away with that - indestructible, remember - but it's not exactly a role-model thing to do. You never saw Superman doing that, did you? No, because Superman is a straight-up role model (still an interesting character, but from a different perspective).
But the best thing about Wolverine was always that he just didn't give a damn about what anyone else thought of him - something I think many of us aspire to. Part of the dramatic tension in Logan's character has to do with his need to be alone, standing at odds with his value to a team.
Of course, writers have to come up with our own ideas, but part of that job is to know what works in other characters and use that as a model. So Logan may not be much of a real-life role model (though I can't count how many times I wish I had those claws), but as far as interesting characters, well, we could do worse. I certainly have.
"I know what you're thinkin', punk. Question is: 'Can I get Wolverine before he turns me into shish kabob with those claws?' Now bub, seein' that those claws are adamantium, the strongest metal known, and can slice through vanadium steel like a hot knife through butter, buddy, you gotta ask yourself: do I feel lucky?" |
Some items I found around the site, mostly unrelated to Arctic mustelids or their comic-book namesakes:
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Last month, I focused on Star Trek.
Tadpole1  : Hello Robert,
Thank you for your post. I found it very interesting. You are now on my radar.
Talk to you soon,
Tadpole1
Sensors activated?
Raine  Hope is a intergal part of fiction, whether it is sci-fi or fantasy or even romance. If the future is set in stone, what would be the point of existence? Terminator features a future that is dark but there is hope there, too, in Sara Connor's teaching her son to fight otherwise the machines would never have sent the Terminator back to eliminate her.
To live in a world without hope is to already be dead.
The tension between hope and fear is an important part of drama in any narrative.
scarlett_o_h: Thank You for featuring my story 'Window Pains' in your Newsletter. First time I've had on in the Fantasy section and am highly honoured.
Well, in another life (last week) I'm a Comedy newsletter editor too, so sometimes I mix in a bit of humor in here as well 
And that's it for me this month! Until next time, be sure to send in your feedback and
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Fantasy: May 13, 2009 Issue [#3050]
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