On April 16, 2015, this came into the website from Yulia in the old blogspot days:<\/p>\n
My main character is VERY moody. She is rather oversensitive and gets easily upset. I reread my manuscript and she\u2019s crying in every other scene. I don\u2019t want a main character who\u2019s making mountains out of, well, let\u2019s say, gnome\u2019s hills, but that\u2019s her character.<\/em><\/p>\n I tried making her more unemotional, but then she seems bland. I want her to be passionate and vibrant like she is, but what kind of reader wants to sit through a crybaby heroine?<\/em><\/p>\n I suspect that Yulia has finished this story and written a dozen more by now. Here are my thoughts anyway:<\/p>\n I had the same problem in one of my Disney Fairies books. Gwendolyn, one of my few human characters, was forever weeping and my editor was, too–in exasperation.<\/p>\n This was years ago, so I don\u2019t remember what I did, but I remember her frustration whenever one of my characters threatens to become\u00a0lachrymose. Here are some possibilities that don\u2019t create blandness:<\/p>\n \u2219 Our MC can sometimes express her sadness physically in ways that don\u2019t involve actual weeping. She can swallow back the tears, blink them away, cram her fists into her eyes. She can be cried out or be too exhausted to cry.<\/p>\n \u2219 She can recite a few words that she\u2019s memorized to help her through hard times. If we introduce the words as her tear stoppers, the reader will know she\u2019s sad whenever she invokes them.<\/p>\n \u2219 Likewise, she can visualize something that comforts her: a beloved face, her pet frog, a flower.<\/p>\n \u2219 She can have developed a defense against crying. Habitually, she converts her tears to laughter or to a joke. In this case, the reader may come to wish she could experience the relief of tears, so that when she finally does weep, the reader is actually happy.<\/p>\n \u2219 We can change her character in this regard. She can be someone who almost never cries. Maybe she converts her sadness to action, say, to good works that make her feel better.<\/p>\n \u2219 Or she may deflect sadness by becoming angry, which can be her most serious flaw, or which may give her the energy to keep going in the face of tragedy.<\/p>\n \u2219 She can encounter so much misery that she becomes hardened and stops weeping. Going back to the physical, she can develop other symptoms instead, sleeplessness, for example.<\/p>\n \u2219 By nature she may not cry much. A certain kind of trigger may be needed. I\u2019m that way. I hardly ever cry, although I can feel very sad without tears. About a year or so ago, though, I had a health scare (I\u2019m fine), and it seemed like the doctor had turned on a spigot. I wept non-stop from his office to the emergency room.<\/p>\n Taking another tack, we may want to look at our plot and see if we\u2019ve created tragedy overload. Our problem may be a sad sack story rather than a crybaby heroine.<\/p>\n We need bad things to happen to keep our story moving. As you all probably know, I advocate making our characters suffer. But suffering can take many forms and call forth many responses.<\/p>\n In a chapter in Ella Enchanted<\/em>, for example, Ella has to try to kiss a parrot, who keeps flying away from her. It\u2019s absurd, not weep-worthy, though she is suffering, and the reader sees the crazy lengths she has to go to to satisfy her curse. I hope the reader suffers with her–and laughs, too.<\/p>\n In The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em> prequel I\u2019m working on, I drop my MC, Peregrine, as a very young child into an environment where she has to earn every shred of affection that comes her way\u2013love seems to be entirely conditional. She works harder than a child should have to and suffers without understanding. Tears bring her only disapproval, so she learns not to cry.<\/p>\n In Anne of Green Gables<\/em>, Anne breaks a slate over Gilbert Blythe\u2019s head. She\u2019s furious and stays furious and has to endure her own anger, another form of suffering.<\/p>\n We can disappoint our MC or frustrate her. We can give her the hiccups at absolutely the wrong moment, which can be funny or serious, because she can be on a first date or performing brain surgery.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say our MC\u2019s friends turn on her. She can: cry; desperately try to win them back; over-explain herself; beg; look for other friends, and the pickings can be slim; be unhappily alone. The point is that in most situations there are lots of options. Even the death of a loved one can evoke a response other than weeping.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also possible to write a weepy but likeable heroine. In my Disney Fairies books, Rani is a water-talent fairy. She\u2019s forever weeping, because her nature is largely water. No one holds that against her. Our MC can be known for her waterworks. Her father says the family should buy stock in Kleenex. She\u2019s weeping but she carries on. The crying doesn\u2019t stop the action. She does what needs to be done with streaming eyes and a red nose. The people who love her, love her anyway. If they don\u2019t mind her crying and they\u2019re likable, too, the reader will probably go along, too. There are opportunities for humor\u00a0as well. She can weep before dessert at every meal, because it\u2019s her favorite part, and she won\u2019t have it to look forward to once she eats it. The reader doesn\u2019t need have to be told every time. He\u2019ll understand and imagine a downpour. Then, if we like, when something really sad happens she can be dry-eyed, which will have an impact.<\/p>\n Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n \u2219 Create a hiccup crisis. Invent a situation and a character, and make him suffer. Write the scene.<\/p>\n \u2219 Create a hiccup crisis in your WIP. Make the consequences serious.<\/p>\n \u2219 In a test of her strength of will, your MC is injected with a serum designed to make her weepy. She\u2019s taken to a laboratory. Tragic images are projected on the walls; sounds of misery blast from speakers. If she gives way and weeps, something dreadful will happen, whatever suits the needs of your story. Write the scene. If you like, keep going and write the story.<\/p>\n \u2219 Write a scene in \u201cSnow White\u201d that includes the eighth dwarf, Weepy.<\/p>\n Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On April 16, 2015, this came into the website from Yulia in the old blogspot days: My main character is VERY moody. She is rather oversensitive and gets easily upset. I reread my manuscript and she\u2019s crying in every other scene. I don\u2019t want a main character who\u2019s making mountains out of, well, let\u2019s say, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,111,130,156],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":647,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}