Abuse and Neglect of Characters

The movie, Stranger than Fiction, starring Emma Thompson as a writer whose main characters were always killed by the end of the novel, explored the writer's responsibilities to her characters especially regarding the ending of their lives. However, even when it is not a matter of life and death for the characters of fiction, does the writer bear some responsibility for the characters' well-being? What if the writer is guilty of abuse and neglect of her characters?

Every thirty-eight seconds, a fiction character is a victim of psychological abuse. Psychological abuse occurs when the writer toys with the emotions of a character, arousing a warm flame only to douse it with ice water. For example, the character experiences joy and rapture having just met the man of her dreams with whom she will share a forever-and-ever ending. Then, invariably the writer steps in and dashes all hope by introducing the dream man to the wealthy widow who just moved in next door. Another example is the noble story of surrender and acceptance of a character deserted on an uninhabited island. He learns to survive, cope, and even thrive with only a chimpanzee by his side. Again, the writer is so presumptuous that she will send a helicopter in to return him to the pampered wife and child who were yet to notice that their breadwinner hadn't returned from his business trip. As pathetic as these circumstances are, there is an even more despicable affront to characters by far too many writers. These writers, whose immense numbers are difficult to estimate, are guilty of neglect.

The neglect of characters usually starts with a relatively benign act by the writer such as filing away a chapter in a three-prong folder or saving a file on a flash drive. While these acts appear to be responsible and even conscientious, the worm soon turns. The character waits for the writer, unaware that the writer, whether intentional or not, will not return. The character fails to thrive while in the file cabinet. Hidden away from sunlight and social contact, the character begins to shrivel and fade. What was once a well-developed character having contradictions, strengths and foibles becomes reduced to scrap paper. On the flash drive, the character waits behind documents recently opened. The longer the character waits, the further she falls behind other, more pretentious documents, like spreadsheets, for example.

What can be done for these neglected characters? Is there any hope? There is, but it involves a difficult form of treatment. The character cannot simply be returned to where her story left off. If there is to be any salvation for her, she must suffer in order to be saved. The writer must put her in some precarious situation in which only the cruelest wordsmith would be willing to abandon her a second time. Either the character must be immediately immersed in a powerful, threatening series of events that threatens either her existence or the existence of a loved one, or the character must face a competing character in another book by the same writer and be willing to grab the limelight, outshining the competitor, and subsequently once again securing an honorable place in the writer's note cards.

If writers have a heart, which they claim they do, they must no longer avoid looking into the pale faces of their forgotten characters. The abused and neglected characters, the forgotten leaders of tomorrow's best-selling list, deserve to be given their God-given rights and privileges. Write your congressional representatives today and ask them to support the Filed and Forgotten Universal Character Keeper (FFUCK) Act. Thank you and God Bless America!