Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

A Real SOB

A real SOB

My approach to this diet of mine is the same one I took to quit smoking. It is a commitment to change a habit of behavior that has formed over a lifetime. I was always thin and could eat anything. That freedom led to an insidious weight gain after the age 50 that wound up making me look like a skinny person that swallowed a basketball.

Several years ago my wife introduced me to a low carb diet and that was when I experienced, for the first time, a condition that I call “Conversion.” Right or wrong when I am dieting I ‘oft hit what can only described as an “edge” in my personality, that is when I feel a condition I describe as a nervous burn. I get real edgy and wired and begin to behave like my mother did when she often seemed to be walking on the ceiling. The way I explain it to myself is that in conversion my body runs out of food and starts burning fat. That is a much different feeling than when my body is using the food I eat to provide for all its energy requirements.

I really hate this feeling however, when I weigh the next morning my weight is usually down. Not significantly, but down. I know my readers have little interst in my weight-loss program but it is a part of my life and what I think about I write about.

This weekend one of my blog readers noted that as she has matured as a reader she likes an antagonist that is not totally beyond redemption, just as she likes a central character that is not lily white. I might be putting words in her mouth but that is the idea. I agree with her. For some reason white hat and black hat characters don’t resonate with my experience. So I often find myself writing about antagonists and protagonists who are a blend rather than unadulterated.

The common model we see in writing however, takes a different tract. Readers tend to want an unmitigated antagonist that is bad to the bone. And, while they can accept some glitches in the protagonist they want to see that the good in them has a clear control over the bad. It seems that readers don’t want to be confused by the shades of grey they see in the real characters in their lives. While this is the way reality plays readers don’t read necessarily for a clear depiction of reality. Why should they…? They see enough of that in their own lives. And so while a blended character might resonate better than a concentrated one for believability, keep in mind that readers are more than ready to suspend disbelief, if it gives them the sharp distinctions leading to the conflicts that animate their interests. That’s my take anyway. If you have an antagonist in your novel make sure they are a real SOB.