Wild or Wimpy?

When Becky and I started writing our story, I had a vision of our protagonist, Casey. I wanted his character to be sweet and gentle, mildly goofy, a little naïve, but the kind of guy that things just happen to. 

I thought of Red Skelton.

But not as goofy and maybe with a slightly harder edge.

I think Casey’s characterization was mostly consistent, but came across to some members of our critique group as pretty wimpy. And the worst part was that when I was writing Red Skelton, Becky was writing me.

Me? Wipmy?

When I was writing Red, it was a challenge to keep with the tone of the story and not get too wild and crazy, but that did occasionally slip out. When someone at our writing group commented that a certain section was “over the top” Becky said that we should put something in that was REALLY over the top. 

And we did, but it must’ve been fairly mild because no one challenged it. Maybe in the rewrite, we can come up with something truly over the top.

If we want something wild, and we’re basing Casey on Red, we’ve got a better shot. But, if Becky’s basing the character on me, we’re going to have to be really creative, because I’m not exactly what you’d call wild.

And for the record, I’m not wimpy, either.