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The Good Girl with No Drive

 How many of you have read Bleak House by Charles Dickens or watched the movie?

Do you remember Esther?

She is good. And kind. She has a dogged optimism to look for the good in everything, no matter how hard her situation. She is a hard worker, someone that you WANT to come help you because you know she will make everything better.

I love her character.

Not everybody does. She’s been accused of being a ā€œflatā€ and ā€œpassiveā€ character.

She’s not. I’ll defend my Bleak House Esther.

But let me first talk about another character…one of my own, who really was a weak, flat, passive character.

I liked her when I first created her. She was sweet and lovely. I thought it wasn’t her fault that she was swept along by forces more powerful than she was. I didn’t even realize how passive she was until a judge pointed it out to me. Now I see how cringe-worthy she was — she was pretty worthless (no offense)  except to inspire other characters to take action, and even then, their action on her behalf stemmed from their own integrity more than from her life.

Readers like active characters. They want someone who has so much passion and drive that they easily suck the reader into the story. It’s easy and fun to read. Think of Little Women — we all love Beth but we read the story because of Jo.

Does that mean that the kind and gentle girl can’t be a heroine?

I don’t think so. Not all heroines have to be impatient, discontented, and pushy to drive a story!

And maybe I believe this because I believe that goodness makes the world a better place. I believe that we CAN push our own real-life stories to better outcomes when we ourselves can be kinder and wiser and more humble and willing to serve. 

So how do we write good characters? And what makes Bleak House different than my own poor story?

Esther’s goodness wasn’t effortless. My Princess really had no reason to be bad — her life was pretty much perfect. But Esther — she had many opportunities to be bad or harsh or selfish or neglectful or downright despairing. But you could see her tighten her jaw, lift her chin, and make the RIGHT choice. 

And, even with that, and even though I admire and love Esther of Bleak House, there are some downright cut-throat characters in that story who would do anything to achieve their goals. And they do drive the plot more than she does. Esther is about as passive as you can be while still being heroic.

Before I close, let’s look at one more gentle character: Sam in LOTR. He’s good and kind and steady. He’s not malcontented or aggressive or ambitious or cut-throat. He just wants to help his friend, and to keep his promise to Gandalf, and hopefully to make it back home and ask Rosie to marry him. And he’s probably the only reason Frodo made it as far as he did. And his steady goodness sees him through better than most characters faired in that story.

But he wants something. He does have a driving goal and purpose that carry him through impossible situations.

That, my friends, is how we write characters. Each character needs to want something with enough passion that they are willing to make sacrifices for it. Even if it is simply to prove your worth by making the world a better place, despite all the reasons you can’t.

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