Who’s gotta backbone?

A listen­er got in touch with me last week. They said, “I loved your edit­or­i­al com­ments about Phen­nil get­ting a back­bone. You soun­ded so proud of him yet some­what sur­prised that he had it in him. I found that very funny, giv­en that he’s a fig­ment of your ima­gin­a­tion and all.”

I had­n’t really even thought of that! I *am* proud of him!

This goes back to Chats With Cool Folk #1, https://totallyfantastictitle.podbean.com/e/19-chats-with-cool-folk-1-jonathan-sean-lyster/ where Jonath­an Lys­ter and I talk about how the char­ac­ters will tell you what they need and very often do stuff that we as writers did­n’t plan. True, some­times we need to rein them in and take charge and say, “Before you do that, you need to do THIS,” kind of like telling your kids, “Yes you can watch a movie, but first I would like you to unload the dish­wash­er.” But with char­ac­ters you just hope that by the time they’ve com­pleted the task you asked them to do, they will for­get about the oth­er thing they wanted to do.

I mean, ima­gine if Sam Gamgee got up the guts to approach Rosie Cot­ton BEFORE going off with Frodo… Ima­gine if he was like, “No, I don’t wanna travel, off you go without me. I’m gonna stay here and hang with this awe­some woman who thinks I’m cool.” Tolki­en’s like, “That’s great Sam, but I really need you to go off on this adven­ture and risk your life a few times first, ok? Then you can hang with Rosie.” See? It’s a bal­anced rela­tion­ship, kind of like teen­agers. Treat­ing them with respect, giv­ing them some free rein but also hav­ing expect­a­tions of them.

Thanks to the listen­ers who got in touch with me about last week’s epis­ode, I really appre­ci­ate your comments.