Being Annoying – Writing Lesson #4

by | Aug 29, 2011 | Kingsley Amis, Writing Lessons - 2011/12 | 0 comments

Here is another in my occasional series on writing that I am doing in collaboration with the literary agent, Rachelle Gardner.

Have you ever read a book where you liked everyone and everything they did?  Did you like everything about how they behaved, all their quirks and eccentricities, all their choices and concerns? If that was the case I think you read a pretty boring book.

The essence of a story is conflict. Maybe it’s not through a ‘good vs. evil’, black and white dilemma, but in a story you are introducing characters who have to go through something.  They can be very nice people, but if you don’t show some aspect of their character and their methods contributing to the problem as well as the solution, then they really aren’t all that engaging.  


You can’t root for someone who has nothing to overcome.  What they have to overcome isn’t always something on the outside.  It’s often overcoming their own shortcomings.  It makes you annoyed seeing those things inside them holding them back while at the same time you are rooting for them to overcome.

Sort of like real life, isn’t it.



Drawing, commentary and Chapter 12 by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily

Quote by Kingsley Amis, 1922-1995, English novelist


You can find Rachelle Gardner’s blog here.