J = Jealousy.  Such a powerful emotion and an excellent trait to exploit in your characters given it is understandable as a motivation for action. People do strange things, motivated by this, in real life.  Your characters can do so too in fiction.  You don't have to like jealousy as a trait or the character to be able to identify with where the character is coming from here.  It can also act as a kind of shorthand.  If you say someone is the jealous type, it conjures up an immediate image of what that person is likely to be like, doesn't it?

K = Killer Instinct.  Do your characters have this?  Do you?!  Firstly your characters, particularly your villains, need this (and often in the literal sense), but even the "goodies" need this to keep them going in the face of opposition etc.  They need to know when to "go" for a course of action and it will be their instinct here that will ignite the spark which drives them on.  As for you as a writer, do you have the killer instinct when it comes to editing your work?  Will you take out anything that is really not working (and be open to the idea it isn't)?  You need to learn to be ruthless about taking out anything that is not pushing your story on.  The "kill your darlings" expression has a lot of truth behind it.

L = Learning and Laughter.  Do your characters learn from their mistakes?  A good story and great characters will have that as a major factor.  Some of my favourite series novels have shown the lead character developing over time and I love that.  It makes the character far more real to me.  As for laughter, even in darker stories, there can be room for this.  In the classic fairytales, for me, the Emperor's New Clothes is a great example of laughing at those who supposedly are superior but are taken in by conmen (and you do have to hand it to those tailors for sheer nerve).  So where can laughter fit into your stories?

On to part 3:-

G = Greatness.  Whether your character is a godmother (of the fairy variety), a villain, or a hero/heroine, there should be some greatness about them to make them memorable characters.  Greatness can be in the form of intelligence (the villain perhaps), moral integrity, actions undertaken etc.  There should be something about your characters that resonates with the readers (even if it is just understanding of where the villain is coming from in terms of attitude and behaviour while at the same time not agreeing with it).  There is greatness behind whatever resonates here. 

H = Humour.  Humour is wonderful in a story.  It can provide moments of light relief.  It can show up attributes of a character that would not come out necessarily in any other way.  (Perhaps a character's wit here could show a good grasp of irony that they might use in a different way later in the story to bamboozle their opponents?  Quick thinking and humour often go hand in hand and the former is usually vital for a character wanting to get out of a tight spot).

I = Imagination.  How imaginative are your characters in dealing with others, making their plots succeed, using others to achieve their ends etc?  Do they need to plan things out thoroughly or can they be intuitive?  How do they handle matters when things go wrong?  Can they use their imaginative skills to correct the situation?

So on to the second part of this series...

D = Determination.  The best fairytale characters I know have this trait in buckets (other suitably large utensils are available, as they say...!).  They can vary from determination not to be ground down (Cinderella) to determination to survive (Hansel and Gretel).  Determination can keep a character going when the world and its dog/unicorn/dragon seem to be out to "get them".  Determination separates the wolf (big, bad or otherwise) from the sheep. 

E = Energy. Can be topped up by determination but your characters are going to need plenty of energy to get them through whatever frightful horrors you're putting them through.  Not only are there the obvious physical needs to think about, but bring in how your characters top up their mental strength.  They will need plenty of that too.

F = Fairies/Fantastic Creatures.  The great irony with fairytales is you can have them without fairies in (Little Red Riding Hood), but when you do use them in your stories, give them plenty to do and ensure not everything is solved with a wave of the magic wand.  Your fairy character still has to work for/struggle to get success, even if that is only implied in your story.  A wave of the wand may be what they do to remedy a situation or modify it (Sleeping Beauty) but there should still be issues for the characters in your story to overcome.    Otherwise there is no conflict and without that, the story vanishes.  Fantastic creatures can vary from animals to other magical beings (including your own invented ones) but we still need to have some sense of what they are like and where they fit in to the world you've created.

More next time...

I love a list - whether it's a numerical one or an A to Z format.  So for fairytales and the magical world, what would my A to Z be?  Part 1 then would be:-

A = Anthropomorphism 
Not my favourite word to spell, I must admit!  However, for me, a classic tale will have this as one of its elements.  Think Puss in Boots, Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia etc etc.  What matters is the traits shown or speech given to an animal character to have/speak must make sense for the way that character has been portrayed.  We see Puss in Boots is a character who would be smarter than his master so the speech given to Puss must reflect that.

B = Beauty
One thing I love about fairytales is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and is not always the classical definition either.  I love the stories of The Ugly Duckling and Beauty and the Beast. Is it just me but I didn't think the Beast was that ugly incidentally (especially as Disney portrayed him?  Huge, yes, but that's not the same thing!  That aside, there is a strong emphasis that it is a beautiful heart/character that matters most, which I fervently believe.  I can't say what single thing makes me love fairytales but this is a very high contender for being the top one.

C = Characters
There isn't one dull character in fairytales, is there, when you come to think about it.  There shouldn't be in your stories either.  (And even when a character is meant to be "dull", there still has to be something about them that will make your reader want to find out if they stay that way or change or if there is a point to the dullness.  Maybe the lead character needs a duller one's sensible comments to point them in the right direction?).

More next time....

My latest CFT post is a review of A Bunch of Amateurs (written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman), which was recently performed by the Chameleon Theatre Group.  It was a great play, brilliantly performed.  But it led me to thinking:-

1.  Going to the theatre is a great way of taking in stories!

2.  In your fictional world(s), how do your characters take in stories?  Do they read?  Do they have theatres/cinemas etc?  What would they watch/read?

3.  When you go to a performance like this, you go in knowing you are seeing a "pretence" but being willing to suspend disbelief.  You focus on wanting to see how the story ends and enjoy the performances taking you to that point.  The challenge for writers is hooking our readers quickly enough at the start of the story to achieve the same effect for the length of the tale, whether it is a flash piece or a trilogy of novels!  So face the challenge!  The key is in creating characters readers will want to follow through anything.

Happy writing!