Killing off Barbie

Book #1: How Not to Write a Novel - 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them - A Misstep-By-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

Note to self: "Many love interests are skin deep...Blonde, red heads and brunettes are not personality descriptions." p. 77

This book is LOL funny - not a quality found in your typical writing tome. One point in this book is that your protagonist's love interest can't be Santa Claus. Another point is that she can't be Barbie either.

My novel contained the more typical Barbie problem.

How I created and killed a love interest Barbie:

Duh...I know Barbie's not an interesting character, but amateur authors commit writing faux-pas with all the good intentions in the world.

I wanted to use Barbie (aka Tabby in my book) as an initial love interest to show how MY FIRST DRAFT PROTAGONIST was shallow and then deepened.

Nonetheless, on a re-read of my second draft, I realized that my Barbie was missing tear ducts, not in a good and interesting way which might result in a conflict, but rather in a bad and shallow way because she never cried or for that matter, had any emotion worth writing about.

So MY 2ND DRAFT PROTAGONIST is now dating a girl called Shells. She tried to bleach her freckles with Chlorox when she was in sixth grade. Sometimes her lovely blue eyes cross inadvertantly. I love her like I never did my tearless Tabby. I can't believe that I will be the cause of her terrible heartache (sob).

Muhahaha...right where I want to be.


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