Advice to Fictional Characters

Life's rough between the pages. Waiting around for someone to open the book...dealing with the stop and start of occasional readers...trying to survive with pieces of your world or worse--your anatomy--missing when being read by a skimmer, and the repetition!

You just don't need to be caught in a dead-end fictional life. Here are some pieces of advice for you, Fictional Americans:

• Don't believe the popular kids.
• Avoid being a grandparent in a children's novel.
• If you are alone in the house and hear a noise, don't investigate even in broad daylight.
• If it's dark, don't turn on the light.
• Remember there is always a baseball bat under your bed (if for some reason there isn't, the lamp is always easy to unplug silently & very hefty).
• You KNOW the basement is a death trap.
• Abandon hope for a successful relationship if you find yourself a sidekick.
• If magic works in your book, acknowledge that it will only make your life more difficult.
• If you must be a lonely, creative girl, take heart. There IS a gay boy in your book waiting to be your best buddy. 
• If you are a lonely, creative boy--you're gay.
• Avoid being the only gay boy in a small town. If you can't, realize that:
• Your best girl friend loves you.
• You are much more attractive than you think you are.
• The jock IS gay, but that won't end well.
• The slightly nerdy, yet somehow still hot, guy in your language arts class is digging you with a steamshovel.
• All this is moot if you are in a period novel set before 1982, because you are going to die...soon.
• Avoid being the beloved dog (or horse) belonging to a kid who lives in the country.
• Recognize that there is no point hoping you don't have the disease if you go in for the test.
• Corollary: That cough does indeed mean something especially if you are a little blond girl leading an otherwise idyllic life.
• If you can't avoid loving sports, deal with the fact that you won't win until near then end of your story.
• And finally: if the book where you live is in a library, take solace that the mind-numbing repetition that is your life is marginally new to the person reading you.

Comments

[gt]

[this is good] There's reason why I have at least one light bulb on in my apt... :)
Great tips!

[PappawJack]

Good, more comedy.  I think you could easily work this into a story/chapter in your next book.  Are you working on a "next book"?