idea for a potentinal story character.

[writer2005]

back in the 1930s their was the outlaw pair called bonnie and Clyde which consisted of bonnie parker & Clyde barrow.

Anyway I have this story character idea featuring a modern day bonnie parker type of character but she does not steal money or murder people.

she is just plain wild she smokes she dresses wild she swears like a sailor when she's angry.

And it don't take much to make her angry if you push her buttons just a little bit she will unleash her temper and her very foul mouth.

what do you think of this character? I like the character overall but i don't know if i will ever use it in any writing projects.

 

[Hypoxia]

[shrug]

Sure, why not? Strong but flawed characters are interesting. Nice ones ain't. Make her rather unsympathetic, like my skanks in One Blade of Grass and Right Under His Eyes, or my narrator in Like A Hole In The Head who prefers sex with brain-damaged partners. Strong, self-possessed, uninhibited women are almost stock characters. Question is, does she have good survival instincts?

 

[Everyday_Man]

Never liked making a character and then saying, 'they are based on.'

 

[writer2005]

Hypoxia: yes as a matter of fact she has great survival instincts.

 

[GoldenMaia]

I have tried to write a character like this and it's very tricky to make them likable and not seem completely crazy and easy to disregard. I still love the 'fly off the handle' hard-ass woman though. Someone who might chop you in the throat if you say something wrong.

Maybe it takes the right setting for the character to shine the most!

 

[Javertthejollypastrychef]

I think an important part of pulling off a character like this is just remembering the why. Why is she like this? Why does she fly off the handle when x happens? It can appear irrational to the other characters and even the reader, but imho there should still be an underlying reason.

 

[Hypoxia]

Never liked making a character and then saying, 'they are based on.'

Characters based on observed reality at least have some depth that can be modeled. Better than cartoon fantasy.

I have tried to write a character like this and it's very tricky to make them likable and not seem completely crazy and easy to disregard.

That's just it -- she need NOT be likable. But her etiology (as Javert suggests) could invoke the reader's sympathy. The writer get to decide what to make of her. Does she just continue, consequences be damned? Does she triumph, or crash-and-burn? Is she transformed or tamed or at least calmed by love? Does she snag a partner who likes challenges?

I think an important part of pulling off a character like this is just remembering the why. Why is she like this?

But of course. The unexplained hellcat is too cartoon-y. Give her a history. Show that she's spoiled or damaged or sick, and maybe the cause can be 'fixed' as her tale is told. Or maybe she doesn't want to be 'cured'. I took that approach in Ghost of a Chance (Satire). All attempts at 'fixing' her fail. She's just self-absorbed, period. It's a long strange sex-filled trip though.

 

[writer2005]

Hypoxia: that's a good idea as well maybe she was mistreated as a child and she had to develop a thick skin as a way to endure all of that. and as she got older she developed a bad temper and a foul mouth which for her is a coping mechanism.

 

[BurningMonkey]

It's a long strange sex-filled trip though.

ALL of your stories are long, strange, sex-filled trips.
That's why you write them, and that's why we enjoy them. And at the end, we can say, "Whew! Thank God that's not me." (Even if it is...)

 

[RockHardKP]

Perhaps Clyde is Bonnie's sub and helps her find/control her victims. Instead of killing, Bonnie forces her victims to do nasty things to her or to each other before moving onto the next. The whole time Bonnie's filthy mouth unloads her vulgarities as a girl is forced to masturbate with a giant dildo, as a housewife is forced to watch he husband fuck Bonnie and then eat the cream pie from her pussy, as a mother is forced to suck/fuck her son or daughter, or as a prim/proper middle aged woman takes Clyde up the ass, etc etc

 

[Hypoxia]

ALL of your stories are long, strange, sex-filled trips.

Thank you, thank you. [/me burnishes fingernails on lapel]

That's why you write them, and that's why we enjoy them. And at the end, we can say, "Whew! Thank God that's not me." (Even if it is...)

Well, you were probably never a banana slug. I hope.
______________________

ObTopic: I know a not-Bonnie rather well -- we just spoke last night, in fact. Let's call her Deidre. Her big sister was sweetness-and-light, the apple of her parents' eyes. Deidre was a total rebel, always at odds with the family; she never resolved with her mom before the mother's recent death. Deidre was (and is) foul-mouthed, abusive, abrasive, and she married a fitting asshole she hasn't managed to shake after many decades.

But yet... even though Deidre never went to college and literally worked her way up from the lower clerical levels, she ended her career running a major financial institution. Sheer guts and aggressiveness and never-give-an-inch determination. Being really smart helped too. (Had a lousy sex life, though.)

So let's look at not-Bonnie not as a rough luzer but a scab-covered fighter. The why? Because she always felt inferior, neglected. The reaction? Fury.