One of the hardest parts of writing is giving your character the skills he or she needs for the story to progress without making it so overpowered that the story is not interesting anymore.
There is a theory, attributed to Malcolm Gladwell, that if you do something for 10,000 hours or 10,000 times, with 10,000 being the magic number in any case, you will become a master at it. These last couple weeks I have cooked almost 1,000 crepes for our F and B business and over the years I am sure that I have cooked over 10,000 crepes. I wonder if that makes me a master crepemaker.
The reason I bring this up is that this line of questioning led me to start thinking about skills and how when creating a character, what skills you decide to give it can greatly affect your story.
There’s a few different ways you can give your character skills.
You can start with a blank slate character. These characters usually have no skills or only the same basic skill set as everyone else around them. Luke Skywalker, in A New Hope (first Star wars movie), is a classic blank character. His basic skill set is shooting farmer weapons and upkeeping droids, skills that everyone growing up around him has. The only special skill he has are piloting skills, attributed to the fact that he is working towards joining the academy and becoming a pilot.
As his character journeys through the story he learns new skills, about the force and how to use it, that he will need in order to defeat the Empire. The audience stays with him as he learns how to use the force and apply it in various situations. Had he known how to use the force from the very beginning, the story would have been a lot more boring and much shorter.
Another author who often uses blank slate characters is L.E. Modesitt Jr., author of the Recluce series. The Recluce series has 18 novels in it, most of them standalone novels with the occasional two-parter. In many of them, the protagonist starts out young with just the basic skill set of his world environment. Often they end up learning a trade, such as blacksmith, woodworker, cooper with the occasional soldier thrown in, while they are learning in parallel how to control their power.
The opposite end of the spectrum is to start off with a protagonist who is already experienced and is already skilled. The story then is not so much about learning the skill as applying the skill to a situation. Often the protagonist’s skill will increase as the story goes forward or learn new aspects of his skill or power. A good example of this is Harry Dresden, the hero of Jim Butcher’s excellent Dresden files series. In the first book, Storm Front, Harry is already an adult wizard plying his trade. As the story goes, we watch as he applies his wizard skills to the situations he is confronted with. In further books in the series he gains new powers and learns to control them as well. The hard part in these kinds of series is to not make the main character so overpowered, since he has been gathering skills and power throughout the series. Either you have an incredibly powerful end villain for the series in mind, who will be a match for your character, or you end up with it all being too easy for your hero.
The most important thing for a new writer is to avoid the Mary Sue syndrome. A Mary Sue is a character who is perfect, skilled in everything and can do anything, often totally out of proportion with the amount of studying or practice they are supposed to have had in the field.
An example of this is Honor Harrington, the main protagonist of David Webber’s Honorverse series. She is a super skilled, first captain then admiral, who throughout the books, has never once made a single error in tactical judgment or ever been found making a mistake. Even when she gets defeated by her enemies she does it better than everyone else. Almost everyone else throughout the series who surrenders to the enemy is made out to be a coward but when she does it, it’s a noble sacrifice. She is also a superb hand to hand fighter who manages to pick up a new martial art and defeat a master after only a few months training. Uh-huh. The series is great fun if you like space opera but occasionally demands certain strains of credulity.
So how am I avoiding this in my novel?
My main character has one skill that she has been studying a long time with it, which explains her proficiency. For the rest she has only basic skills someone her age in her society would have. Since she is also a newcomer to space, I try hard to make sure she doesn’t know how things work in space. The other characters she meets along the way are mostly competent in their respective fields. I find it’s hard to be believable as incompetent in space as the incompetents tend to die off pretty quick. The most important thing for me is that every character have believable skills and a back story that explains either how they got the skill or that the skill exists.
Hoping your business is booming still, good luck until after newyears. A drought over here has slowed work down a fair bit, in fact the apricot harvest was completed before the end of november where usually apricots aren’t even picked untill mid december, all of this due to the heat and changing weather. No climate change? Work in a position connected to nature and you can see it everywhere. Anyways, i’m managing some more time at home these days so i’m looking forward to reading more on your blog.
I’m happy to hear that you have more time to read blog but saddened by the fact that your work has slowed. So far I would say it’s been our best christmas season ever. A few product choices have paid off. If you ever have time to sit down on coms would love to discuss it. Do you have discord?
Dear immortals, I need some wow gold inspiration to create.