Arg! I'm rereading my National Novel Writing Month novel and it's giving me the hardest time! I absolutely love three of my six main characters. The fourth is okay. The fifth and six are absolutely sappy to the extreme. And I can't get rid of them because they're super important to the story. And now I'm stuck with three totally kick-ass characters whom I'd marry if I could (blush) , one strong character, and two lame ones. One of the lame ones has lots of potential. The other is . . . I dunno.

Anyways, that's my predicament of the moment.

It's amazing what you notice when you go back to reread things, isn't?

But hey, sometimes a sappy character can be a good thing, because there are sappy people out there. They can't all be the greatest/bestest. Maybe try to work with the sappiness? Make it into a weird character quirk or something (or whatever it is that is wrong with the character).

Thats my ridiculous 2 cents.

Go ridiculous 2 cents!

At least, Darth Makar, you haven't got a lame book. My NaNoWriMo book was so pathetic I've given up trying to edit it and claimed it a dead loss.

The book I was reading recently told me that most characters should not be well worked out. Because they are not important so they can have the qualities necessary to tell the story and that's all. If they're main characters, that's a problem.

My advice is to rewrite. Most writers have to write and rewrite anyway, so rewrite!

I hate when that happens. But then, it's equally hard to have a large number of characters you adore.. cause then they compete for the spotlight. It's so much harder to keep yourself happy when you don't have favourites..

... I mean *cough* I love all my characters! Honest!

Just try and work with it. If the story calls for sappy characters - well, sometimes the story knows better than you do, and it'll do it's darndest to be told IT'S way and to buggery with what the writer wants!

But sappy doesn't necessarily mean weak. See what you can do with it.

I think the only thing which could make it worse were if I were trying to make them sappy. ;) I suck at all that stuff.

At any rate, thanks guys. And Emma, my NaNo is all being rewritten. Basically I've changed the setting, the timephrame, the minor characters--almost everything. o_0 And I'm going to completely rewrite it, saving only the tiny fraction I can from the original.