Paksworld

I had already started Book Three, sometime back, when I needed to know what would happen if…for Book Two.    In one of those potential chapters, someone turned out to be a whiny, complaining twit.  I’m not fond of whiny complainers, so my first instinct was to toss this fellow out of the story…don’t need no whiners, boy!  But on second thought, now that I’m looking at Book Three before diving into it again…maybe I do need whiny complainers.  At least that one.

Non-whiny complainer characters are easier to handle because they don’t annoy me as much…so I can understand them better.    (You know how it is with really annoying people–you don’t care what their problems are, or what their viewpoint is, you just want them to go away.  Well, it’s the same with characters.)   But whiny complaining is a constant in our society (and probably, at least among the under fours, every society.)   So just to be realistic, they have to be in the story.

Whiny complainers offer a lot of room for character growth (your wise old characters don’t whine…)  and if you can either kill off (to the great satisfaction of those he’s annoyed) or force character growth from whiny to wise or at least non-whiny  (difficult but possible, and greatly prized by reviewers who aren’t themselves whiny complainers) you’ve got yourself a compelling character.

Whiny complaining comes from a sense of entitlement…the whiny one thinks something isn’t FAY-er (the two-syllable form with emphasis is typical of whininess.   Thinks he should have it when he wants it, right now.  Thinks that’s the way the world should work.  Whiny complaining can be cured by age four in nearly all kids, though it often recurs (briefly, with good parenting) in adolescence, that second childhood of immaturity.  and when it persists into adulthood, some adult enabled it.

One story-virtue of the whiny complainer is that he (or she–there are certainly female whiny complainers, though in this case it’s a young man) allows the non-whiny characters–even the dubious ones–to show up well.  There’s nothing like a whiny complainer to make non-whiny complainers or non-complainers look good.   In this case, the whiny complainer is making his brothers look good–better than they are, in fact.   Which allows the storyteller to…well….better not reveal all, when even Book One isn’t out yet.  In real life, whiny complainers have usually annoyed so many people so much that the irritation level has risen to the point where nobody comes out looking good.  One whiny complainer  can sour a truckload of sugar.

At any rate, when I opened up that file this morning, and took another look at Whiny, I thought of his possibilities (not that he is seeing the same possibilities) and licked my chops with anticipation.  Oh, you Whiner, have I got plans for you.