Frustration, Part 8

Now I said that Stackpole’s story was intriguing. And it was. At it’s core, its skeleton, it was a great idea. But the flesh was flabby and the clothing was horrendous.

My main complaint is the treatment of his initial main protagonist. Here is this fifteen year old boy living in the slums, aspiring to be the greatest thief ever, but not likely to reach sixteen. Who gets plucked out of this environment and given a crash course in life, that some would pay for, by two vaunted and fearsome warriors. The truly dynamic character of Will starts out as this callous child who cares for no one, and slowly turns into a young man, beginning to understand that there are bigger things at stake in life than the next heist. He begins to live adventures that he could never have dreamed about in his wildest imagination. He goes from being nothing, to being responsible for the well being of many men who have pledged their live to his service. But in the middle of his development he gets cut off. And instead of metamorphosing into a rounded, new man, he is turned into a lump of animated stone. Literally. I never got to see the fulfillment of Will’s character development

Now, I understand that Stackpole didn’t write his books specifically for me. I also understand that there are a great many things in this world that I will not agree with and that will disappoint me. So don’t worry, I’m not Pollyanna

But THERE ARE some basic fundamentals to story writing.

All storytelling is Conflict and Resolution. A story without conflict is boring.

The Resolution of the Conflict must be proportionate to, if not greater than the Conflict.

In order to be engaging, a story must contain Dynamic characters.

Heroic characters in a story MUST be dynamic.

Dynamic, at its simplest means "change." And the vehicle of change is Conflict. It is in Conflict that the nature of the character is revealed.

And the character of Will was being exposed, scrubbed, and recreated. And after nine hundred pages, I was left with two supporting characters that could only ever be described as static. And they became Stackpole’s new focus.

I am left to surmise that the then late forty, almost fifty year old author became bored with the fifteen year old main character; the strongest character of the entire bunch, and instead preferred to focus on the forty year old Crow and his twenty-five year old contrived wife.

Hmmmmm..

For my part, I wasn’t interested in the moral perturbations and subsequent meandering of two flat, static characters.

" ‘But I’m old enough to be your father . . .’

‘Yes, but love knows no age . . .’

‘Oh, you are so right, my love’ he admitted passionately, as tears welled up in his eyes and flowed down his cheeks into his white beard."

Think I’m exaggerating? Feel free to find out for yourself.

To be continued . . .