Making the Cut

In my last blog, both blog and comments mentioned the importance of characters. Characters you love, characters you love to hate, and basically, characters you just plain can't get enough of.  Snape from the Harry Potter series immediately comes to mind for me (as do most of the HP characters), and so do Aziraphale and Crowley from "Good Omens", Granny from Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series, and Elizabeth Bennett - do I need to say where she's from? :)

Since I've been trying to pare down WIPs and ideas to ones that I can be truly excited about, I decided to take a long hard look at the over 100 characters currently residing in my Muse's employ (that is to say, those who are taking up cubicle space on my computer, not those who have simply put in their applications and are waiting for me to get back to them.)

I'm sad to say that I had to fire all but about 10 of them. Which means a good 90% got pink slips. Wow.  Oh, they cried, they begged, they lied about sick grannies they needed to take care of, but times are tough and the slackers had to go.  Granted, some of them weren't that bad (I'll still give them references and "Like" their Facebook pages) but they just didn't add enough benefit to justify the cost of keeping them around.

Yep, I'm a cold-hearted slavedriver. This writing stuff ain't for sissies. Now I just hope the ones who are left will pull their weight (glares as they hunker over their desks).

So, who are some of your favorite characters, and why?

And what advice would you give to an out of work character so he can find work again? :)