Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Blogging By The Seat Of My Pants

Or…Damn, It’s Yesterday In America!

Or…Chuck

OK, that sub-heading probably doesn’t make sense, but here’s the thing. I just woke up and realised, oh, golly, I slept through 5pm Friday. (Actually, my language was a touch more R rated, but it’s only early in the morning Down Under and I try to reserve my public displays of profanity to after 10am at least). So the question I hear you asking (or is that crickets I hear? Hmmmm), is what on Earth is Lexxie carrying on about. At this moment in time I’m carrying on about anything that comes to mind until something slams me in the face to blog about. (Yes, I know, I should have been prepared for this, but here’s the thing, I am the most disorganized person in the world. Even my iphone is on the verge of filing for divorce due to irreconcilable differences. Its attempts to alert me to “very important” events and appointments have gone largely ignored since we began out tumultuous relationship and as such, it is giving up on me sniff)

Alright, I’ve rambled as much as possible before starting to sound like a loony, so lets pick a topic.

My last blog I talked about the tv show Castle and why Rick Castle was such an appealing character to me (and a lot of writers I know). Staying with that same vein (and because I’m absolutely obsessed with the show at the moment), lets talk about Chuck.

To quote NBC, Chuck is an “one hour action-comedy series about Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi, “Less Than Perfect”) — a computer geek who is catapulted into a new career as the government’s most vital secret agent.

When Chuck opens an e-mail subliminally encoded with government secrets, he unwittingly downloads an entire server of sensitive data into his brain. Now, the fate of the world lies in the unlikely hands of a guy who works at a Buy More Electronics store. Instead of fighting computer viruses, he must now confront assassins and international terrorists.”

Does anyone else love this show? And the question I have to ask is, why? I’ve asked myself this question many times since discovering Chuck. It’s not exactly ground breaking television and the acting isn’t exactly Emmy winning standards, so why do I love it so much? I think it comes down to the characters. I care for the characters. I care that Chuck’s life is now in a constant state of danger, I care that his heart is permanently lost to someone who can never be his, I care that his sister and Captain Awesome care and worry about Chuck himself. I even care for the brutal, hardnose DSA agent, John Casey who has mastered the fine art of growling (to the point when I write a character “growling” I heard Adam Baldwin’s low gnarr in my head). I love the humour of the show, I love the action, I love the sexual tension between Chuck and Sarah (despite how frustrating it is). In short, I love everything about it because I care about everyone it.

How do we, as writers, create characters that readers care about? It isn’t easy. God knows, I’ve created more than one character that even I don’t care about, let alone someone who doesn’t know any of their back story. And is the care factor in the character’s back story, or their actions on the pages? Why do we, as readers, connect to characters enough to care about them? (I found myself getting all teary during an episode of Chuck when it appeared Chuck would never see his sister and friends again. He wasn’t dying, he wasn’t even in pain, so why did that scene choke me up?)

Is it a character’s flaws that make us care? Do we connect with characters on an emotional level because they have flaws? In Chuck, the hero, Chuck is very flawed. He yelps during gun fire, cowers during fisty-cuffs and doesn’t know the first thing about seduction, and yet I still think he is wonderful. Is it this very lack of perfection that makes me connect with him? That he is an everyman in an unbelievable situation behaving like an everyman? Dunno. (Confession? I’ve never got into Superman, and I’m pretty certain it has something to do with the fact he is just too damn perfect. What is Superman’s flaw, not including his atrocious fashion sense?)

What makes a person become emotionally invested with a fictional character? Why do we fall for them/love them/hate them? (A good example of a love/hate character for me is Gregory House, but I’ll save that for another blog ramble) And which character have you fallen for so much so you can’t stop thinking about them? Are there any characters you care enough for to blog about them? Or am I just (as I suspect) a loony?

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an episode of Chuck to watch before the rest of my house wakes up. grin

Lexxie Couper’s Death, The Vamp and His Brother will be released 11th August
Lexxie Couper’s iphone will be filing for divorce next week