Why I'm compelled

All week--as I struggled with an old trauma and realized some wounds never really heal and make us what we are, both the good and the bad--I was also trying to come up with a post for The Great Blogging Experiment. Elana Johnson asked people to sign up to write about one subject today: Writing Compelling Characters.

I thought, “I’ve not nothing. Zilch. Nada.” But that’s not true. I know a compelling character when I see one. I’ve lost a good night’s sleep more than once to finish a novel. I’ve watched some movies or television shows again and again.

I’ve decided to pick my favorite show of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not only is Buffy compelling, so are most of her sidekicks.

Why? Oh, boy, this is the hard part. Buffy and each person in her circle are drawn with stand-out strengths, good hearts but deep flaws that are sometimes truly disturbing. So we care about them even while saying, “What are you doing???”

We love stories about chosen ones, superheroes, people who can vanquish evil. But the best heroes have to battle what’s inside themselves as well as external foes.

What happens to Buffy:

She’d rather be buying shoes but got tapped to be the one-and-only Slayer. Sigh. She’s peeved, reluctant, argumentative, but, in the end, not able to turn her back on evil. She’ll stomp its sorry ass and toss in a witty line while at it.

But when she learns how huge the powers against her are, she says, “I’m sixteen years old. I don’t want to die.” Can we blame her? Can we not wish to see her win?

Nothing comes easy. She falls in love--with a vampire who is cursed to suffer for his past deeds. This ends in disaster and forces her to fight her lover. When he gloats that she can’t kill him, she says, “Give me time.”

And time makes her stronger--a formidable foe who can and will face anything. But she is also the walking wounded. Like all of us, her hurts never completely go away.

Buffy sacrifices herself to save her sister and the world (she saved the world a lot as her tombstone reads). But her friends use a spell to bring her back. She is like the walking dead. She can’t tell them she thinks she was in heaven and doesn’t know why she’s had to return to hell-on-earth.

Eventually, Buffy and her friends each face the darkness within themselves and claw their way back to redemption. They do this with the help of their friends and forgiveness.

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Note: The series is the creation of the fabulous Joss Whedon. The picture above is from the spinoff graphic novel/comic from Dark Horse Books.

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I wish I’d had time to write this and come back to it, instead of throwing it together. But sometimes rough and raw is good. It comes from the heart.