TSTL

Writers have great power. Within the twenty-six letters of the alphabet are endless possibilities. Our fingers pound out word after word, weaving together a tale that we hope resonates with other people. Eventually we discover that there is no ceiling on our creativity, something that could not ever be possible in the real world is just a few words from reality within our works.

What's the phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility." Writer's always discover their power but often disregard their responsibility. We'll toss a character off a cliff and have them survive. We'll have a character act atrociously and then allow another character to forgive them without question. We'll create impossibilities with little or no explanation. Why? Because we can. Gravity won't stop us neither will social inhibitions. Unfortunately this leads to many unpublished authors, simply because if a reader can't wrap his head around our impossibilities, the work will never resonate.

This brings us to one of the greatest sin of an irresponsible author. The character that is TSTL. Remember that character that went off a cliff. Well suppose she walked off the cliff, even though she could see it, even though she didn't want to die and whistling the national anthem all the way. Stupid, eh? To Stupid To Live, perhaps? Someday I hope for R.A.G.E. to be my breakout novel but I had to acknowledge something during my most current major overhaul--my main character Rose was flirting with the label TSTL. Shameful. The trouble is, I knew this. I tried using the science fiction in my book to explain away her stupidity in following after the bad guys. Stupid, yes, but hey without it she doesn't go on the journey that makes up the majority of the book. So now you can imagine my relief as I am able to take Rose off the TSTL list. Thanks to a great deal of rewriting, Rose is able to follow the bad guys for a friggin' good reason that has only a little to do with sci-fi and hopefully people won't roll their eyes at her and say, "Honestly she doesn't deserve to live if she's going to be so dumb." and, "Hallelujah she finally got shot. I hope she dies." Neither phrase a very good thing to have directed at your MC.

I guess being TSTL is probably something to avoid in real life as well. Our society doesn't weed our the fittest as well as it used to. Just remember that laws apply, no matter whether you think you can create the impossible or not.