Perfection is a curious term. What exactly is perfection? More importantly, when do you reach perfection and whose version of perfection is it? When attempting to creatively write questions such as these ones can certainly muddy the waters and eventually sink the ship. As Lamott professes, you can not be worried about perfection when attempting to tell a story, it is never going to be perfect, least so on the first try; you just need to tell the story. The trait of perfectionism does of course have its place, but generally not, I would say, in our field of focus. If you are working with numbers and conclusions and the like there is a wrong answer and a right answer, and you need to be “perfect” in order to get those right answers. But in writing, especially creative writing, there is no right answer, there is no perfect, those ideas will only hold you back.
The idea that each character you create holds some small piece of yourself is an interesting one. I suppose that all of the experiences you have had essentially make up who you are as a person, and where does creativity come from if not your past experiences? So, with that train of thought I would say that in essence your characters come from you. An experience you had a decade ago, a trait you do not show many people, a person you met last year, an article you read yesterday. A giant amalgamation of what you have seen, done, heard, experienced and who you are; that is where your characters come from. Everyone is not born creative, but everyone does become creative. All you need is the material. Once you live life for long enough, you will be able to create.
As a disclaimer before I begin this analysis, I do believe of course that characters are a big part of plot, and characters need to flow, create, react and engage with the plot, but when writing a story I do not believe there has to be a set order of origination between plot and characters. You can create characters and have them naturally flow into a plot, but you most certainly can also create a plot in which the characters who serve the plot the best are created. Now, I have chosen Joseph from “New Boy” as my example, and I really do think he is a good pick. A specific point in which Joseph changes the trajectory of the plot is when he reacts and dislocates Christain’s finger, a moment that absolutely turns the plot on its head. Before this instance the atmosphere was much more mundane and innocent, just a simple classroom, albeit with some rather colorful characters. But after this moment, everything had changed, the teacher’s perception of Joseph was altered, confrontation was brewing under the surface with Christain, and Joseph’s character was beginning to peel away, breaking down to who he really is. The second example I would like to offer is not a tangible moment, but rather a character trait of Joseph that undeniably moves the plot forward, that being his naivety. Joseph is so humble and unaware of everyone else’s feelings, actions and meanings, merely attempting to approximate what is transpiring around him in his mind. This forces him to explain his thoughts to us, to ask questions of others and make moves for the simple reason of testing the waters. Joseph’s naivety (and innate curiosity) makes him a great protagonist, and allows the story to progress seamlessly forward at each turn
