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Self-Aware Background Character Ⓘ

My authorly way of coping in today's world.

I try not to get too political when I blog, but also, I like to share what is on my mind. The aim of this blog is to share my thoughts, which are about why I am cautiously optimistic about positive change in the air. I may skirt the edges of politics, but will stop myself from getting too far into the weeds. Considered yourself...notified? Sure. Let's go with that.

I get my news from two main sources. I skim news feeds, like Google and Apple News. This is the watered down, somewhat slanted view of news of the world. The other source is from a few followed channels on YouTube. I call these my 'talking head videos', because it is people talking about various things while resembling a Zoom meeting. Again, these are also a slanted view, but in the other direction. Between both of these, the things said and left unsaid give me a decent idea of what is going on. If you would like to share a good, reliable news source, I would appreciate it if you comment below.

Before I get into my cautious optimism about positive change, I am going to take a long author-related tangent. Do you remember how teachers assigned books for the class to analyze? Imagine life is one of those books and you are a self-aware character in that book. You, the self-aware character, are also the student asked by the teacher to analyze the book you are in. I know, I know. (Grumble, groan) Do we hafta? Yes. This is for a major grade. (Sigh) Okay.

Analyze the story! Who are the protagonists? Who are the antagonists? What is the theme? What lesson does the hero need to learn in order to succeed? How do you think this story ends?

Basically, this is my current coping mechanism. I feel like a self-aware, random, background character in an epic fantasy. I have no idea where Frodo and Sam are, but I hope they didn't lose the ring on their way to Modor. Maybe they Blair Witched the ring. (Frodo: "The one ring? Ha! I chucked that into the river yesterday!" Audience: "Ooooh man.") As a self-aware character, I have a vague notion of those authoring this story. At one point, this story started with a strong outline, and knew where it was going. Somewhere along the way, ghost writers decided to chuck that outline into the river (ooooh man) and continue the story by making stuff up as they plod along. We can only hope a decent editor picks up the story and fixes it before it is chucked onto the slush pile of history (ooooh man).

Where did things start going wrong? Are planners versus pantsers really to blame? I think so! As I said, the planners started the story with a solid outline. They put a lot of thought into what should happen. It may not be perfect, but they did fantastic world building. Unfortunately, even with all their hard work, the story rambled and lost the plot. Several characters in this story thought the plot was all wrong. Many characters have been treated unfairly, and their numbers continually increase, because the antagonists have grown richer, more power hungry. The protagonists know we have lost the plot, but are overwhelmed and out of ideas. Well...not exactly, but we will get to that in a moment. We are at the point where the hero(es) need to learn that important lesson in order to defeat the villain(s). And, what lesson is that? To stop chucking important things into the river! Well...sure. That is a good lesson, but not the one we need at this moment.

The lesson is using that self-awareness to analyze the story in order to better understand the theme and what it will take to achieve a more satisfying ending. We could look at story as Good versus Evil, because there is a strong polarization. At the moment, Evil seems to be running rampant, while Good sits back. saying, "Golly! Someone should do something about this!"

Let's look at this story another way. The heroes are not out of ideas. One problem is the story has too many ideas. So many, it suffers from idea bloat. One side is overwhelmed with how to handle so many ideas or where to begin. Which plot thread should they follow? Meanwhile, the other side ignores most of these ideas, has other plans, but introduces fabricated red herrings and half-baked ideas to distract the reader from the subplot of sinister deeds. They hype up their ideas to convince the reader the fly in their soup is a national crisis. All this mishmash causes the plot to be even bloatier! There are too many plot threads! All these distractions backfire to highlight the villains' misdeeds and they have no curtain big enough to conceal who or what is hidden behind it. All this nonsense is getting WAY out of hand! The story is bound to lose its audience, because the suspension of disbelief is reaching a breaking point!

Meanwhile, back in reality, there are many big problems. This administration ignores these big problems, and invents other problems because they (A) do not have solutions for addressing these problems, (B) they are too focused on their own problems, and (C) are too concerned with the skeletons about to fall out of the closet holding all their baggage. Even before this administration, people desired change, but even though they knew things were not right, they were not entirely sure what to do or what they really wanted. They just knew they needed something different.

As an author, I experience this all the time. I have Big Ideas, but I do not know how to act upon them. Or, I do not have the means (time or money) to give the ideas life. Or, I start an idea, get stuck, do not know how to proceed, so I distract myself with other ideas. Or, I start working on one idea and it feels to close to a previous work. Too many ideas! Too many problems! Too many unresolved projects!

Which brings us back to my cautious optimism.

In our story, new characters emerge bringing change! Mayor Mamdani is an example of one of those characters. Here are people who have new approaches for tackling, not every idea, but showing the world how to focus on the more important ideas, and how to work out the kinks of those ideas. When Pandora's box opened and all the monstrous things erupted out of the box, these new characters are the Hope at the bottom of the box. They survived being inside the box with all those monsters, and have figured out how to work with us, if not for a happy ending, for a hopeful one.

If you are are one of the self-aware characters in our story, I hope you continue to focus on and find new characters willing to work on the good ideas, while learning to call out and edit out the weak characters with bad ideas. Maybe you are one of those characters! Most of us may be minor characters in this story, but even background characters are crucial to driving the plot towards a satisfying conclusion. Speak out! I have learned from my peer writing groups, feedback can be helpful. It gets me thinking of how to change something and why. Thoughts become actions. Actions lead to improvements.

And, if you are not a self-aware character, when it all gets chucked into the river and no one helps fish it out, do not be surprised when the story fizzles out at the end.

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Ⓘ This content (blog-217) was first built on 2026-08-11 09:30:21. This content was updated on 2026-08-12 09:25:04.