We all know fake people.

They make us laugh. They make us cry.

And I’m not talking about the girl at your 7th grade theater summer camp who you thought was nice and cool and then turned out to be a total Regina George. Although that’s fair too. 

I mean fake fake.

I’m talking about fictional characters.

Sometimes they come alive. Other times…not so much.

It’s aliveeee!

I love D&D. It’s the storytelling medium in which I most often see characters come to life. It may be fiction, but does that mean all of it is fake? The emotions–weren’t those real? Wasn’t how you connected to the story real? The characters were the one who went on the quest, sure, but you went on that journey with them. Even if you didn’t even like a character, they still felt real.

At my last D&D session, we had to say goodbye to one of the characters. It hurt. A lot. It felt like losing a friend–a real live person. We’ve been playing this campaign for almost three years, now. That’s a lot of time to get to know somebody, even if that somebody is fictional.

I sat there thinking about how much I was going to miss talking with her. How much I was going to miss seeing her grow and change and learn how to trust in people. That’s one of the glories of storytelling. It brings people to life.

Isn’t it crazy that fiction holds that kind of power? It’s really wonderful. It’s one of my favorite things about being alive.

But it got me thinking…why don’t I feel that way about mainstream media?

Why do so many modern movie/book characters so rarely have a grip on me?

The fault in our Hollywood stars…

Everywhere I turn, I see stories that are trying to be trendy. There seems to be a surplus of bad-ass heroines who don’t need no man, and tall dark strangers who are a little bit toxic but they get away with it because they’re hot.

So much of it feels shallow. Disingenuous. It feels like a super huge portion of the storytelling industry is only asking one question: “What’s hot right now?” 

But when you dilute a story and its characters to “what’s trendy” then I think you’re missing the point of storytelling. It stops being about the characters and starts being about spoon-feeding tropes to your readers.

I don’t want to read books or watch shows that have blood and gore for the sake of having blood and gore; that have romance just for the sake of having romance; sex just for the sake of sex. What’s the point of all of that?

And this is where we get into treacherous waters.

Everyone has an opinion on this topic. A very very very very strong opinion, typically.

“Let people like what they like!”

“You have no right to tell people what they should and should not be reading!”

“Stop bullying people out of reading things they like!”

Woooah. Slow down.

I can’t tell you what to do–nor am I interested in doing so.

I just feel like there’s been something lost in modern media. There’s this trend of grinding stories down to a something that will give you the literary equivalent of a sugar high–something a bit shallow and steamy that you can practically inject into your veins so you can feel good for a little while. 

But…shouldn’t stories be more than that?

Shouldn’t they have those wonderful characters that feel honest and real? Shouldn’t you feel like you got something out of the story, even if it was just an emotional connection with the characters?

Because at the end of the day, I don’t care if the character is trendy. I don’t want her to be the personification of hip buzzwords. I want her to feel like a real person.

I want more stories that hit me in the chest—that make me laugh and cry and feel sad to say goodbye to when I’m done. 

I want stories with a little more heart and a little less tongue, you know?

Disagree?

Fight me in the comments.

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