Christmas is a holiday full of capitalism and fake joy.

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, let’s talk about the short Christmas story I’m writing. The statement above are the sentiments of one of my protagonists. The story centers on two people, Bri and Chris, whom both feel a sense of dread around the holiday season. They have their individual reasons they don’t enjoy Christmas. One is more traumatic than the other. If you haven’t guessed, this is a grumpy and grumpier story.

Initially, Bri was going to hate Christmas just because. However, in the middle of writing, I started thinking, “does there really need to be a reason someone hates Christmas?” No, period, point blank. Yet, will this reason propel the story forward? FYI, I am not a religious person and I’ll remove the content of religion from the story.

As a writer, I’m always striving to write good and interesting stories with interesting plot lines and characters. So, when the entire story revolves around a certain aspect, in this case, Christmas, for me, I found it daunting to create a story around a character that hates Christmas just because. Where’s the meat? The meat being the background of said character. How can I structure a story around “just because”? I couldn’t because that character hasn’t given me enough reason or enough to develop them and the story.

As my writing progressed, I realized this story was lacking. So, I added the capitalism aspect. From that, I was able to develop some lean meat. As I continued writing from that angle, I realized I didn’t want the story to turn into some sort of political ranting session about how fucked up capitalism is. Though, I’m not afraid to go in on today’s tense climate, insert Karma and Other Shit and Nova: The Executioner of Vanity, I didn’t want this story to be so, especially considering it’ll be featured in an anthology with other romance authors. I developed a meatier plot device.

Insert trauma. Good ole trauma would work. As painful as emotional trauma is, I felt the story would be juicier and one that would develop the character in a way where people could empathize with her further. Thus, this gave the other character a brand-new motivation to pull a different side of them out, bringing them closer to the other character. Which was their main motivation, regardless. The angle shifted.

I enjoy writing interesting and slightly to somewhat damaged characters. Writing perfect characters seems flawed and unrealistic to me. Not saying perfect or untraumatized characters aren’t interesting. However, in writing, I feel a lack of motivation and development when I’m writing characters like that. In my opinion, of course, they come across boring, uninteresting, and forgettable. Likewise, not relatable to me. And I find myself caring less about those characters and throwing them to the wayside. Thus, causing me to throw the story to the wayside. I need meat, not just bone.

Ah, the life of a writer.