...at simple things like cooking.
And knowing whether something goes in the fridge or the freezer. (I usually guess wrong.)
(Also, I'm working on it. Really. My sister is trying to help me, though she usually just laughs. A lot.)
Anyway. If you've been following YA Lit Six for a while, you've probably seen many a post about how main characters/love interests/best friends/pets/etc shouldn't be perfect.
(Perfection is boring.)
So, while considering my own, erm, kitchen incompetency, I decided to share a tip on characters not being perfect. And that tip is, expand on that imperfection. Make it part of the story. Toss your main character into the wilderness where she *has* to learn to prepare food, at least in its most basic form (cooked over a fire?) or she'll wither and die and get eaten by wolves or the like.
Or maybe something a bit less extreme, like she accidentally sets the cookies she has to make for her school/club/neighborhood bake sale (good way to add in setting there) on fire, and so she's late, and so someone gets mad at her or she gets in a car accident or runs into an old friend she would not have otherwise run into due to her lateness, and the plot gets rolling.
But then bring it back into play. Don't just mention this quirk and then drop it. Use it like a brightly colored ribbon on the overall story package--tie it together, even if it's just for decoration.
Happy Tuesday!
Kieryn
www.kierynnicolas.com
