And The Winner Is...

Charlie Smith, and his character, Geoffrey Scrutinous!

Wow, that competition had a lot of entries. The astonishing thing was the sheer quality on display, making it almost impossible to pick the winner. I know a lot of you- most of you- sent in a character, and by the time I had narrowed it down to the final twenty, I was actually starting to feel bad. The vast majority of entries were brilliant, and yet only one person could win. Did that mean that everyone else would sag, and sigh, and wander away to reflect on how unfair life was? Did that mean that everyone else would assume this meant that THEIR character wasn’t any good?

This... troubled me, my minions. And I do not like to be troubled.

I chose Charlie’s entry because not only was it simply one of the very best, but also because Geoffrey Scrutinous is a very useful character. The entry itself, in its entirety, was exceedingly well-written, amusing, and fun, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I actually NEEDED this character to be in these books.

But there are so many other characters that I could have picked. You all came up with some fantastic names, some incredible descriptions, and some awesome powers. It dawned on me as I was reading through them all that, really, any of these characters could have won, and I’d have been perfectly happy. So what does that mean, for YOU, my amazingly creative minions?

It means you should write. You should take this opportunity to look at the character you came up with and put him or her or it into your OWN story. Why not? You obviously believed in it strongly enough to send it in, right? So why abandon it now? Why not take it and run with it? 

Write your own story, write your own book. Most of what I read was definitely good enough.

Look at your character. Think about your character. Work out what kind of story would best show them off, and write it. That’s what I did with Skulduggery, and look at me now. I didn’t get to be your golden god without having a little FUN, you know.

And just to clear some things up:

The game I played to celebrate finishing Mortal Coil was Red Dead Redemption on the PS3.

I would LOVE to see a Skulduggery caramelldansen.

Happy belated birthday, Insanity Moonshine...!

Oh, and rest assured, in my next Blog entry I will be back to my usual, non-caring self.