Oh my stars I owe you guys a real blog, but until I can get my act together, I have to have to have to send you over to Kristen Lamb's blog.  She takes on the Star Wars prequels and schools us all in the art of story telling.  One of those posts that made me want to stand in my desk chair fist-pumping and shouting "YES! That!  Exactly that!"

And excerpt to get you running to read the rest:

Mistake #2 Heroes are not babies, and bad guys are not whiners.

OMG…I wanted to SLAP Anakin Skywalker. If the end goal was to make Anakin into DARTH VADER the greatest bad guy EVER…then no whining. Scene after scene of Obi-Wan just doesn’t take me seriously got old really quickly.

Yes, as writers it is a great goal to have flawed heroes, because perfect characters lack depth. But, I feel there are certain character attributes that will alienate fans. Whining is one of those.

See?  You totally want to read the rest, don't you?  What are you waiting for?

- Liz