[AlexG]

This is mainly directly at the writers on the forum rather then the readers, but their input would be interesting to hear from as well.

Not as in a smoking hot femuscular character – that's a given.  😉

No, I mean as in a character that is decidedly a smoker.  As a writer have you ever included one as a part of a story or if you haven't up until now, would you concider including one?

If so, as the principal hero / heroine of the story – or as the villain / villainette of the story – or as simply one of the supporting characters, major or minor of the story?

Finally, what format would you use – cigarette, cigar or a pipe?

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[TC2]

No, never, absolutely not.  Smoking is a disgusting habit that I definitely wouldn't want to see in my stories, or stories that I may happen to read.  I think I would actually stop reading a story if an FMG character suddenly started smoking after her change or before it, it's just a bad habit that doesn't serve any purpose except pollute the lungs.

[Silent One]

Is this directed at me?  ::)

Have I included a smoker?  Yes.  As some may or may not recall my character Kate (a main supporting character in the Necklace) smoked like a chimney.  I had no real reason for having her do so, it was a direct offshoot of the personality she developed as I was writing her.  She smoked cigarettes and she smoked them often and she did so not because I felt I had to offer a "token" smoker or because she needed a prop, it was just what she did.  I'll never forget one of the last days I spent at college, not long after completing the necklace.  I was leaving classes for the day and happened to see a girl from across the hall who was the exact spitting image of how I had always pictured Kate to be.  Wavy red hair, bright green eyes, the same self confident smirk as she put an unlit cigarette between her lips when she still hadn't reached the exit yet, daring anyone to make her put it away.  One of the weirdest feelings of deja vu (or however else you describe an event of that nature.) I've ever had and I never saw her again afterward.

Would I consider having another smoker?  I honestly couldn't say.  Having someone chain smoke would feel to much like trying recapture Kate in another form and there will only ever be one Kate Wyler.  A pipe or a cigar?  That would depend on the characters personality.  If I can believably have a cigar smoker I will but I write the characters first and props develop from them, not the other way around.

Smokers probably appear very seldom in FMG type stories because fitness is an ideal that's exalted in them.  But in the real world people smoke and even the most fitness conscious person likely has one friend who smokes.

[JimmyDimples]

Hmm… BION, I have featured that one in my writings before.

In China Will Grow Larger, the GLA general and Lao Zi Bom, the Chinese traitor enjoy puffing on a hookah.

In the Dyna story Mezaros Surfaces, Professor DeBuncombe enjoys smoking on a pipe while he tells Deena the tale of the true dark legend of Atlantis.

And while I suppose there might be more room for it happening in my stories, and probably does "off-camera," I simply didn't include it because it didn't forward the plot.  Also in the  "write what you know" department, while I have lived in tobacco territory almost all my life, I haven't tried it since I asked my then-smoking dad if I could try one of his Winstons… and he said, "Why, SURE!"  ;D And made me suck the whole thing down to the filter once I started hacking, coughing, and groaning, "I don't wanna do this anymore" once I lit up.

Mean, vicious, and nasty… and it kept me clean.

And thusly, the second verse here will sum my opinion up quite nicely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUeDjAkPgLc

[AlexG]

Is this directed at me?  ::)

Full disclosure requires me to admit that you were the first to come up in the back of my mind while crafting this questionnaire – however, I have other reasons of my own to pose this one to the membership.

Oh, and yes – I've had four characters in my stories that have smoked – two villians, one villianette, and one supporting major character, hero-esque type.

And no, I don't concider smoking to be a disgusting habit – chewing / smokeless tobacco is another matter entirely, and not germane to the subject of this thread.

==========

Update 09/23/07

Seems I was in error, I have had not four, but five characters in the role as smokers – I forgot about the cigar-chomping air force general (done in the Curtis LeMay tradition) in one of them.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[JimmyDimples]

Oh, I forgot to mention… I had Tetsuko smoking in Chapter 9 of Like a Weed.

…

Okay, it was after someone hit her with a lit Molotov cocktail, but still.  😛

[Fonk]

What an interesting question. I think I would, but only if the character is a villain. As has already been mentioned, the stories we write tend to be "fitness = perfection", and we know that smoking is an enemy of fitness.

Well, you know what I mean.

[stmercy2020]

While I haven't included a smoker as a part of any of my stories to date (I think- at least, I can't recall using one,) I'm not actually averse to the idea.  I'm not a smoker myself and never have been, so it's unlikely that it would ever become a major part of one of my stories, but it could easily become a characteristic associated with a supporting character.

Because I tend to write about women who are exceptionally- perhaps even aggressively- healthy, the probability of them being smokers is pretty negligible.  Smokers are more likely to be villains in my stories not because I attach any moral value to the activity, but just because my heroines are unlikely to have developed so terribly self-destructive a habit.

[Silent One]

Poor Kate, all alone in the FMG smokers wating room.  She'll probably set fire to something if left unattended for to long.  ::)

[GTSKate]

Hmm.  An interesting question, Alex! 

After careful pondering of the idea, I do not recall having a smoker in any of my stories.  I would like to believe that that's because I write in the things that are most familiar to me, and as I am a professional vocalist, smoking would not be in that realm. 

That is not to say that I have not smoked.  I stopped for my health.

My mother would have beaten me to within an inch of my life if I had continued after she'd caught me.  I started in fifth grade at the tender age of 10 (thanks to the neighbor next door–who by the way was an Olympic athlete in Women's hockey later!) and stopped about six months later.  My mother had discovered a bit of ash stain on an article of clothing and whupped the truth out of me. 
I was also encouraged not to spend time with that neighbor anymore, since it was getting me into trouble.  (Since the aforementioned neighbor had also taught me how to box, and got me into several fights, well…you can imagine that Mom wasn't real pleased.)

Anyhoo, would I make one of my characters smoke?  I guess it would depend on the character, but I'm inclined to say no, simply because after studying voice in college and seeing ALL sorts of photographic and video demonstrations about what your throat looks like even after a short period of smoking, I would be rather grossed out.

(might I suggest:  http://www.entusa.com/voice_box_cancer.htm  just to see what I mean?  Not a kick or a message, just interesting pictures.  And the biopsy video is fascinating!)

Again though, I suppose it depends on the character.  I'd never rule it out, because you know all our characters and stories ACTUALLY exist on some parallel universe, and we're only seeing it in the window in our minds  😉

-Kate

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