I’ve had this column for over a year now, which got me thinking that it’s about time I begin developing a persona for it. For a columnist, creating a persona is important because—with the exception of Batboy and maybe Jesus Christ—people are not born interesting. I first understood the use of the persona when reading A.J. Jacob’s column in Esquire.

In his columns, Jacobs regularly mentions his wife, who he seems to view as a guinea pig on which to try out his stunt journalism experiments, often for a cheap laugh at her expense. Jacobs also makes habit of making his attraction to women who are not his wife clear, frequently referencing occasions when he has made advances at them.

After reading several of Jacobs’ articles, I came to the conclusion that either his wife is illiterate, or Jacobs has chosen to exaggerate his inner-chauvinist in his writing to make his columns more outrageous and therefore more appealing to a certain audience.

I then decided to look at other popular columnists in attempt to detect their writing personas, which was a fairly easy task. For instance, Chelsea Handler has chosen to play the role of the lovable yet scandalous and often crude alcoholic with promiscuous tendencies.

Anne Coulter, on the other hand, seems to have taken her persona in a very different direction, which I believe to be that of a mannequin brought to life by a mad and very politically conservative scientist who tragically died before he had the chance to finish making a fully functional brain for his blond creation.

I have come to believe that it is best to choose a writing persona that is actually just an extension of a major characteristic that you already possess. It seems to be easier to write as a caricature of yourself than it would be to create a new personality for your column.

It seems to help increase your column’s readership if the characteristic chosen for exaggeration is in some way shocking or offensive to a sizable portion of the population.

As my occasional tendency toward sassiness seems to be my most controversial feature as a writer, I realize that the only way to make this column better is to turn it into a bonanza of cheekiness, maybe even taking my persona to the level of full-on hellion.

Now I will try out my new controversial persona by leaving you with this, dear readers: “The Dark Knight” was not that great. Not that I didn’t buy the special edition DVD right after it came out, but where are the Joker’s jokes? And what’s with Christian Bale’s Batman voice? He sounds like he has bronchitis, and he’s really grumpy about it.

How’s that for cheeky?

Holly Combs can be reached at [email protected]