fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2763 ]

So I've seen a few things, writing related that have said something to the effect of "you shouldn't see your characters as ____" or "your characters are your tools that's it". It kinda bothers me , to tell someone that because they think about their characters in a way that;s different then you, their characters are now "bad".

Like I can understand criticizing someone who has one character who's "their baby" and gets everything they want, and they think that because they love their character so much NO ONE can criticize them. But, if you are fond of all of your characters but are mature enough to realize that other people may not like them, what's the big deal there?

Different writers have different approaches to writing as well as feelings toward their creations, and IMO if they can write well and not make the world revolve around one character, then it shouldn't really matter how they view their own character.

As long as they can take and listen to criticism without taking it as a personal attack and they can treat all of their characters with some equality, they can think of their characters only as tools, or as their best friends for all I care.

What are your thoughts on this? Also are there any commonly used pieces of "writing advice" that you are unsure or even outright disagree with?

Edited 2014-07-27 21:24 (UTC)

I tend to see the opposite. People talk about how their characters just come to them fully-formed and claim that my way of building them from the bottom up is mechanical and dull.

When it comes to writing advice in general, I hate how it's assumed that every single writer is too wordy in their first drafts. There's advice that says to cut 10% or something like that. But some people, like me, tend to be too sparse in their first draft. I have to go through and add description to make things less confusing for anyone who doesn't live in my head.

Ahh. I can understand not getting a certain way of building characters, but I wouldn't say another way is dull unless I meant "dull for me" *shrug*. But eh

I'm somewhere in between. I start with an idea of the character and the more I work with them the more they are built until they start becoming an actual 3-D character to me. Sometimes they even do a total one eighty and other times understanding them more will change something I had planned for them.

Yeah....that sounds stupid. You can't assume every writer does things the same. when I was writing my work I would sometimes be too descriptive and other times be too simple.

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

sarillia - 2014-07-27 21:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-27 22:22 (UTC) - Expand

People talk about how their characters just come to them fully-formed and claim that my way of building them from the bottom up is mechanical and dull.

Out of curiosity, do they change as you go? I don't necessarily mean in the sense of internal character development, but in the sense that your conception of them changes. Do you build the character to form first, and then set the story in motion, or do you start with a vaguer idea and see how the character and the plot change each other once you get going?

I ask because I'm primarily the latter. I start out with a situation I want to see, pick out a few character roles/types to fill the starter plot, and then start filling things in as I go. Sometimes (or even most of the time), this results in characters wildly diverging from their initial conception, disappearing, being divided into multiple characters, or randomly switching roles with other characters. I made one character up on the spot a third of the way into the story to fill a suddenly apparent gap in the cast, and they subsequently ended up in control of huge swathes of the plot and retroactively responsible for several key events, while also changing gender twice and ending up in one of the sole romantic plots in the story.

I'm always slightly confused when people talk about characters 'springing fully formed' versus characters being systematically built, because I don't think I'm either? The characters evolve too wildly to be fully formed, but I'm not exactly building them either so much as throwing vague roles into the plot and seeing what they end up as.

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sarillia - 2014-07-27 21:56 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-07-27 22:15 (UTC) - Expand

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sarillia - 2014-07-27 22:27 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2014-07-27 22:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

sarillia - 2014-07-27 23:05 (UTC) - Expand

"But some people, like me, tend to be too sparse in their first draft. I have to go through and add description to make things less confusing for anyone who doesn't live in my head."

This. My first draft is kind of like an outline or a screenplay, which I then flesh-out.

As long as they can take and listen to criticism without taking it as a personal attack and they can treat all of their characters with some equality, they can think of their characters only as tools, or as their best friends for all I care.

The advice you refer to is almost always aimed at writers who are incapable of doing this.

Yup. Writers who are reasonable, not batshit crazy don't need advice on how not to get too caught up in their characters.

Ahh..

I just remember seeing "characters should be tools" just as a statement on some "character test" for ..some annoying character type.

I know it takes more words but I honestly wish people wouldn't simply state something like "your character should be this" or "you should do it this way". Explain a little more like "You shouldn't let your feelings about your character get in the way of story writing" rather than "you should think about your characters THIS way".

I mean that's just my opinion but...I guess I just really don't care for absolute statements. I feel like they're not as helpful as actually explaining the problem.

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-07-28 08:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-28 23:25 (UTC) - Expand

I agree with you, but I also think that people mostly mean the severe "my baby" case when they are criticizing writers for their OTT love towards their own characters.

Other than that, everyone who thinks that eye dialect spelling is a no-go needs to be hit on the head with a copy of Kidnapped. (kidding, obviously. Different strokes for different folks. But I hate this "advice".)

Ah. I guess I can get that.

I think that the problem people have with that is the possibility that it can be used to be offensive toward a group. Though I honestly think they should just say "don't use dialect spelling to make a one group of characters seem less intelligent than others."

I sometimes use it a teensy bit to denote an accent. Not like over the top or overdone but like - "We went swimmin' cuz the kids were bored" Or putting "Ah don't like folks like you" for say the first time the character speaks and then writing it normally the rest of the time. Because then your reader knows that's how the character pronounces it.

I think eye dialect spelling is probably one of the things that should come with a warning. Not "never do this," but "It's a lot harder to do this well than you might think; go carefully and pay attention if someone tells you it's not working."

A lot of creators think of their characters as their children, and yet are still capable of dishing out horrors to their characters (and possibly feel sad about it). Even if there is favoriteism, writers shouldn't hold back the plot just to make "their baby" happier.

My characters are basically like people in my heads that debate with me on what actually happened in their story. It varies from "That scene is slightly out of character with me" to a certain pair unexpectedly falling in love and temporarily switching personalities. So... my relationship with my characters is like a shepherd and lots of semi wild sheep.

I am sure "write what you know" has been bashed to death, "do research wherever possible is better".

>A lot of creators think of their characters as their children, and yet are still capable of dishing out horrors to their characters (and possibly feel sad about it)

Now that I think about it, it's true. Rick Yancey is an awesome case in question.

I feel a certain closeness to my characters but as I see it, I don't spare things-even unpleasant things-from happening to them, because the things that happened to them a part of what makes them who they are. It would feel untrue to the character to not include them.

It would be like, if I were someone's character, writing me without all my disabilities or disorders. They aren't exactly pleasant sometimes, but they are part of what make me well ME. Without all of those things affecting my brain, I'd be someone different. Does that make sense?

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

icecheetah - 2014-07-27 22:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-27 22:25 (UTC) - Expand

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icecheetah - 2014-07-27 22:49 (UTC) - Expand

Heh, I recall a Worldcon panel back in around 2003, where Lois McMaster Bujold said her writing modus operandi for writing was to say, "What's the worst possible thing I can do to this character?" So then she would do that. And then George RR Martin turned to her, laughed, and went, "Yeah, pretty much."

Which, incidentally, is why I wasn't at all surprised when Oberyn lost that duel. Not because I was spoiled (I wasn't), but because it's the worst outcome for everybody.

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-28 00:45 (UTC) - Expand

I agree with you. Loving your characters like children isn't bad as long as you can treat them badly as appropriate.

For writing advice I disagree with, I'd have to go with "write what you know." To paraphrase How Not to Write a Novel, that advice is why so many bad novels are about English professors contemplating adultery. Similarly, that's why so much bad fanfic is high school AU or self-insert. Do I know what it is like to be immortal or a time traveler or to have once had godlike powers? No, I don't. Do I think that that is an inherent reason why I shouldn't have written the stories about them? No, I don't.

Yeah. I see a lot of people saying "oh they just mean the extreme cases" but I'm like.."even then why not get straight to what actually causes the problem rather than making a statement that you shouldn't do this or that. The way I see it when things happen to my OCs, those things shape who they are. So not having them happen wouldn't be true to the character.

I agree. I think that's an overly simplistic piece of "advice' that takes one kernel of logic- "you should be well informed on what you're writing about" and makes it black and white. I would more likely say "use what you know in your writing."

It gets closer to that kernel of logic but it doesn't automatically exclude writing about other things.

"Use what you know, learn what you don't"

Ugh, "rules and advice."

I guess my major problem is that everyone's process is so different so that saying someone is outright wrong when you don't know their process, bugs me. It's like saying "Hard Sci Fi is best and soft Sci Fi is ruining the genre."

For me, 80% of my characters don't even start off with a gender. (The other 20% would be main characters and those tend to jump at me with "I'm a girl." "And I'm her future boyfriend." "And I'm the annoying male dragon best friend of said girl." A lot of times, they start out as roles. Such as, "Hey, I'm a sniper." And later the sniper goes "And I'm female." And then another character who is supposed to be say, hand to hand combat specialist who protects the sniper goes "I'm her little sister, and I'm best friends with main character and I like shopping. Oh, and our daddy is the treasurer of our organization who sets up our jobs."

And I sit there and go... "Okay, that's funny. I'm keeping it." And later I go in and assign astrological signs that I feel are compatible with the personality that is building thus far.

I know that makes it sound like I have no control over it. It's just, very organic, as I lay it out, I see patterns I guess. And sometimes, I see the pattern of a character fully realized at the end of the journey and then I start writing them and go "Oh damn it, they aren't there yet, they're here and they need to learn shit and now I have plot." The key is keeping the characters consistent.

So they're my friends I guess? And in a way, no one gets to talk shit about my friends other than me? Taking that step back and being objective is difficult, that's why I've got others on my side to pull me back and go "HOLD UP." Which is very important.

When it comes to writing advice, I honestly believe that people who claim that their way is the one right way are kinda full of it and you shouldn't take them too seriously.

An important thing about giving writing tips is to realize that their ARE a lot of valid approaches to it. Also attitudes and motivations when writing matter a lot.

I can get your method...I mean I often have major changes. I one imagined a character as having an alignment of evil, but also being someone who genuinely loves his girlfriend and is an antagonist, but as time went on and I understood him and his motivations more, I realized that I couldn't exactly call him evil really. He was doing what he believed he had to do to stand up against another powerful group, even if it meant some manipulation.

Anything really can be the spark of a new character/set off characters. I've had characters that were inspired by AU versions of OTHER characters.

When it comes to criticism, it can be important to listen, but also to learn to filter it. being able to "take criticism" does not mean you need to take every bit of criticism or suggestion you get. and sometimes you need to be able to realize that you're dealing with someone who's never going to be happy and to just forget about them. But yeah..... the best way to deal with crit, is to be calm, because of you're defensive some of them will use it against you.

I understand just how difficult it can be to be objective about your own OCs. It helps me to remember that my OC is strong enough that they don't NEED me to rage against every negative comment about them. people can not like them, or feel what they want....I know from how much I've worked on them that they're valid,decent, characters.

(and honestly I've gotten to the point where I just laugh when anons make "lol I bet they're a self insert sue" type comments. It's kinda like when someone online makes a comment about my appearance. I own a mirror and I know their comment is just a silly assumption made by someone who has their mind made up and is probably not going to change it.)

I love all of my characters, even the villains (and even canon characters, who become 'mine' the moment I start to write them); if I didn't love them, they wouldn't be rounded characters, they'd just be symbols.

My OCs usually become 'real' to me the moment I give them a name, so that's always the first thing I do, but occasionally I struggle to 'know' one, and to keep him or her in character, and then I need to find a face and maybe a voice, so that I can see and hear him or her as I write. An OC's backstory exists the moment he or she becomes real, but I don't know what it is unless it turns out to be relevant to the story.

I don't think I need to do bad things to my characters to write them well -- what if the story doesn't warrant bad things happening? -- but I mustn't flatter them. It isn't giving a character particular traits that makes him or her a Mary Sue, it's belittling the other characters to make the chosen character seem more impressive that makes the chosen character unrealistic and annoying.

And I think most writing advice is bullshit. All you really need is a shelf full of well-written stories!

I don't think I need to do bad things to my characters to write them well -- what if the story doesn't warrant bad things happening? -- but I mustn't flatter them. It isn't giving a character particular traits that makes him or her a Mary Sue, it's belittling the other characters to make the chosen character seem more impressive that makes the chosen character unrealistic and annoying.

OMG YES. THANK YOU YES.

I agree. I see so many people who focus on traits that are deemed "Mary Sue Traits" when it is THIS that is the real problem. It's character FAVORITISM. You could create a very ordinary high school student , but if you make her the center of the universe? BAM Mary Sue.

I see my characters as projects, ideas of people I'm always building, shaping, and improving as the story goes on. I really hate stories where the characters are just tools to get a certain viewpoint or action across, it always shows and it's always awkward for me, I don't feel like I'm reading about well-rounded fictional people, but plot devices that talk.

Writing device I hate the most is "write what you know". That kind of thing is how you end up with the scores of novels out there that are basically "the adventures of the author's self-insert doing things the author wishes they could do". Hell with that. The better advice, I think, would be "write what you're willing to research". Why would I limit myself to what I already know when there's a wealth of things I'm capable of learning? To be fair, I've seen a ton of stories that somehow made it to the shelves with basic mistakes that three minutes of Googling would have prevented, but that's just laziness and human error. I'm lazy as shit, but if I want to write about anything other than my avatar sitting at home trying to work through writer's block and then Shit Happens, I stop being lazy long enough to research something slightly more original.

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darkmanifest - 2014-07-28 00:38 (UTC) - Expand

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jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-28 00:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-28 01:02 (UTC) - Expand

I pretty much got fed up with 20 questions-style worldbuilding or character development at the start of the year alongside my shift to writing nearly exclusively in short-story form. I've also been reading more anthologies and magazine-published shorts and largely realized that not every story in SF&F needs a plausible Big Idea, much less one that can be supported via encyclopedic omniscient exploration of things to fill a trivial pursuit box, like the balance of trade in cereals or who made a character's shoes. Some of that is inspired by actually paying attention to what Tolkien had to say about fantasy, which was that obsessing over the geopolitics of Danes vs. Swedes vs. Geats vs. Franks is missing the point. Which is why I'm notoriously skeptical of how fandom regards "canon."

But if other people want to use different writing methods, that's up to them.

Re: Worldbuilder's Disease

sarillia - 2014-07-28 01:06 (UTC) - Expand

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cbrachyrhynchos - 2014-07-28 01:17 (UTC) - Expand

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sarillia - 2014-07-28 01:19 (UTC) - Expand

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cushlamochree - 2014-07-28 02:49 (UTC) - Expand

"Also are there any commonly used pieces of "writing advice" that you are unsure or even outright disagree with?"

I think the idea of "show, don't tell" gets badly misunderstood and over-used, in both fanfic and professionally-published novels.

Personally, as a reader, I have no problem whatsoever with simple statements like "He was angry" or "It was raining." I recently stopped reading a book because the author spent two or three long paragraphs expressing the fact that it was raining, instead of just being direct about it.

I like a very clear, straightforward, minimalist writing style. I will not read a bunch of "her face was flushed, her heart was racing, her palms were sweating, her jaw was clenched, her lips were trembling, her pulse was pounding" instead of "She was angry." Get to the freaking point. I find that type of writing rather silly and melodramatic and YA-ish.

I also don't mind "info dump" and I actually believe it can be interesting if it's done well.

People think "show don't tell" means using elaborate metaphors and flowery language instead of just giving your reader the information. What it *actually* means, IMO, is "don't make statements that you can't back up."

If you tell me over and over again that Character X is brave, then she should also *do* some brave things, or else you're telling but not showing. If all of Character X's bravery happens off-stage, so to speak, then you're expecting me, the reader, to just take your word for it, without seeing these supposed character-traits in action.

To me, "show, don't tell" means that you need to back up your statements with evidence. If a writer tells their reader "this person is awful" or "this place is scary" but they don't actively demonstrate *why*, then that's telling-not-showing.

Unfortunately, a LOT of people in both fanfic and profic seem to think it means using purple prose and lots of vague, excessively wordy language, instead of keeping the plot moving forward. That's what irritates me.

Edited 2014-07-30 04:42 (UTC)

Re: Creator's Attitudes Toward Their Creations

jaybie_jarrett - 2014-07-30 20:36 (UTC) - Expand

"Also are there any commonly used pieces of "writing advice" that you are unsure or even outright disagree with?"

Slightly OT, but I am starting to disagree with the way the term "AU" gets used in fanfic.
Non-canon ships, for example, do not make a story AU, IMO. The idea that *anything* which differs from canon should be labeled AU is awfully stringent and literal-minded. ALL fanfic differs from canon, unless you're literally just transcribing episodes.

"Bob is a 17th-century pirate instead of a plumber" is an AU, "Bob is dating Alice instead of Carol" is not an AU.

I am starting to question the whole concept of "canon." It's all fictional; the only difference is that the canon-creators get paid and have a wider audience. Fic isn't any less "real" than the fictional stories we see on the screen; it's all imaginary, and one imaginary thing isn't somehow more "legit" than another.

What about the fact that an idea could be perfectly canon-compliant at one point in time and then get shot-down by new developments in the canon? Is my Bob/Carol story an AU just because Bob dated Carol for the first five seasons of The Bob Show but now he's married to Alice? Do you see what I mean? One part of a fictional thing isn't any more "real" than another part. Season 1 of a show is not somehow cancelled-out by the events of Season 5.

I don't feel like labeling something AU unless it literally has fantasy/sci-fi themes or a total change of setting. IMO there are some very literal-minded, black-and-white thinkers out there who believe anything that wasn't verified in the most recent episode of canon is somehow "incorrect."