[ SECRET POST #2088 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2088 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #298.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

da

Your characters are still just figments of your imagination, your creations who exist only at your whim. They have no will of their own, no actual character of their own beyond what you attribute to them. Even if they ~feel so real~ and you love to "listen" to them to decided where the story goes next, ultimately every ounce of that decision process and rationale is coming from you.

Otherwise you end up like Laurel K Hamilton, whose characters tell her that it sucks doing bad-scary-shitty things and losing people...and thus, she has "promised" her characters to never make them lose anyone ever again. And the scary-bad situations get progressively weaker, and the MCs always pull out some new power at the last minute to save them from experiencing any undue trauma.

Deferring to your characters can be just bad (and make for a bad story) as shoving them around like pawns willy-nilly with no intuitive, logical development.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes but I'd never change a characters race, or gender, just to fill a quota.

They are who they are in my minds eye, and not at the mercy of anyone else's expectations.

[(Anonymous)]

Your characters are still just figments of your imagination, your creations who exist only at your whim. They have no will of their own, no actual character of their own beyond what you attribute to them.

Thank you.

It seriously annoys me when people act like their characters are independent entities with their own thoughts and feelings. NO. They are the creation of the author, and they are tools to advance a story/plot.

People get offended when I tell them this. They act like their characters are their children. I think this is an unhealthy attitude to have, and it can negatively affect a story.

One time this girl asked me to critique her story, and I recommended she tweak one of her characters. She blew up in my face. She told me she couldn't change her "precious baby." Characters should be malleable. They should be something you should be able to change in your story just like you can change a sentence or scene or plot point.

[saku]

my characters aren't my children, but i can judge what is "good" for them based on how the change feels. if it doesn't seem natural, then that change is naturally not a part of my character. discovering your characters and learning more about them is really important, but it's different than "creating" a character. in the former experience, you find them; in the latter, you build them from scratch.

that's not to say the former kinds of characters can't change, because they almost always do, at least in my experience. but it has to be at their own whim; again, you'll know if it's a good change if it seems to fit the character. if it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be. i think every character evolves over time eventually, but it's not something you can just wave a wand and expect to happen overnight unless it's a good change for that character. if you force changes on characters who are not suitable for those changes, you end up with a bad character, just as you would if you denied them changes over time.

i know it seems weird to describe characters as "speaking" to me, and i don't mean it literally, but it's much different than viewing them as, say, machine parts that you can put together however you like. sometimes they come already constructed in some ways, and those can change, but not as easily.

[(Anonymous)]

"Characters should be malleable. They should be something you should be able to change in your story just like you can change a sentence or scene or plot point."

That isn't always possible,it really isn't, and especially if it's used to push some kind of agenda. or it goes against the grain of who that character 'is', in the minds eye, of the creator.

It's like if I was told to make one my main characters female, despite the fact that my story is centered around two male lovers. It's just not going to happen.

[(Anonymous)]

That isn't always possible,it really isn't, and especially if it's used to push some kind of agenda. or it goes against the grain of who that character 'is', in the minds eye, of the creator.

Nope. It's always possible. You can always change a character. A character is just words on paper. If you want to change a physical feature or how they react to something, all you need to do is write new words.

It's like if I was told to make one my main characters female, despite the fact that my story is centered around two male lovers. It's just not going to happen.

Well, of course not. The dynamic is going to be completely different. And you're making a very conscious decision about the genders of these characters in the situation. But what if you wrote a story about people solving a murder in New York. Is it necessary for all these characters to be white? Would changing the race of a character completely change the dynamics? Probably not. All the cops in your story are men. Is there are reason for this? Would having a woman cop completely throw the story into a funk? Sometimes it's good to ask yourself questions like that.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry but my characters are not just lifeless husks that I can skin, gut, and shove into a new shape, just to suit the needs of others.

I write characters that come from all different backgrounds and races, however that is they way they appear to me from the get-go, I don't have to change any of them, and if some of them are white i don't agonize over them, or worry that I need to change their race, they are who they are.

If you feel the need to see more representation, or you feel that authors aren't giving enough representation, then begin writing your own story.

I mean it.

It would be far easier to do that, then try and change (or guilt) someones whole creative process.

[saku]

bless this comment. none of my characters are just "words on paper" to me. just writing "new words" is not how most good authors write.

my characters are who they are, and that's that. i don't know how else to explain it. i guess it's either something you understand or don't.

[(Anonymous)]

I seriously doubt you know how "most good authors write." The best writers I know realize that their characters are tools. They serve the function of telling a story.

To me, my characters are words on paper. Yes, I think about them and what I want them to be like, but they don't truly exist until they are integrated into the story. And yes, if you want to change a character, then you will have to write "new words." If a character does not function the way I want him or her to, then I have to re-write things involving them whether it be description, dialogue, or reaction.

I think the problem is that people become overly attached to their characters and start acting as if their characters have distinct thoughts and feelings when, in reality, they are just a construction of the author.

[saku]

you don't have to be rude to make a point, just fyi. in any case, i am well aware that characters act as tools by which a story is portrayed. but characters are not just tools to everybody, that is my point. for some of us, they are something more than that, and those characters generally fall into the "found" category rather than the "created" one. my characters are not universally of the same flexibility and origin.

i am glad you have your own subjective opinion about your own characters, that is genuinely great, but it's not an objective, universal experience that we all share, which is something i think you are failing to understand. nobody is saying characters can't change or are their own person completely.

words have no artistic meaning without emotion or care. technical writing doesn't make a good creative story. implying that just "writing some words" is all it takes to change something in a creative work is, dare i say, oversimplifying the process for a lot of us who put more feeling into our work. you seem to be trying to apply your methods to those of us who are rejecting your statements and assuming we think the products of our own mind have gained actual sentience, which isn't true.

you are right that our characters are our construction, no matter how the character comes to us. but, by being an extension of ourselves, that makes it even more difficult to change aspects of a character willy nilly when they (in other words, us directly) don't fit well with the proposed changes. changes can't always be forced like that; for some of us, not at all. if you can change things forcefully and still put heart into your work, then that's sincerely great for you, and i am happy you can do that, but i personally can't. my heart lies in a story that feels right and good to me, and that structure and soul is destroyed when i attempt to make changes i never truly wanted.

ETA: i think going out of your comfort zone with your own characters is actually pretty good exercise, like trying to write a drabble where one of your characters is genderswapped or has a major personality change or even a disability of some sort. it helps you grow as a writer and in this case using your character temporarily as an exercise tool is beneficial. but there's a big difference between momentarily altering your character for the sake of practice and permanently installing these "uncomfortable" changes that aren't your ideals for that specific character. it's not that i'm avoiding a challenge - i love to challenge my writing abilities! - it's just that i don't find it necessary to change something about my character when it's not something i want to happen. if i want my character to be a boy then that's the end of that conflict.

you said that if your character doesn't function the way you want that character to function, you rewrite and edit things. i think we all do this to characters who don't function the way we want. but when they do function the way we want? awesome! what's the point in changing a well-functioning character because some random on the internet is judging me for having less girls than boys in my stories?

[veronica_rich]

How many books have you sold?

[(Anonymous)]

This just sounds limiting, honestly. If you're good enough at understanding human psychology, at constructing a believable psychological profile for any given character, you should be able to change any facet of your character without a problem. Simply tweak, or sometimes, completely re-write, that psychological profile (this profile does not have to be literally written out, mind. Mine are just in my head.) Then they are not "just words on paper" in the negative way you seem to mean. They are very believable human beings.

It's just like yourself... If somebody understands themself really well, they should be able to make educated guesses (and believable, realistic ones) as to how they might be different if they were another race, another gender, if they'd been orphans, if they'd been abused or not been abused, etc...

I know not everybody analyzes them in this way. But I think any writer should be able to construct a realistic set of reactions and personality changes based on any given event. That's what you're doing when writing a story, after all? So why is it suddenly impossible when applied to a specific character?

I'm not saying you should change your characters for anybody else. You shouldn't. I just fundamentally disagree that what you're describing is a superior form of writing, or what most good authors do.

The better and more experienced I get with writing, the more changeable my characters have become. Most writers have characters that appear to them. How else would we start writing, or be inspired to do so? It's just that a lot of us don't see these characters as unchangeable. They came to us in a split second. Surely it will be rare for my brain to create something better, and more realistic, in a split second, than when given more time, right? Characters often improve a lot when you research things and think about them and make your own decisions in a more thoughtful way than your knee-jerk brain activity can.

I simply feel you may be limiting yourself by seeing these characters as fully formed people that you can't change unless it feels right. Your brain creates what it is comfortable with, what it knows. What "feels right" again represents what you are comfortable with, what you know. Some of the best writing happens when we do something that takes us out of our comfort zone, but this is rarely going to "feel right" immediately or groove well with our split-second initial character creation. Conversely, it's often when authors start talking about how characters have minds of their own, is often when their writing goes down hill, when they don't take appropriate criticism. See: Anne Rice. It's possible what you're doing works for you but in general I highly, highly highly recommend against it.

[(Anonymous)]

Look, even if they are our own characters and not somebody else's, some actions (or changes) would lead to OOC-ness or outright character derailment.
That's why we (I hope you don't mind me including you, Saku) keep saying that some changes aren't possible.

[saku]

yeah, pretty much. i'm not going to have a character act... well, out of character simply because some folks seem to think that these drastic and random changes without reason are beneficial to the story, because in my eyes, they aren't. changes that work with the character, the plot and the setting, etc. are the ones that are worth keeping if they don't flow then they're likely not good changes, unless you're writing a story that is meant to be erratic.

[saku]

the bottom line is that if it doesn't feel right then it'snot meant to be. i'm not limiting myself at all. it's my style and through it i find really strong, well-rounded and dynamic characters.

this:
"I know not everybody analyzes them in this way. But I think any writer should be able to construct a realistic set of reactions and personality changes based on any given event. That's what you're doing when writing a story, after all? So why is it suddenly impossible when applied to a specific character?"
is not true! like i said before, challenging yourself is cardinal to improving as a writer. if you write a certain event in which your character changes in some way, then that's cool, but i wouldn't force it.
let me give you an example. i have a character who's an android but who is programmed to learn, rather than to already know. this makes him more human than other androids in his era. he's very close to a person who happens to be human. i currently can't decide what fate i like best for them (i have a few brainstormed) so i like to flesh out each one just to see where it takes my characters and their story. in a few of these futures, when the human dies, the android's personality changes drastically. this is a conditional change that feels natural. it's his response to losing a friend. i didn't force it, it's just what feels right when i place myself in his shoes. so i don't think i'm limiting myself at all by just considering scenarios that feel like, hey, this is how my character would react or become.

people replying to me don't seem to understand that when i say i change my characters often, i mean it. i'm not limited by my lack of desire to change a character unnecessarily.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no interest in changing your characters, or anybody's. I certainly don't think anybody should change their characters because someone else demands it. But I disagree with your thinking that if a character's traits can be changed and they can still work, they are "lifeless husks who have been gutted."

You seem to see your writing method as superior because you say the stories appear to you from the get-go.

Newsflash: The only difference between a "gutted husk" and a character that "comes to you from the get-go" is hard work. Most people have characters come to us from the get-go. It's just that some of us go on to change those characters, you don't.

Listen, it's possible that you're a brilliant artist who writes brilliant characters from the get-go. I'm not being condescending. I have my skills; that might be yours. But for the majority of people, I think what you are suggesting is a bad idea. It encourages them to be lazier. This works for good writers, but not for bad, mediocre or struggling writers.

My characters come to me from the get-go too. But you know what? They're never as good as they've become once I've "gutted them." Because for most people, the subconscious, knee-jerk character creation that occurs when a character "just appears" is imperfect. It's based off your own experiences, your own preconceptions and prejudices, archetypes you've encountered before, your own psychology, etc. These characters that come to you aren't gifts from god. They're from your own brain.

But seeing them as mystical gifts from somewhere else is the only possible reason I can conceive of for the average writer too not edit these characters. Because if they came from a split-second decision made by your own imperfect brain (which is not a complete encyclopedia, and does not have a PhD in Psychology), then surely every single character could be improved - made more interesting, more unique, more complex, and most importantly, more realistic - with further research, thought, and effort.

[(Anonymous)]

Let me put this as simply as I can.

What's in my head, isn't in your head. How write, isn't how you write.

You have your method and that's fine, I have mine and it works for me. However I hate this apparently, guilt laced, notion of having to constantly second guess my own mind, at all times.

My characters are from my own brain, and yes I do research. However the big thing is that well...I'm not white. So I'm not going to wring my hands, and question my characters makeup over some kind of cultural guilt.

I write what I want, and that includes white male characters.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree about background characters! If you need a doctor for one scene in a modern fic there's no reason that doctor can't be female or POC or both. Little changes like that, where we accept that women are cops in the background of the chase scene or politicians who happen to be talking in the background on television, are great.

[(Anonymous)]

What you're saying here only works if you're writing plot-driven stories and only using characters as tools in a plot. It's fine to have some minor characters who only exist to move the plot forward, but if you make your major characters like this, they usually read as cardboard cutouts.

When you write character-driven stories, you can't just change the reaction of characters to fit the plot's needs - it reads as not true to the characters and destroys the quality of the story. There's a certain amount of organic reaction from each character that is necessay for them to seem alive.

I enjoy character-driven stories much, much more than plot-driven ones, and I prefer to write the former. Frankly what you've said in your comments makes you seem pretty inexperienced as a writer, as you don't even seem to grasp the concept of organic character development people are trying to explain to you.

+ forever

[strike_you_out]

THANK YOU.

[saku]

some characters just don't work as certain genders, or body types, or personalities. these things will come to you, and eventually you'll find something that fits. for me, i find it generally immediately. they do change over time, even when i was once satisfied, so it's definitely not unheard of, but changing a character's gender - or any other part of their identity - because you've been made to feel you don't have "enough" of one kind of person, or that your story is lacking unless you fix this, isn't always a good course of action, because not every character can change like that so easily and still feel "right" to the creator. that's how i am. i would never change any of my girls into boys, or vice versa, or anything in between or outside of these identities unless it fit. that's what it boils down to: is the change good for the character, and is it something you want to do? if one or both of these answers is no, that is okay! there's nothing wrong with being satisfied with your characters, even if, in the long run, it turns out that you have a few more boys than girls. i have hundreds of characters so even with the majority being male, i still have tons of females, and i love them all.

again, it's not always easy for an author to change their characters, and they shouldn't feel obligated to do so at times that are not natural for them or their own "editing" schedule, as i refer to it, simply because some people think that every author should have at least 50% of their characters be females, all the time, no exceptions.

[elialshadowpine]

Yeah, I mean... with learning more about social issues, I have stopped more and asked myself "Does this character need to be [x]?" By doing that, I realized that one book really did not work all that well with the lead hero but when that character became a butch lesbian, the story changed immensely and for the better. There's a lot more nuance and complication and depth to the characters. It just never occurred to me when I started writing it in 2002 that I could write about a lesbian couple (because the writer's community I was in, headed by a published author who did a lot of workshops and the like, talked at length about how gay characters were not viable in SFF and how she had been made to turn a lesbian character straight in order to sell a novel).

But sometimes, the characters are what they are. I have another story, a BDSM fantasy story, that I've had trouble writing because male dom is somewhat triggery to me. I thought, well, what if I switched the character to a woman? But, nope, he's male. The storyline doesn't have the same impact, either, with the character as a woman, because one of the things that is heavily focused on as something the heroine has great difficulty with is how women are expected to be subservient to men in society. You do not deal with the same issues in a lesbian relationship.

Which is why I am boggling at some of the comments that say that you can change characters and not have it matter. Because if you're doing it right, no, it does matter. My above-mentioned lesbian heroine has gone through totally different things as a Latina lesbian than as a Latino male. And I'm not saying that the story has to be About Life As A Minority, because I fucking hate that. I fucking hate how such a large amount of queer fiction is coming out stories and how Life Is So Difficult As A Queer Person. There is some great stuff out there that treats it as "just another thing about the character" -- but it is still going to inform the character, their experiences, and outlook on life, even if it's not the focus of the story. It's possible to address those things in a subtle manner.

[saku]

yes, thank you! i think it does matter, and any changes are often important. i have no trouble changing things like character names (i do that more than anything else tbh) even when their previous name seemed fitting. it's a matter of finding something better. and by better, i don't mean something mary stu-ish. i mean something better for that character. if you give your character a flaw because it's better for them as a dynamic part of a story, then cool.

changes come naturally to me! they really really do. but they have to be changes i'm willing to make. i'm not going to make a character male or female unless they're supposed to be.