Post by Lady Hammer on Sept 6, 2007 18:04:09 GMT -5
My (Un)Fair Character
Today, out of nowhere, a sweet middle-aged lady goes completely out of character in a bookstore and pulls a nail-file on the man in front of her, cutting him across his bicep. How random the human mind is, isn’t it? Pushing us to do things, sometimes without a reason at all! Human personality just can’t be explained, even though we can categorize it and define certain terms of it. But no matter how hard we try, we can never rationalize half the things people do. No matter how hard we try, our theories will still be theories.
However, this is where the writer comes out on top.
As a writer, we have an upper hand on society, because we see into the mind of a person and we experiment with it and give a person reasons and a background causing him or her to act accordingly. Amelia Birkham works at a tiny coffee shop in a big city, and as happy as she looks on the outside when handing lattes to tired receptionists and agents, when she gets to her boyfriend’s apartment, it all comes crashing down from there. Amelia hates her boyfriend but can never tell him so, hates her family but can never tell them so, cries in her sleep when it comes to her, and is gaining weight. Those are the little things that we know about poor Amelia. Her boyfriend Scott adores her and buys her flowers every week, holds her when she’s sad, and lets her have the last word.
We as writers don’t diagnose a problem. We get into a character’s head and work in the events that caused poor Amelia’s trouble, and depending on our plot and our own evil plans, we make it worse.
Why is Amelia troubled? She used to be bulimic and her family never believed her, and accused her of just wanting attention. She’s too ashamed to tell Scott because he once told her that he thinks eating disorders are ridiculous. She cheated on him once when they were two months into dating with his cousin…
We could take this a step further and say that… Scott’s cousin never told him about this because Amelia poisoned him and made it look like an accident! Out of her horrid shame for what she did, a psychotic streak brewed and steeped until she became a murderer and was thrown into depression, bottling it up inside. There! Now we have reason as to why things happen to these people. Let’s say that Scott likes to write poetry. Maybe he likes to play guitar, or instead maybe he has an affinity for classical music and plays the violin. We can assume that he’s a softy, because as FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, the people in the worlds we create cannot be as complex as the people in the real world. They can’t just randomly do things without reason. Amelia can’t kill Scott’s cousin just… because. But Amelia also can’t look at Scott with contempt just because, either. Nor can Scott just up and have his opinions without reason.
People are shaped by their experiences early in life, but real people are not restricted. Just because that is so doesn’t mean that you can just neglect to give your characters restriction, too. Once a character acts out-of-character, the reader is confused and you as an author lose credibility. People cannot understand people, which is why personality and all of its aspects will always be mere theories. Round, dynamic characters are still somewhat stereotypical, or at least have to be for readers to be able to grasp on to them. Remember. People do not understand people. But readers want to understand the characters, and by making them so complex and “realistic”, it makes it impossible for even the writer to understand them.
As an author, we have to restrict our characters, yet still feign their freedom. Our characters have to appear like they are free to act just as realistically as real people do, but we have to make sure that we keep them in line. If they’re going to act irrationally, there had better be a rational explanation for it! Making characters do random things does not make a good character or a good story. People read to escape reality, and no one wants to escape reality to be thrown right back into it, constantly guessing why Amelia does the things she does, just like that reader may be wondering why their mate is doing peculiar things. The main difference is that Amelia is fictional and will always have reasons behind what she does, and when these reasons are revealed to our reader, it all makes sense, everything clicks into place, and the reader is satisfied.
That is if the reasons are rational, of course!
Today, out of nowhere, a sweet middle-aged lady goes completely out of character in a bookstore and pulls a nail-file on the man in front of her, cutting him across his bicep. How random the human mind is, isn’t it? Pushing us to do things, sometimes without a reason at all! Human personality just can’t be explained, even though we can categorize it and define certain terms of it. But no matter how hard we try, we can never rationalize half the things people do. No matter how hard we try, our theories will still be theories.
However, this is where the writer comes out on top.
As a writer, we have an upper hand on society, because we see into the mind of a person and we experiment with it and give a person reasons and a background causing him or her to act accordingly. Amelia Birkham works at a tiny coffee shop in a big city, and as happy as she looks on the outside when handing lattes to tired receptionists and agents, when she gets to her boyfriend’s apartment, it all comes crashing down from there. Amelia hates her boyfriend but can never tell him so, hates her family but can never tell them so, cries in her sleep when it comes to her, and is gaining weight. Those are the little things that we know about poor Amelia. Her boyfriend Scott adores her and buys her flowers every week, holds her when she’s sad, and lets her have the last word.
We as writers don’t diagnose a problem. We get into a character’s head and work in the events that caused poor Amelia’s trouble, and depending on our plot and our own evil plans, we make it worse.
Why is Amelia troubled? She used to be bulimic and her family never believed her, and accused her of just wanting attention. She’s too ashamed to tell Scott because he once told her that he thinks eating disorders are ridiculous. She cheated on him once when they were two months into dating with his cousin…
We could take this a step further and say that… Scott’s cousin never told him about this because Amelia poisoned him and made it look like an accident! Out of her horrid shame for what she did, a psychotic streak brewed and steeped until she became a murderer and was thrown into depression, bottling it up inside. There! Now we have reason as to why things happen to these people. Let’s say that Scott likes to write poetry. Maybe he likes to play guitar, or instead maybe he has an affinity for classical music and plays the violin. We can assume that he’s a softy, because as FICTIONAL CHARACTERS, the people in the worlds we create cannot be as complex as the people in the real world. They can’t just randomly do things without reason. Amelia can’t kill Scott’s cousin just… because. But Amelia also can’t look at Scott with contempt just because, either. Nor can Scott just up and have his opinions without reason.
People are shaped by their experiences early in life, but real people are not restricted. Just because that is so doesn’t mean that you can just neglect to give your characters restriction, too. Once a character acts out-of-character, the reader is confused and you as an author lose credibility. People cannot understand people, which is why personality and all of its aspects will always be mere theories. Round, dynamic characters are still somewhat stereotypical, or at least have to be for readers to be able to grasp on to them. Remember. People do not understand people. But readers want to understand the characters, and by making them so complex and “realistic”, it makes it impossible for even the writer to understand them.
As an author, we have to restrict our characters, yet still feign their freedom. Our characters have to appear like they are free to act just as realistically as real people do, but we have to make sure that we keep them in line. If they’re going to act irrationally, there had better be a rational explanation for it! Making characters do random things does not make a good character or a good story. People read to escape reality, and no one wants to escape reality to be thrown right back into it, constantly guessing why Amelia does the things she does, just like that reader may be wondering why their mate is doing peculiar things. The main difference is that Amelia is fictional and will always have reasons behind what she does, and when these reasons are revealed to our reader, it all makes sense, everything clicks into place, and the reader is satisfied.
That is if the reasons are rational, of course!
