Things to make a lit major go "Gnarg"
Feb. 7th, 2007 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdSo, I belong to this writing group. And one of our members mentioned, last meeting, a list of seven things to make a good character. She posted it to the list last night. The list being:
Now the 7 ways to make a character more likable/relatable...
#1 - Very good at what they do
#2 - Funny
#3 - Treats others well
#4 - Others people like the character
#5 - Kind to pets/kids/elderly
#6 - Character has undeserved misfortune
#7 - Has physcial/mental/education handicap or just the underdog
And I just went, "gnargh". All of these traits are for creating false sympathy/empathy for a character. You have to like the person, because how can you not like someone who is funny? Likes animals? Etc. It's creating an automatic response, forcing you to like the person as oppose to getting to know them. And why does your character have to be likable in the first place? Or relateable? And even still, how do these things make you relate to those characters. It just makes me feel like I have to like them. It's very Sueish, to use a term.
I posted up a response to this and she answered back:
Were the Greeks formulaic? Was Shakespeare?
Yes!
The concept of act structure is a formula by its very nature. Saying a story has a beginning, middle, and end is formulaic. Hauge (which he has really just updated Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey) refines our understanding of stories and then distills them down to specific tools to be used as part of our craft.
I think sometimes as writers we confused art and craft. The craft is putting the story and character together, plank by plank. The art is making us forget there was ever a craftsman there. That doesn't mean a carpenter didn't build the foundation though.
Those gorgeous murals lining the walls that every one is cooing over as 'art' wouldn't be there without the dry wall underneath.
I would challenge you to list three (American) movies/characters/novels whose plots/characters you felt were genuine and authentically conflicted. Underneath all of that I would bet you will find the plot/character structure that Michael (and nearly every creative writing teacher) outlines.
The writer's tool box is a well established metaphor and these lists were meant only to act as more tools to put in that box and pull out when needed. We all have areas of our story/character that we are not happy with. We can then pull out these lists and review our work and see if any would apply and help us relate better to our reader.
To illustrate...
Just because someone is kind to animals doesn't mean they don't have serious issues with their mother or don't struggle with heroin addiction. But what their liking of animals does do is create a sympathy for the character to help us cheer for them during their struggles.
Is that artificial? Of course it is. As is all fiction writing.
People, we are making stuff up!
Unless you are writing non-fiction or a factual biography, we are creating an artificial world with artificial people. In order to make them believable and relatable we have to imbue them with real people characteristics. Hence the list that has the most effective/universal ones. How you use those traits in your particular character is up to you and for you to make them feel genuine.
Can these tools be used to create cardboard/cookie-cutter characters and plots? Of course they can. Just as an ice pick can be used to horribly mar a smooth block of ice. Can they be used to create something universal and touching? Of course they can. Just as an ice pick in the hands of an artisan can create a beautiful ice sculpture.
All the posting was meant to do was give you a couple new ice picks. Its up to you to use them for good or evil.
Now, she does make some points, but over all, I don't agree with her. Things like Universal and touching irk me. And those things that she mentions don't make a character feel genuine. Her approach to writing seems to be very formulaic. In fact it is as she's currently writing a horror/romance and using Anita Blake as an example of what to do as it sells. Personally, I would favor originality over formulaic.
Edit, my reply to her
\
Forgive me, but the literature major in me just went, "Nargh" and wanted its say.
Were the Greeks formulaic? Was Shakespeare?
Yes!
The concept of act structure is a formula by its very nature. Saying a story has a beginning, middle, and end is formulaic. Hauge (which he has really just updated Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey) refines our understanding of stories and then distills them down to specific tools to be used as part of our craft.
First off, I think that there's a difference between formulaic and structure. Structure is the bones of something that you build off of. Formula is a sort of cheat sheet recipe that you use to create something that'll be just like everything else. There are certain tropes and characteristics that are found within a genre but if they were all formulaic, then in for example, fantasy literature, every story would be a clone of the Lord of the Rings, or something like that. You need structure to hang your story on. But you don't need formula to create it.
The writer's tool box is a well established metaphor and these lists were meant only to act as more tools to put in that box and pull out when needed. We all have areas of our story/character that we are not happy with. We can then pull out these lists and review our work and see if any would apply and help us relate better to our reader.
While the first list I don't find fault with, it is the second list that I have problems with. It seems like a list of things that you can arbitrarily stick onto a character to make us like them. Why should we force the reader to like someone? We should be able to craft a character that may be worth paying attention to and hold our interest. If the character is compelling enough then I won't care if he kicks puppies or hates children or isn't good at what he does. It should be more of an internal thing than an external, "hey look at this" sort of thing.
To illustrate...
Just because someone is kind to animals doesn't mean they don't have serious issues with their mother or don't struggle with heroin addiction. But what their liking of animals does do is create a sympathy for the character to help us cheer for them during their struggles.
Again, these sort of things don't make a character compelling. They have to be believable. We don't need to sympathize with the character; we just need to believe them. I have a main character, Lorac, who is good at what he does, but not very good. He's not all that funny, in fact he's sort of serious, he's a bit of a snot and not very well liked because he's a bit of a snot. Isn't particularly kind to pets/kids/elderly, hasn't had an undeserved misfortune, in fact he's rather well off and he's not the underdog or has any sort of handicap. But he's an interesting and compelling and believable character, because he has an internal conflict going on dealing with his duty to his class and his love for another character and the fact that he's not certain as to what's going on with his life and what he wants to do with it. He's struggling to be his own person and not what his parents want him to be. Which, is far more interesting, I think, and entirely relatable.
Is that artificial? Of course it is. As is all fiction writing.
People, we are making stuff up!
Unless you are writing non-fiction or a factual biography, we are creating an artificial world with artificial people. In order to make them believable and relatable we have to imbue them with real people characteristics. Hence the list that has the most effective/universal ones. How you use those traits in your particular character is up to you and for you to make them feel genuine.
Personally, I don't think it's artificial creating characters. They may not be real but they're not artificial. They have their own motives and wants and desires and sometimes they're just down right rotten like real people. If they were all happy, happy or something like that, then they would be artificial.
This list seems doesn't seem to be very helpful in creating a good character, just a likeable one. Where do villains fall into this list? They certainly should be believable and good characters too, if not necessarily "good" as in the good and evil axis. If they don't have any of the things on this list are they bad characters? Personally, as I said before, I'd rather create a believable and compelling character than a likeable one.
Now the 7 ways to make a character more likable/relatable...
#1 - Very good at what they do
#2 - Funny
#3 - Treats others well
#4 - Others people like the character
#5 - Kind to pets/kids/elderly
#6 - Character has undeserved misfortune
#7 - Has physcial/mental/education handicap or just the underdog
And I just went, "gnargh". All of these traits are for creating false sympathy/empathy for a character. You have to like the person, because how can you not like someone who is funny? Likes animals? Etc. It's creating an automatic response, forcing you to like the person as oppose to getting to know them. And why does your character have to be likable in the first place? Or relateable? And even still, how do these things make you relate to those characters. It just makes me feel like I have to like them. It's very Sueish, to use a term.
I posted up a response to this and she answered back:
Were the Greeks formulaic? Was Shakespeare?
Yes!
The concept of act structure is a formula by its very nature. Saying a story has a beginning, middle, and end is formulaic. Hauge (which he has really just updated Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey) refines our understanding of stories and then distills them down to specific tools to be used as part of our craft.
I think sometimes as writers we confused art and craft. The craft is putting the story and character together, plank by plank. The art is making us forget there was ever a craftsman there. That doesn't mean a carpenter didn't build the foundation though.
Those gorgeous murals lining the walls that every one is cooing over as 'art' wouldn't be there without the dry wall underneath.
I would challenge you to list three (American) movies/characters/novels whose plots/characters you felt were genuine and authentically conflicted. Underneath all of that I would bet you will find the plot/character structure that Michael (and nearly every creative writing teacher) outlines.
The writer's tool box is a well established metaphor and these lists were meant only to act as more tools to put in that box and pull out when needed. We all have areas of our story/character that we are not happy with. We can then pull out these lists and review our work and see if any would apply and help us relate better to our reader.
To illustrate...
Just because someone is kind to animals doesn't mean they don't have serious issues with their mother or don't struggle with heroin addiction. But what their liking of animals does do is create a sympathy for the character to help us cheer for them during their struggles.
Is that artificial? Of course it is. As is all fiction writing.
People, we are making stuff up!
Unless you are writing non-fiction or a factual biography, we are creating an artificial world with artificial people. In order to make them believable and relatable we have to imbue them with real people characteristics. Hence the list that has the most effective/universal ones. How you use those traits in your particular character is up to you and for you to make them feel genuine.
Can these tools be used to create cardboard/cookie-cutter characters and plots? Of course they can. Just as an ice pick can be used to horribly mar a smooth block of ice. Can they be used to create something universal and touching? Of course they can. Just as an ice pick in the hands of an artisan can create a beautiful ice sculpture.
All the posting was meant to do was give you a couple new ice picks. Its up to you to use them for good or evil.
Now, she does make some points, but over all, I don't agree with her. Things like Universal and touching irk me. And those things that she mentions don't make a character feel genuine. Her approach to writing seems to be very formulaic. In fact it is as she's currently writing a horror/romance and using Anita Blake as an example of what to do as it sells. Personally, I would favor originality over formulaic.
Edit, my reply to her
\
Forgive me, but the literature major in me just went, "Nargh" and wanted its say.
Were the Greeks formulaic? Was Shakespeare?
Yes!
The concept of act structure is a formula by its very nature. Saying a story has a beginning, middle, and end is formulaic. Hauge (which he has really just updated Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey) refines our understanding of stories and then distills them down to specific tools to be used as part of our craft.
First off, I think that there's a difference between formulaic and structure. Structure is the bones of something that you build off of. Formula is a sort of cheat sheet recipe that you use to create something that'll be just like everything else. There are certain tropes and characteristics that are found within a genre but if they were all formulaic, then in for example, fantasy literature, every story would be a clone of the Lord of the Rings, or something like that. You need structure to hang your story on. But you don't need formula to create it.
The writer's tool box is a well established metaphor and these lists were meant only to act as more tools to put in that box and pull out when needed. We all have areas of our story/character that we are not happy with. We can then pull out these lists and review our work and see if any would apply and help us relate better to our reader.
While the first list I don't find fault with, it is the second list that I have problems with. It seems like a list of things that you can arbitrarily stick onto a character to make us like them. Why should we force the reader to like someone? We should be able to craft a character that may be worth paying attention to and hold our interest. If the character is compelling enough then I won't care if he kicks puppies or hates children or isn't good at what he does. It should be more of an internal thing than an external, "hey look at this" sort of thing.
To illustrate...
Just because someone is kind to animals doesn't mean they don't have serious issues with their mother or don't struggle with heroin addiction. But what their liking of animals does do is create a sympathy for the character to help us cheer for them during their struggles.
Again, these sort of things don't make a character compelling. They have to be believable. We don't need to sympathize with the character; we just need to believe them. I have a main character, Lorac, who is good at what he does, but not very good. He's not all that funny, in fact he's sort of serious, he's a bit of a snot and not very well liked because he's a bit of a snot. Isn't particularly kind to pets/kids/elderly, hasn't had an undeserved misfortune, in fact he's rather well off and he's not the underdog or has any sort of handicap. But he's an interesting and compelling and believable character, because he has an internal conflict going on dealing with his duty to his class and his love for another character and the fact that he's not certain as to what's going on with his life and what he wants to do with it. He's struggling to be his own person and not what his parents want him to be. Which, is far more interesting, I think, and entirely relatable.
Is that artificial? Of course it is. As is all fiction writing.
People, we are making stuff up!
Unless you are writing non-fiction or a factual biography, we are creating an artificial world with artificial people. In order to make them believable and relatable we have to imbue them with real people characteristics. Hence the list that has the most effective/universal ones. How you use those traits in your particular character is up to you and for you to make them feel genuine.
Personally, I don't think it's artificial creating characters. They may not be real but they're not artificial. They have their own motives and wants and desires and sometimes they're just down right rotten like real people. If they were all happy, happy or something like that, then they would be artificial.
This list seems doesn't seem to be very helpful in creating a good character, just a likeable one. Where do villains fall into this list? They certainly should be believable and good characters too, if not necessarily "good" as in the good and evil axis. If they don't have any of the things on this list are they bad characters? Personally, as I said before, I'd rather create a believable and compelling character than a likeable one.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 09:13 pm (UTC)I don't contribute to Laurell K. Hamilton's royalties anymore - I just go to a bookstore, take the book, and read it while sitting somewhere comfortable.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 09:19 pm (UTC)And would it be okay if I hit you over the head with a clue by oar instead of shooting you? :D
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 09:27 pm (UTC)My other writing is kinda stalled at the moment due to mental block, but I'll probably put more of my NaNoWriMo 2005 piece up in my journal soon, if you're at all curious.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 09:32 pm (UTC)Sure, that'd be cool. I occasionally put up bits of my current novel on here.