(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

"A writer, either professional or amateur, must realize that she... is not omnipotent. She cannot force her characters to do as she pleases... The writer must have respect for her characters or those created by others that she is using, and have a full working knowledge of each before committing her words to paper."
- Kendra Hunter, "Characterization Rape", 1977

Ha ha ahahahaha aha ha no.

What the lady meant - writing three years after the fanzine publication of the first K/S story - is that one oughtn't to write slash 'cos it's OOC. Fine, whatever, but whence the idea that the writer can't make their characters do whatever they like, and that they already have to have their character sheets rolled up before they start typing?! I tell you, when hopeful writers begin to realise the complete power they have over their stories - that they're not recounting, they're creating - they make a big leap towards their goal of publication.

Comments

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about Ms. Hunter than that quote, but couldn't she also be speaking to a writer working on a novel - once a character is established in the book, suddenly having them veer into something else is jarring to the reader. As a reader, not an author, I find jarring shifts in characterization annoying and off-putting, and they'll make me less interested in reading that author's work again.

I see "full respect for her characters" to mean "once you've established how the characters will react to a situation, you have to let them do it" - even if that screws up the plot you had intended when you started the story.

[druidsfire.livejournal.com]

This is indeed an interesting point. I remember another writer talking about the webcomic he writes, and how one of the major reasons it 'works' for readers is that it's internally consistent. The 'rules' are established, and once done, as long as everything fits in those rules, it's all good.

On the other hand, if a character seemingly careens off in an unexpected direction and the reader is put off by it, then the author didn't explain things sufficiently for the reader to follow whatever changes had to have occurred for the character to do what they did.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm totally cool with a character developing and changing, but if it only happens in the head of the author, I'm not going to know about it.

[seeingred.livejournal.com]

Yup. You can get away with anything, as long as you do the work of convincing the reader you know what you're doing. :)

[druidsfire.livejournal.com]

I agree with the hahahaha aha ha no sentiment. Well, to some extent.

Yes, for my characters, I will do what I please to them, because they're mine, and I'm evil enough to realize my godlike power over them, bwah ha ha ha.

However, when it comes to someone else's characters, I have a whole spiel I could write, but for me, I try to stay true or at least reasonably close to the canon. Otherwise, it's like watching a Hollywood remake of a beloved classic, and the only similarity are the names.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think I second (or is that "third"?) the idea that making characters go OOC simply because one is God in one's own little world is wrong . . . the trick is to make them do what one wants within the bounds of their own natures. I always see it as being like writing haiku. One has 17 syllables in which to say what one wants. The test of one's creativity is how well one's writing functions within those agreed-upon restraints.

OTOH, the author *does* need to make the story go where it needs to, and can use any God/Goddess-like powers necessary to make it happen. It just can't jar the reader out of that precious suspension of disbelief.

And fer cryin' out loud, writing in-character slash is one of the great joys of fandom. Kendra needs to lighten up on that point . . . XD

*off to write some Ten/Jackson slash, if you must know -- no really!*

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Mm. As a writer unpublished and likely to remain so talking to a triumphantly published professional-type writer, I should be much too overawed to disagree on this...

...nah. Actually, I agree up to a point. You can make your characters do whatever you like. I can write reams of stuff in which I push my cardboard figures back and forth across the stage of my toy theatre, and even make it a bit fun, in a mechanical sort of way. I don't think it starts to get good till I start working with the characters and letting them have some control, or at least some choice, as to what they do and say and whom to, but that may be just me being picky. As for characters created by others, again, I think there is a point there, in that if you're going to use a character created by someone else rather than rolling up your own then you might want to know a little about that character...but, as you say, it's the writer's choice.

EDIT: and as one of the comments on my first-and-only Yuletide story just reminded me, if you do as the lady suggests and have a fullish working knowledge of other people's characters before you start, there's a better chance that people who do not know the fandom will recognise, if not the actual characters, the interactions between them that attracted you to the fandom in the first place, and maybe enjoy the story a bit more.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"One day I intend to create a character who has more than two dimensions."

Oh, I *dream* of ever achieving two whole dimensions! =:o}

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

*gets out measuring tape*

*measures Bristow as if for a pine box*

*gets out stopwatch and times him for a minute*

Mr Bristow, I've got some good news...

[seeingred.livejournal.com]

Yah. Consistency, like foreshadowing, is something I attend to during rewrites.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Foreshadowing I get, but how in the world do you save consistency of characterization for a rewrite? I see that as the kind of thing which helps create the story! Example: why would "Kirk is stranded on a planet" be different from "Scotty is stranded on a planet"? (answer: Kirk is more likely to nail a local and thus find help, while Scotty is more likely to technobabble a solution).

If you wanted to reverse that, you would end up with "Engineer in social situation" or "Social climber in engine room," and that might be interesting, but it's different than the above.

[seeingred.livejournal.com]

how in the world do you save consistency of characterization for a rewrite?

Well, if there's a major inconsistency, you just change what happens in the story.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Again, unpublished amateur here as well, but this is the way I try to do it:

The characters have to have at least as much of an illusion of free will as we do. The way to make them do what you want them to for the story is not simply to write them doing it ("suddenly Kierkegaard seized Spengler in his strong manly arms and kissed him passionately on the podium") but to use your control of everything *else* in the story to put them in a situation where they might do that, and then see what they actually do do (the essence of most "hurt/comfort" slash stories).

It is to some extent a negotiation: you're working with the characters, discovering how they would react in a situation that no other writer has put them in before, hopefully. There's an element of control there all the time, but not total control: you don't give them an absolutely free rein in the first drafts, and by the time you get to the final draft control should no longer be necessary because they're doing what they would do in the situation you put them in.

But everyone's way is different. There are writers who would think the idea of negotiating with figments of your own imagination ludicrous. There are others who would love them to stand still long enough to consider the idea.