Character, and Character-Writer Relations

[sartorias]

In the past couple of days, Justine Larbalestier has posted some nifty stuff, including this one on character building, which caused another writer to add a riff on what works and what doesn't for her in character building seminars and panels. She said she's squicked by techniques like interviewing characters, or pretending characters are in the

Comments

[voidmonster]

Yeah. Middle camp here, too.

I cannot think of my characters as real, living people. Otherwise I'd never be able to do the stuff I do to them.

On the other hand, I have to invest them with as much humanity and truth as I can muster or I can't get enough enthusiasm to write them in the first place.

[sartorias]

That's a good way to put it.

Odd...

[zornhau]

I always thought those techniques were rather cumbersome, rather than squicky, because they departed from plot and conflict; all is story.

My - unpublished - characters comprise a set of story questions built from internal and external conflict. Once I have that, I could write an interview with them, but I'm as well actually writing the scenes themselves.

Re: Odd...

[sartorias]

I think some like the interview thing as a playful way to warm up.

I can interview my characters

[marycatelli]

Briefly.

It starts with a question, they start peppering me with questions about this "interviewing" stuff, and then they end up edging out the door 'cause they don't like this sort of stuff. It's too weird.

And who says that characters know and can articulate what you need to know about them? There is a warrior in my head -- a dark-haired horseman from the steppes -- of whom I know nothing except what his answer would be about why he raids settlements and merchant trains: "What a womanish question."

Re: I can interview my characters

[marycatelli]

on a tangent -- this inspired me to pontificate on what I do do to develop characters, here.

Re: I can interview my characters

[sartorias]

Whatever works is to the good!

Re: I can interview my characters

[jesterjoker]

More like arguing?

"I don't trust you, Mr Writer, you are mean and do unpleasant things."

I think that probably says things about yours, and my, subconscious. :D

[mildmannered]

That's very odd. In my experience "squick" is used as a very distinct alternative to "gross" - it means something that you, personally, find off-putting, while implying no judgement on others who may find it inoffensive or even ideal. "The opposite of kink" is the common definition I've heard around the nets since the mid-90s when the term was invented, iIrc, on a usenet bdsm forum.

I've always thought its long survival as a word came from the fact that English has no other term for "disgusting" that is specifically subjective and nonjudgemental. I'd be dismayed to find that meaning had decayed...

[a_d_medievalist]

It's used pretty regularly on the fanfic sites I visit, and by the fanfic writers I know, and I've never seen it used in a context other than a personal reaction. I've never seen it applied judgementally, FWIW.

That is, I've seen it in the, 'ew, I don't like to read chan, because it grosses me out' sense, but never in the 'Chan is just gross, and I don't see how anybody could like it' sense. So some of the comms (and admittedly, I don't go to a lot of them, but kind of cruise through when friends point me to their fics) have squick warnings, which are just that: "This fic contains X, which some people find squickworthy."

[pixelfish]

Maybe it's because I tend to write fantasy stories, but the interview thing doesn't work well for me. First of all, there's no context for the interview for the character. Why would they answer all these questions of them asked by a perfect stranger? (This is why the interview process doesn't work for my SF journalist char either--she asks questions but she doesn't answer them

[joycemocha]

Yeah. I find that writing about incidents in my characters' lives is more useful than interviewing them. They don't want to be interviewed, and the political ones are kind of good at lying to play with my head.

They don't like the direct address.

[sartorias]

Yeah...different writers have different processes.