McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Overused Types of Characters
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Nickeris86 on August 03, 2011, 05:12:55 PM ---However characters that rely on their logic over their emotional responses come across cold and are harder to relate to as a person.
--- End quote ---
You may find them harder to relate to. I don't.
--- Quote --- However if that was all there was to her character she would be very boring after a while, its the times when that logical mask cracks and the warm sticky emotions come flooding out do we really get to see what kind of person she is.
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The underlying problem I have with many versions of this trope is that they assume that everyone has the same set of underlying warm sticky emotions. Which just does not work for me as a statement about human nature. I suspect that pretty much all of us have at some time or other met people who had strong and real emotional reactions that appeared totally alien to us.
--- Quote ---even Spock would let his emotions show from time to time especially when his comrades were in danger.
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The instances of that I have seen, and i admit to not being a completist where Trek is concerned, struck me as making the character less interesting, not more. Because an alien who is "just like us" on the inside is not really a very impressive alien. Members of an alien species with an alien culture and environment should really not seem more easily comprehensible to me than my father or my sister.
(I would, incidentally, strongly recommend John M. Fords' Klingon-POV novel The Final Reflection for really alien-feeling Klingons; TNG and subsequent took "canon" in a quite different direction, alas.)
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: 1eyedjack on August 04, 2011, 05:40:07 AM ---What you're saying is the equivalent of: If you find writing science-fiction hard, you should write science fiction. Look, Dr. Manhattan is a great character but not every story needs a Dr. Manhattan and Watchmen is good because of the abundance of characters with a list of flaws and strengths a mile long. Good writing is good writing. I don't like Harry Potter but from what little I've read I realize she has her own unique style that is entertaining even if I don't care for the subject matter.
I know what you mean when you talk about not taking easy answers but to each his own. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean that it is intrinsically better.
--- End quote ---
Intrinsically better for a reader, no, of course not.
Intrinsically better for a writer... I do actually believe so. I think that if you're serious about writing as well as you can, you keep trying new challenges and not settling for easy options. In the same way that one can't really train up to being an Olympic runner by setting the target of one's training at outrunning half a dozen random passers-by.
Bearracuda:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 04, 2011, 02:44:18 PM ---I think that if you're serious about writing as well as you can, you keep trying new challenges and not settling for easy options. In the same way that one can't really train up to being an Olympic runner by setting the target of one's training at outrunning half a dozen random passers-by.
--- End quote ---
Perhaps not, but by getting published you're already zipping past those 6 guys. If you're constantly striving for new goals then you're also constantly taking risks. If you push yourself too hard training for the Olympics, you pull a muscle and you're out of the running. If we pull a muscle as writers, we usually don't get to see it until somebody else reads our work, and points out to us how badly we messed that up. By then, it's usually pretty hard to go back and fix; particularly so if it's a pivotal aspect of our story.
Also, you have to remember target audience. If you go overboard on emphasizing a certain intellectual aspect of your writing, you're gonna be limiting yourself to the 0.2% of readers who will notice and appreciate that. The others will get bored or find your writing tedious. That's just fine, but it's a good fact to keep in mind, particularly as a fledgeling fiction writer.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Bearracuda on August 04, 2011, 05:29:20 PM ---Also, you have to remember target audience. If you go overboard on emphasizing a certain intellectual aspect of your writing, you're gonna be limiting yourself to the 0.2% of readers who will notice and appreciate that. The others will get bored or find your writing tedious. That's just fine, but it's a good fact to keep in mind, particularly as a fledgeling fiction writer.
--- End quote ---
It's not possible to write a bestseller by setting out to write a by-the-numbers bestseller. That much is solid.
You stand much more chance of taking off if you write the stories that work for you than defining the stories you tell solely by what's marketable.
comprex:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on August 04, 2011, 06:48:37 PM ---It's not possible to write a bestseller by setting out to write a by-the-numbers bestseller. That much is solid.
You stand much more chance of taking off if you write the stories that work for you than defining the stories you tell solely by what's marketable.
--- End quote ---
Some time ago we were talking of Jack Chalker's work and you used the term YKIOK. At the time I understood you to mean 'kink' in the sense of story twist.
Did you instead mean 'kink' as in perceptual kink, the kink in our, the readers', personal context as the artist proceeds to expand said context? The same kink Proust tries to explain when he talks of Renoir?
Tangential to topic at hand, sorry, but I'm trying to expand on 'what works for you'.
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