Author Topic: Overused Types of Characters  (Read 6372 times)

Offline comprex

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2011, 02:37:13 PM »
I am finding it hard to think of an arc that pure; have you any specific examples in mind ?

To my mind Dickens' Pip comes astonishingly close.

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2011, 06:45:43 PM »
To my mind Dickens' Pip comes astonishingly close.

I am not sure I could overcome my antipathy to Dickens enough to reread with that in mind, alas.
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Offline comprex

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2011, 01:36:33 AM »
I confess to being a fan of Michael Shermer's work.   

I confess I consider characters who act according to principles* instead of according to readily justified emotion to be Mary Sues.

*should really read "ab initio principles" but the sentence was getting klunky.

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2011, 03:44:14 AM »
I confess I consider characters who act according to principles* instead of according to readily justified emotion to be Mary Sues.

I don't know.  There seems to me something fundamentally immature about characters whose emotions are overwhelmingly their principal justifications for what they do; we do generally try to teach two-year-olds to share their toys and don't regard their tantrums as a good thing, and I don't find a supposed adult who acts with the unmediated impulses of a two-year-old particularly sympathetic, nor credible except as a very rare case.
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Offline comprex

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2011, 03:57:17 AM »
I don't know.  There seems to me something fundamentally immature about characters whose emotions are overwhelmingly their principal justifications for what they do; we do generally try to teach two-year-olds to share their toys and don't regard their tantrums as a good thing, and I don't find a supposed adult who acts with the unmediated impulses of a two-year-old particularly sympathetic, nor credible except as a very rare case.

I am saying that all those teaching efforts can easily get lumped into Category1:  'environmental acclimatization of emotional, subjective and psychological factors' instead of Category2: 'setting up a sound platform of non-conflicting rational principles to be consciously used by the two-year old as it grows up'.     

I am saying that characters who act on starting principles instead of trained subjective reasons and trained emotional responses are, in fact, overused.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2011, 03:59:01 AM by comprex »

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #20 on: August 03, 2011, 01:30:11 PM »
I am saying that all those teaching efforts can easily get lumped into Category1:  'environmental acclimatization of emotional, subjective and psychological factors' instead of Category2: 'setting up a sound platform of non-conflicting rational principles to be consciously used by the two-year old as it grows up'.     

I am saying that characters who act on starting principles instead of trained subjective reasons and trained emotional responses are, in fact, overused.

I think part of my reaction here is probably coming from a strong preference for the kind of work in which characters are dropped into significantly unfamiliar environments in which their existing emotional acclimatisation &c. is wrong, and in positive modes of reaction to that.
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Offline Bearracuda

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #21 on: August 03, 2011, 02:04:52 PM »
An excellent way to avoid having a character with an overused personality is to avoid thinking of your characters as good or evil at all.  Black and White is easy, that's why the world is painted in shades of grey. 

Example:  You want to tell a story about a baseball player's rise to fame, and you start with his childhood.  Now, thinking in terms of black and white (or good and evil) the default picture to assume would be that this kid wants to grow up and become a famous baseball player.  Now he needs a challenge, and a rival.  The first thing to come to mind would, of course, be some bully who's trying to convince him he sucks at baseball and push him around.  Not a terrible story, but let's try again in a couple shades of grey.

The boy is being taught to play baseball by his dad.  He's not quite sure what he thinks of the idea, after all, those dancing shows were pretty awesome.  But then when he pictures dad cheering for him up there in the stands, he gets this warm, fuzzy feeling in his stomach.  So he decides he'll give it a try.  First pitch he hits the ball out of bounds and a dog comes running up, grabs the ball, and darts off.  This kid has to go chasing the dog down.  He runs through the city park, wading through a stream and knocking over a couple picnic tables in the process.  He comes out in the city and manages to corner it in a back alley.  He wrestles with the dog, who's clearly having the time of its life, and manages to get the ball back.

Now we have a protagonist and antagonist who are already starting to build rich, interesting personalities without needing to be defined as good or evil.  They're far from being black and white.  In fact, just by throwing them in the scene together and getting the two introduced, we've already got them set up to encounter a myriad of realistic circumstances.  Maybe they hear a gunshot or a mugging and get scared.  The dog jumps up and stays by the boy's side, making sure he'll be alright.  Now we've turned an antagonist into a protagonist with the snap of our fingers, and it was easy.  Why?  Because characters that aren't painted black or white are dynamic.  They can switch sides at any time.  Their motivations have no grounding in good or bad.

The dresden files in itself is actually an excellent example of this concept.  Harry's foremost motivations are A: to employ his magic on a daily basis, because it's his passion and his main source of income, and B: to protect people, rather than hurt them.  Marcone's primary motivation is control.  Everything else is really just a means to an end, though Marcone's choice of means are rather unique in themselves.  He earns money so that can create more companies.  He creates more companies so he can exert greater control over a wider range of people.  He "punishes" those who kill his employees so that he can operate his business without fluctuation.  He does so because when he loses control of the situation, possible outcomes arise that he finds distasteful, such as the shooting of Helen's daughter.  Often, Marcone finds himself in a situation where allying himself with Dresden is beneficial to his interests, since Dresden's goals would result in a more controlled environment involving one less adversary.  Marcone is clearly and undoubtedly a bad guy.  His criminal empire hurts people on a daily basis just to turn a dime, but rarely can he be seen as an antagonist to Dresden, which is why he's such a great character for Dresden to encounter.  He's not particularly an antagonist, but he constantly maintains the potential to become one.

Offline Nickeris86

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2011, 05:12:55 PM »
I don't know.  There seems to me something fundamentally immature about characters whose emotions are overwhelmingly their principal justifications for what they do; we do generally try to teach two-year-olds to share their toys and don't regard their tantrums as a good thing, and I don't find a supposed adult who acts with the unmediated impulses of a two-year-old particularly sympathetic, nor credible except as a very rare case.

However characters that rely on their logic over their emotional responses come across cold and are harder to relate to as a person. take the show Bones for example the main character is incredibly logical and relies more on her mind than on emotion, its fun to watch because it creates conflict between her and the rest of the cast who are emotional beings as well as scientific especially her partner. 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.

even Spock would let his emotions show from time to time especially when his comrades were in danger. It wasn't the white hot flames of someone like Kirk or Dresden but more like. . . well i like to call it cold fire. its just as intense of an emotion but not the wild cascade.
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Offline comprex

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #23 on: August 03, 2011, 05:41:44 PM »
However characters that rely on their logic over their emotional responses come across cold and are harder to relate to as a person. take the show Bones for example the main character is incredibly logical and relies more on her mind than on emotion, its fun to watch because it creates conflict between her and the rest of the cast who are emotional beings as well as scientific especially her partner.

The classical example I was going for in my post preceding neuro's is Mr. Darcy.      Darcy is defined by action from perfectly valid starting principles.   

 It comes across as /pride/ in the book, but that is really a misleading name for it.  Truly prideful characters would tend to fall under neuro's bullheadedness category.   

My point was to try to tease out a further category of character that I find objectionable: The (Wo)Man of Resolved Starting Principles.   Spock, Data, Bones fall into this category by default because they do not have trained subjective responses, but the category is much bigger than that.   Darcy is definitely in it.   Genuine crusaders are in it.   And every one of them that isn't in the (Spock/Data/Bones) set with some Asperger's Syndrome expression is a Mary Sue.      A Mary Sue because we like to flatter ourselves that we act out of principle instead of acting from an emotion set that our environment trained us into.

Another way to put this is: All Rebels are really without a clue.   The ones we think had a clue are the ones who are really good at lawyer-type after-the-fact justification and rationalization.   

« Last Edit: August 03, 2011, 05:51:22 PM by comprex »

Offline 1eyedjack

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #24 on: August 04, 2011, 05:40:07 AM »
I'll agree that it's a lot more difficult.

That's precisely why I think people should attempt it. There's precious little point in only taking on easy answers and solved problems.  I admire a writer who can make me sympathise with and understand someone I would not normally like much more than I admire a book that is working for me because it's hitting my emotional comfort-buttons.

I don't see how you're connecting these two ideas.  The effort of making your audience emotionally invested in your character is a trial no matter what you're writing and it is all in how you make it so.  So here's the kicker. 

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.

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #25 on: August 04, 2011, 02:41:02 PM »
However characters that rely on their logic over their emotional responses come across cold and are harder to relate to as a person.

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.

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.

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.)
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Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #26 on: August 04, 2011, 02:44:18 PM »
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.

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.
Mildly OCD. Please do not troll.

"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

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Offline Bearracuda

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #27 on: August 04, 2011, 05:29:20 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.

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.

Offline the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #28 on: August 04, 2011, 06:48:37 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.

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.
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"What do you mean, Lawful Silly isn't a valid alignment?"

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Offline comprex

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Re: Overused Types of Characters
« Reply #29 on: August 04, 2011, 07:03:50 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.

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'. 
« Last Edit: August 04, 2011, 07:08:10 PM by comprex »