McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Attachment to characters.
ihatepeas:
I don't think you can really write well about a character you're not attached to. Whether people want to admit it or not, character is what draws us to stories. Reflections of ourselves or what we would like to be. And if you are distant from your characters as you write, your reader will be too. The more removed you are from your character, the easier it is for the reader to put down your book and walk away from it.
I get pretty attached to my characters, but not so much that I can't put them in tough situations or walk away when the book is finished. I do tend to have crushes on my male characters, but hey, they're much more fun to write that way.
--Sarah
Spectacular Sameth:
Yeah, some of my female characters have quirks or appearances or whatever that I find attractive. There are a lot of red heads in my stories.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: ihatepeas on August 20, 2007, 11:00:37 PM ---I don't think you can really write well about a character you're not attached to. Whether people want to admit it or not, character is what draws us to stories. Reflections of ourselves or what we would like to be. And if you are distant from your characters as you write, your reader will be too. The more removed you are from your character, the easier it is for the reader to put down your book and walk away from it.
--- End quote ---
I'm not at all convinced that for a character to be interesting and keep the reader's attention requires emotional attachment, and particularly not the forms of emotional attachment that make them sympathetic or likable.
Do you ever do stories from the POV of the villain ?
--- Quote ---I get pretty attached to my characters, but not so much that I can't put them in tough situations or walk away when the book is finished.
--- End quote ---
I have to care about them and what they want to be able to write about them in the first place, but the logic of the story comes first, and they have to bear with the consequences of what happens around them and what they do.
ihatepeas:
--- Quote from: neurovore on August 21, 2007, 02:25:42 PM ---I'm not at all convinced that for a character to be interesting and keep the reader's attention requires emotional attachment, and particularly not the forms of emotional attachment that make them sympathetic or likable.
--- End quote ---
Assuming we're talking about main characters, I think one has to be somewhat likeable to keep the reader's attention. (Unless you're going the opposite direction and creating an antihero.) And for me, personally, I have to have a main character that I somewhat like, or it's just one more thing that makes the story harder to write. On one occasion, I had to chuck 125 pages because my main character was flat, irritating, and completely boring, and I had written myself into a corner. So I changed the main character, instead focusing on a formerly minor character who was much more dynamic.
And no, I haven't really written from the point of view of the villain. I mostly write murder mysteries, and when I read other murder mysteries, it drives me crazy when the writers tries to get inside the villain's head because most of the time they don't get it right. Murder mystery villains tend not to have a lot of dimension, which is pretty unfortunate. For myself, I would rather not do it than do it badly, especially when it's not vital to the story.
--Sarah
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: ihatepeas on August 23, 2007, 05:56:29 PM ---Assuming we're talking about main characters, I think one has to be somewhat likeable to keep the reader's attention. (Unless you're going the opposite direction and creating an antihero.)
--- End quote ---
To my mind, that just makes it a more interesting challenge. Protagonist of my current primary WiP is going to be a fun sell on that account, because he is a highly trained, highly motivated person, committed to making the world a genuinely better place, and vehemently anti-democratic; he reckons a feudal system just needs people to keep their word in order to work, whereas a democracy needs them to be wise as well, which seems less plausible to him.
--- Quote ---On one occasion, I had to chuck 125 pages because my main character was flat, irritating, and completely boring,
--- End quote ---
But do flat and completely boring have to go along with not likable ?
[quote[
I mostly write murder mysteries, and when I read other murder mysteries, it drives me crazy when the writers tries to get inside the villain's head because most of the time they don't get it right.
[/quote]
In what sort of ways do you feel they get it wrong, then ?
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