The Author is NOT the Character.

[Persephone]

As much as we might not want it to happen, but if you write... Especially if you write something provocative... You will have people making the assumption that you agree with them, or secretly mirror their habits. People inevitably blame the author when they feel something goes too far in a book. Just look at the amount of fan distress and outrage when 'Changes' came out. (This is also why I -don't- let my certain family members read my more intense fiction.)

An author I love wrote a little bit about the subject, and I thought I'd share it here.
This is author Seanan Mcguire who's written "Rosemary & Rue" "A Local Habitation" and "An Artificial Night" among others.
http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/280642.html?view=9457986#t9457986

[arianne]

Ha. I was actually thinking about this the other day. Isn't it strange that authors (of fantasy fiction, for example), get asked if their religion or "take on life" or whatever is the same as their characters, but no one bothers to ask, "So, do you change into a wolf when the moon is full?"

It's fiction, people. Sometimes the characters are thinly veiled versions of the author, or the author's friend, but most of the time characters are just characters, and they believe what they believe because of their circumstances, upbringing or whatever. 

[jeno]

Mm, I'm going to have to disagree with this a bit. True, a fictional work or character should never be regarded as a direct representation of the author (unless it was deliberately written that way). It is all fictional, after all.

But general themes? Those are trickier. I have seen a lot of works that showcase the beliefs of the author in some way. Even if there are differing perspectives in the novel. Even if the author didn't consciously know it was there. In most cases it is very, very, very subtle - you wouldn't even see it, except if maybe the author has written a lot and certain themes (and, more importantly I think, the author's approaches to those themes) keep popping up in the stories. In some authors, the trend is more obvious. The Sword of Truth series comes to mind. 

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

But general themes? Those are trickier. I have seen a lot of works that showcase the beliefs of the author in some way. Even if there are differing perspectives in the novel. Even if the author didn't consciously know it was there. In most cases it is very, very, very subtle - you wouldn't even see it, except if maybe the author has written a lot and certain themes (and, more importantly I think, the author's approaches to those themes) keep popping up in the stories. In some authors, the trend is more obvious. The Sword of Truth series comes to mind. 

Yes and no; I think it's a measure of an authors' talent to be able to present a broad range of beliefs in such a way that it's not possible to see which if any is theirs, and some do manage it.

[Landing]

Yes and no; I think it's a measure of an authors' talent to be able to present a broad range of beliefs in such a way that it's not possible to see which if any is theirs, and some do manage it.

I don't think I can agree with you, from all my experience if a author has written enough you are able to tell certain things about their beliefs. Granted some you will be able to tell less about then others, but if the reader is skilled enough they will be able to learn things about how the author thinks.

[Persephone]

I don't think I can agree with you, from all my experience if a author has written enough you are able to tell certain things about their beliefs. Granted some you will be able to tell less about then others, but if the reader is skilled enough they will be able to learn things about how the author thinks.

Because you know... It's not like Jim Butcher likes Burger King or Coke.   
What I got out of the article is that the problem lies not in people judging an author for conveyed opinions, but in people judging the author for a characters direct actions.
"Changes" is a good example of this, because Harry starts to morph from a hero into more of an antihero, and some people were deeply uncomfortable with that as being an expression of an authors belief that 'the ends justify the means'. It's not that simple, and it's likely not the direct opinion of the author, rather its a tool to move a character through the crucible to force them into further development.

Is it in fact some subtle intimation that no good thing can triumph over evil unstained? Maybe, but I doubt it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[OZ]

Well said Persephone. I had a rather long response typed up last night and my internet connection died just as I was about to post it. You said it much more eloquently than I would have. It is foolish in most cases to confuse a character and their personality with the author's. On the other hand sometime themes are repeated throughout an author's works that make seem very likely that this is something important to the author. ( Note that I said likely not absolutely ) Of course there are some repeated themes that just leave me puzzled. Why did Jack Chalker put a man into a woman's body at least once in every one of his series that I read? I have no idea.

[Landing]

Because you know... It's not like Jim Butcher likes Burger King or Coke.   
What I got out of the article is that the problem lies not in people judging an author for conveyed opinions, but in people judging the author for a characters direct actions.
"Changes" is a good example of this, because Harry starts to morph from a hero into more of an antihero, and some people were deeply uncomfortable with that as being an expression of an authors belief that 'the ends justify the means'. It's not that simple, and it's likely not the direct opinion of the author, rather its a tool to move a character through the crucible to force them into further development.

Is it in fact some subtle intimation that no good thing can triumph over evil unstained? Maybe, but I doubt it. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not. 

As for people judging the author for the beliefs and views of the characters, no that's just foolish, obviously a author and the character aren't the same. But with enough books (20 or 30 and not all in the same series) a reader can start to notice themes in the writing and characteristics that directly reflect on the author. For instance in a great deal of Roger Zelazny books his characters are smokers, this is a direct reflection on the fact that he himself was a heavy smoker. It is also interesting that his characters stopped smoking at the same time he himself quite. Now I'm not saying that if you give me 30 books by some random author I will be able to tell you his/her political views, views on religion and if they like boxers or briefs, but I will be able to find some things out about the author (especially if one of those books is a autobiography.  )

[Thrythlind]

I was remarking the same thing to myself the other day that I am so very, very much unlike Lucretia (main character of Bystander)

Lucretia: attractive, polyglot, clothes horse, likes dressing up, binge alcoholic (on verge of deciding to try to kick it), hostile non-believer, overtly sexual, promiscuous, vulgar speech patterns, grew up homeless, manipulative and good at understanding/reading people

Me: fat white guy, foreign languages defeat all attempts to learn them, just throws on clothes, teatotaller, fervent Catholic with traces of other belief systems' influences (especially Asian), terminally shy, getting close to a particular movie title, rarely if ever curses, grew up fairly well-off, bad at dealing with people in general

What we have the Same: Love reading, hate being touched, like solitude/fear company, confidence problems (mostly past for me), trust issues, no sense of home

[Persephone]

I was remarking the same thing to myself the other day that I am so very, very much unlike Lucretia (main character of Bystander)

You know, I enjoy writing characters that are really not very much like me. But the funny thing is occasionally they're so different from me that it really takes ME a while to get around to understanding them.
Nothing I've written is published, but in my latest fiction, I had a great story, and a great character, but the two didn't fit quite right, I didn't understand her. I had to muddle through a lot of brainstorming and back story creation before I finally had that moment of "Aha! That's who you are! I GET it!"
The down side being that now that I have made her REAL I'm stuck with yet another character voice in my head. 

Landing... It's a little bit of both. I agree that you can find nuances of a writer in their work. I personally love it when I read a character like Harry who is so very detailed and REAL, and then I get to know that the author shares some of the same interests/quirks.
But I think in the field of writing, especially in creating fiction, its very important that the reader not let their emotions get carried away. Would Jim write about his character killing someone as a point of action and intensity in the story? Yes. Would Jim himself use violence, or condone that sort of violence just because he writes about it? Hardly.

But, after all, I might be biased because I'm a pretty brutal writer. In the epic series I have outlined with a co-writer, we kill off a LOT of the important characters. And we do so quite heartlessly. Because the characters no matter how beloved, needed to DIE to further the story. They're martyrs to the cause. I promise. 
*She says in her calmest 'I promise I'm not crazy' voice*

[LizW65]

I tend to think writing is a lot like method acting; while we don't necessarily get into the same situations as our characters (if we did, we'd have no time to write!) we are quite capable of understanding their motivations and emotional responses. 

For instance, both my continuing protagonists are heavy smokers--appropriate to the time period and genre they inhabit.  I don't smoke, but when I'm tearing the house apart looking for the piece of Hershey bar I squirrelled away weeks ago, I can understand the kind of craving that motivates somebody to spend his last $$ on a pack of smokes when he can barely afford to eat.  Likewise, I'm unlikely ever to slam a nark headfirst into a brick wall, or hold a cross-dressing mobster at gunpoint--both actions would probably get me killed on the spot--but I can certainly comprehend the level of rage and frustration that would prompt such actions.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can all get into our characters' heads and understand what it's like to live there without having to share their beliefs and/or life experience.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I don't think I can agree with you, from all my experience if a author has written enough you are able to tell certain things about their beliefs.

If you can tell, from a sampling of Robert Heinlein's pre-senile-period works, when he was talking about his actual political views and when he was doing thought experiments, I would be surprised.  There are a lot of contradictions in there.

[Thrythlind]

I don't think I can agree with you, from all my experience if a author has written enough you are able to tell certain things about their beliefs. Granted some you will be able to tell less about then others, but if the reader is skilled enough they will be able to learn things about how the author thinks.

Okay, you will see me wax philosophic and start to delve into deep and meaningful stuff here and there all over my blog in places.  I might even start delving into what I consider to be the big philosophical meanings and metaphors of my various works. Said discussions might get fairly complex, deep and insightful.


Most of them are things I come up with after the fact of writing the story and are more ways for me to analyze myself than to analyze my work.


I am a huge fan of JRR Tolkien and in particular, I am a firm believer in his concept of applicability.  I had come to pretty much the same conclusion before I'd ever heard the term before.


Basically, to me, meaning does not belong to the writer but the reader, and thus might be the thing that most makes me dislike George Lucas's recent ret-cons of his most famous works.


George Lucas commented that a work is always unfinished and there is always more to add to it, more to change and to make it perfect.  He is correct in that, but he then went on to disregard the people that knew the story as being unimportant since he was the creator and it was only his vision that mattered.


Let's be clear on this.


Once you write something and let it out into the public, it will take on a life of its own and it is no longer yours.  You will own the commercial rights, probably, but the story itself now belongs to anybody who reads it.  Once you have published it, you should do everything you can to avoid changing what you have already put out save for clear errors in grammar and printing.


It is sheer arrogance to tell someone that their interpretation of your story is wrong.


You don't know what their life is like, and you can't know what images will provoke what responses in a particular individual.  You can make a reasonable guess based on the fact that most people in a particular culture will respond the same way to the same symbols, but there are always outliers.


And those meanings change in a particular person.


Ranma 1/2 and the various things inflicted on Ranma by his father as training were hilarious to me when I was a teenager.


Then I became a teacher.


Even before that, you can see a fair amount of my developing dislike of Genma Saotome in pretty much any of my stories, but especially in Genma's Journal and Lost Innocence.  Just upon becoming a teacher who taught a large variety of ages and was turning somewhat protective of my students, the concept of someone doing that to any kid, much less their own, drives me bananas.


I try not to think about it too much so that I can still enjoy the comedy.


In the end, to me, the best way to get the heart of who and what you are into a story is to write a story that you would enjoy reading, that you would buy for pleasure.  All the work you do to define the characters and make the story into something fun and enjoyable will call on the essence of who and what you are.


Your personality and true beliefs will move into the story whether you want it or not.


And to me, a story is much more effective when it encourages the reader to fill in some of the blanks themselves and, even better, to make their own stories.

Sorry, just found it easier to go to the article I already wrote on this subject.

[Thrythlind]

Incidentally, I've never seen Harry Dresden as an Anti-hero...the closest he got was in White Night and even that was only really edging on anti-hero in the matter with the ghoul torturing

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Incidentally, I've never seen Harry Dresden as an Anti-hero...the closest he got was in White Night and even that was only really edging on anti-hero in the matter with the ghoul torturing

That puts him way further over the edge, but I think I've argued why I see him as anti-hero at length elsewhere so the summary of the summary is; he's willing to start a war that will cost many innocent lives to save Susan. That makes him Not Good in my book.