The Wood Beyond The World Forum Connected to our Characters...

In the to Axe or not to Axe thread, Gayna made a statement...  Besides my heart belongs to the characters of 'The Quolltellan'.

 

I know that a few of us in the Woods have made similar comments in other threads, such as our characters tell us the story.  But this comment about the heart... do we really bond this deeply with our characters?  

 

The reason I ask is because when we love something this much, we often times can not see their flaws, or the flaws this causes in the storylines.  Do we do them justice by being so close to them?   I like to think so, but I know from my own experiences that I often times do not present them in the light I want to show.  Thank the gods that others have pointed these flaws out to me and made me think deeper on what I want to show.  

 

I also thought about the dozens of characters I have learned to love from other writers over the years.  Published as well as here in the Woods.  And in many discusssions with my friends or strangers, I have learned that we all do not seem to see characters the same way.  So naturally, I am curious how others members feel about their characters and how they present them, as well as the character of others. 

 

So before I go off on one of my long winded replies, I want to give others the chance to express their thoughts on their charcaters, characters from published literature or any characters from the Woods.   Hope I am not opening a can of worms here. 

 

Nick

I've often said my characters are my imaginary friends, and I really mean it.

I don't think that prevents me from seeing their faults, any more than I'm blind to the faults of my real friends (do you want a list of yours, Nick? lol)

We have to see our characters as real people, and care about them, in order to get readers to do the same.  But that's just the first step -- we also have to have the skill to translate our belief and concern into words on the page that just about anyone can follow and absorb. That's where being tough-minded and ruthless comes in -- but it's ourselves, not our characters, we have to be tough with.  We'll always know more about our characters than makes it onto the page, if we're to be effective writers.

Very good topic Nick.

 

I wouldn't say that I call my characters imaginary friends and that is simply because I don't like some of them! Even though they are my characters and I enjoy writing them , not all of them are likable and I think it important to be careful of distorting what you orginally wanted to show because of how much you've discovered about them during your writing or planning etc.

 

Every so often I go back and read the original story outline that I wrote before developing my characters, or even discovering their names, to bring me back to the orginal concept of what I wanted to portray. Even if the story has changed, doing this helps remind me of how I saw the characters in the beginning.

Zuri Amma just hit the nail on the head.

 

The blank page becomes filled up with characters and their milieus.  The reason for their existences is that we authors wish to portray themes, cultures, lifestyles, the human condition.  Characters are born to solve problems and deal with issues that may be relevant and therefore interesting to readers.  We strive mostly to elevate our better angels above our demons.  In the end, in their aggregate, they are us.  The more truth we force onto the page from both our angels and our demons, the more the better part of us will win the minds of readers, and perhaps in doing so lift their hearts and challenge people to be the best they can be.  Or at least, perhaps we might entertain people with our creations and thereby relieve them of their tensions, help them forget the sources of their stress, if only for a little while.

 

At the end of their lives, characters and their worlds fold back into the world ocean, as all beings do when their lives have run their course.  May the ends they reach never be bitter.

How connected we becomed to our characters really does just depend on how much we believe in them. I don't mean that in terms of morality. I mean that in terms of how much we actually believe that they are alive, that they trully existed, they the tale we are telling they were trully involved in and they are just allowing us to tell that tale.

And the more connected WE, the authors, become to our characters, the greater the likelyhood that the reader will share that same attachment. After all, if we don't even believe these characters of ours existed, how can you expect the reader to?

The question then becomes, how do we create characters that are so believable that we start to think they existed?

Well, I always thought a good character was as diverse as a galaxy. You start with the concept, or inspiration. Then you add stuff like backstory, relationships with other characters, motivations - these are your stars, your comets, and planets. If you have a page that is full of these things, then you probably have the good steppingstone for a believable character.

...I rambled again, didn't I?

Rambling is acceptable Matt. 

 

Ok, so far we have heard about our characters, does anyone have any thoughts on the charcters we connected with by our favorite authors, or even not favorite authors.

 

I know your lurking out there Loekie.

 

Nick.

While we're waiting for Loekie, I'll answer your question, Nick.

The first fictional characters I ever became attached to were the March girls in Little Women.  I was about nine when I first read it. I soon had my fashion dolls dressed up in 19th c. costume, taking the roles of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Jo's still my role-model.

Jane Eyre was another character I befriended.

Then there were Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee.

Billy Pilgrim, in Slaughterhouse Five.

The Wart, in The Sword in the Stone

The sort of second-string character Levin, in Anna Karenina.

Sam Vimes, in the Discworld "Watch" books.

While I'm reading I can easily feel attached to a character, but there aren't that many that really remain with me after I've finished a novel.  Somehow I feel more strongly about more characters in Discworld books than anything else I've read lately -- especially the young protagonists of the books that don't fit into any particular sub-series.  The girls-disguised-as-boys soldiers in Monstrous Regiment are my friends too -- in tribute to them I use "jackrumslad" as my yahoo ID -- their sergeant, Jackrum, calls them "my little lads."

 

*EDITED to add (and I don't know how I could have forgotten -- thanks to Matt and Stephen King for reminding me):

The Glass family, in J.D. Salinger's short stories, especially Buddy and Seymour. (But Franny and Zooey, and the matriarch of the family, Bess, as well.)

Well, my characters spring from my own mind, patched together from my emotions and thoughts and experiences.  They are a part of me--an extension of me--in a very real way, flaws and everything.  So inevitably I bond closely with them.  I can't help but get a little misty whenever I kill one of them off or put them through a terrible ordeal.

The first characters in literature that I really became attached to were Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings.  That last stretch in book 6 to Mount Doom was heart-breaking.  Also this brings up the question of whether we feel so connected to characters because they're written very well, or because we resonate personally with them and their struggles.

Andy Wrote...Also this brings up the question of whether we feel so connected to characters because they're written very well, or because we resonate personally with them and their struggles.

 

I struggle with this thought in my own writing.  Have I shown my character through my writing well enough to have other readers connect to them as I have connected to them?   I mean we have grown with them since their conception its like watching one of our children go off.  But have I written/crafted my work well enough for others to feel this way?   I think that is a question only time will answer.

 

As to the works of others, I think that is the answer.  The writing is so well crafted that we readers connect to characters.  We can see something in them that we like, or dislike and can connect.  I think I have connected with more side kicks than characters.   

 

I was reading an article interview with Tom Clancy the other day and he is under no illusion that he is a literary writer.   He fully expects his work to be forgotten in a hundred years or more and since he won't be around, he does not worry about if his work is remembered or not.  He writes for entertainment purposes, the commercial plot type of writer.  After reading the article, I had to admit, he is right.  I really do not remember his characters all that much.  I know their names, the storylines, but I really do not remember them deeply. 

 

Yet I look back at the Stephen Donaldson books, The Cronicles of Thomas Convenant, the Unbliever, and I remember not only the main protagonist, but most of the secondary characters as well.   I remember being upset at points with the main POV, because he was acting like an a*****e, or getting upset when a secondary character bites the big one.   Donaldson has so many memorable characters that he brings the story to life...in my humble opinion.   But...his writing is also extremely dry in places and I had to force myself in some of the books to continue on, glad I did.    I think I have reread this series at least once a year since they came out, I find them that well crafted.

 

So Andys thought about how well our or other writers characters are crafted hits home very well for me.  And we all know, its the characters that make up a good write and not the plot.

 

Nick.

Still waiting Loekie and Bill too. 

 

 

A strange shooshing sound comes from the shadows of the Wood. With a flourish, I snap my cape away from my face.

Since Nick thinks I was lurking, I had to make an entrance. :-) And I wasn't lurking. Work has been insane the past little while. I'm losing track how many hats I am now wearing. And sheesh, I'm gone for a few days and threads have been popping up.

Anyway, connecting to our characters. When I start to work on something, I see it more like a virtual version of the SIMs, in my head. Sort of a Loekie world (be afraid, be very afraid).

The characters that come to live start as little clay figurines. They are like little children, stumbling about, trying to find their way. When I let them do their own things, I believe they become my best characters. When I try to manipulate them too much, they become disasters.

All too often, I have no idea of the journeys they will be taking. Yes, I have my plot but it is not written in stone. I have had to do some massive rewriting because of something a character did that I did not expect. Echoing my adventures in AD&D.

A good example is the first part of A House Fractured. The character Li appears for just two chapters. But she was hiding something and wouldn't tell me. As I started the rewrite for that section of the book, she finally revealed to me what she was hiding.

Because of that, the original two chapters has exploded into seven and three more are on the way. Yet exploring Li allowed me to address some of the comments on the first part of the book, be it the politics of the land, or some of the religions. It isn't going to change the final part of the section.

At the same time, what has happened is now reverberating through the rest of the series. It is adding a richness I did not expect. And poignancy.

I connect to all of my characters, good or bad. When a character dies, I am saddened by it, sometimes in tears. Yet I hope if it invokes that kind of emotion in me, it will invoke the same emotion in the reader.

I mentioned this in an other thread. I still get tears in my eyes when I reread The Sacrifice. And one day, once it has been edited, I hope to garner the same reaction from readers.

I do not see the characters as direct extensions of me. I often use people around me to build initial character traits. Or me. After that, they are free agents in my world. Which frustrates me, confuses me and at times angers me but I am writing their story, not mine.

So, yeah, I connect with my characters. As the readers should.

With a flip of his cape, Loekie melds with the shadows to lurk once again.

Loekie, good entrance and worth the wait.   Now, where is Bill, our resident buddist?  

 

Nick.

I'm fourth from the top of this page, dear Nick.

While waiting on Bill, I will add a few of my own thoughts about my own work.

 

Like Loekie, my current project grew out of role playing adventures.   At first I wrote a page here, a page there, a chapter here and chapter there.  I think it took me about 10 years to write 20 chapters.   The characters I did not really care about, and they were disposable if need be at the time.  

 

But once I got serious and finished writing the draft back in 2001 and then started going through the revisions, my characters started telling me where I went wrong, who should be added, who was doing who and with what.   I totally rewrote the piece at least twice in 2002 and little my little, I turned the story over to my characters.  Orginally I had a formula = Start at A, move to B in X amount of chapters and then C in X amount of chapters and close.   The book was totally stand alone.   But by the time I was accepted by my first agent, the characters had grown on me, and I cared about them and realized there was more that needed to be shown.   Yes, I had created a whole world by then and there was still so much more to show.  

 

When I orginally killed off the Priestess Snow in book 1, I was so upset with myself that I had to stop for a day.  I was a b*****d for killing this character off I felt.  Heartless.    So I figured a way to bring her back, and gave reason for her resurrection that worked with the plot.   It worked at the time.   She reappeared in book 2, but she was less of a character then because she was not involved as much as in the first book.   By book 3 she only has walk on roles.   Recently, while working on rewrites for book 2, I have come to the conclusion that she serves no further purpose and my first instinct to kill her off was better plotted by my characters than by me.  I became too attached to her and did not want her to die.  Now....well, I will let the readers decide if I am a b*****d.

 

And she is not the only one.  Orginally, Flame was only suppose to be a device, a further complication in Nathin and Ryzza's relationship.   But the more I grew to know her, the more Nathin and Ryzza agreed that I could not let her go.   You see, they told me to keep her, not my male fantasy.   As a matter of fact, she becomes a very strong character by book 3 once Nathin and Ryzza are out of the picture. 

 

As too Nathin, a few of my friends that have test read say they see alot of me in Nathin.   I do not believe it for a minute.   He is a composite of many people, some from books I have read, and some from real life people I know.  He is not my alter ego, though I can not convince some of my friends to this fact.   My lady loves see's the difference and my daughter even fell in love with Nathin and when asked if she thought Nathin was my alter ego, she said hell no, or she would not have fallen in love with him.  

 

Some of my secondary characters have grown on me as well and as the books have proceeded, their roles too have expanded.  Which I think with a series is very much the truth.

 

Lastly, my characters invade my dreams, they talk to me as I run scenes through my head while driving, or even while trying to watch TV.   They seem to always be there, all I have to do is turn to them and they are ready to show me more of the story.  Recently I started drafting a new story, non fantasy fiction though possibly considered fantasy.  Its my Lolita story.   Well after just one chapter, quess who shows up, demanding that I get back to the other work.   Yep...Ryzza.   She can be a b***h when she wants to be, but she knows herself better than I think I know myself.  

 

Now with all that said...I have learned is to distance myself from my characters in that if they need to die...they will die for the good of the story.   If they need to change personalities, or end up being traitors, then that is what will happen.   My characters are who ever they are, but more importantly, they will me who I want them to be.   They seem cool with this arrangement.  Only a few complaints so far.  lol.

 

Nick.

This thread is why I like coming here. The way Nick talks about his characters telling him to do things is exactly what my characters do but if you try to explain that to a non writer they look at you strange.   To me they are an extention of my invisible friends I had as a child.

I find their lives and my life are intertwined. When my husband ( the role model for all my tall handsome sexy good guys) grew a beard my character Danyon grew a beard. And I hadn't even seriously considered having children until my character Anya got pregnant.

As to characters in other books I agree with Leah about Jo March and Jane Eyre. I have just finished reading Jane Eyre and it was like visiting an old friend. Stephen King's It had the characters that connected with me the most. They felt like kids you had grown up with. No wonder he receives letters asking what happened to characters after the book ended. Unfortunately after that King's characters got nasty and I stopped caring about them and so stopped reading his books.

I agree with you, Gayna, about the blank look I get from my non-writing friends when I try to explain what is going on. They look at me and comment "ah, but their your characters. What do you mean you don't know what they are up to?"

All too many people think, be it writing or film-making, we are puppeteers. As I wrote in my previous post, if you don't let your characters breath, then they will not be rich and multi-layered. People won't cheer when the villain is defeated or feel sad when a character loses a loved one. Or scream at the page when a character dies.

Where I don't agree with you, for myself and my writing, is having characters being extensions of people around me. I will start with specific character traits from people I know and then let the character grow organically, talk to me, surprise me.

This is something Nick and I learnt from playing good Dungeon and Dragons games. I wanted my players to surprise me with their characters, as I do with my writing. And I hope if I am surprised, so will be the reader.

Oh they frequently surprise me. In Red the book I am currently writing I had a firewolf (Extremely ugly firebreathing wolves ) attack my characters but the next day they started to talk and now I have one as a main character. Definately not an extention of someone I know.
 Gayna

My characters tend to be very personal to me. While the supporting cast is there for the story the mains , wether starting this way or not, all seem to end up as fragments of my own personality that emerge to the surface at times (Especially when I'm writing them) I feel the links they have to the other characters. Not sure how else to describe it sorry.

I would just like to know why we stopped adding to the Hello? forum. It was really interesting and I was enjoying sharing it with those of wrote in it. Just wondering why we discontinued it.

 

I especially enjoyed those unique characters.

Reading and designing my characters I do feel a connection to them. Originally Dara was the good girl, she did was she thought was right. Now she's a normal kid who's been thrust into this massive conspiracy. In fact I just recently revamped the idea that in the second book "Daughter of Impurity" the princess of the Empire watches her entirely world cracked apart. Think Bolshevik Revolution tying in with suicide bombing and before that KKK raids.

Martin's Song of Fire and Ice is marvelous for complexity of characters.  That's something I've always striven for, but I see the degree to which it can be carried in his stuff.

 

I don't like how unremittingly grim those stories are (I've finished the first two, so far) and the exclusive concentration (so far) on the nobility seems lopsided to me. But I do admire the pacing and characterization.

 

I really don't mind protagonists being jerks and villains having sympathetic features.  That's realism, to me, and I think fantasy always improves for sticking to psychological realism.