People Aren't Simple (Part 1)
People are complicated, confusing, inconsistent creatures. It's interesting to me that characters are often required and/or expected to be a lot more well-defined and consistent than real people. In real life, someone could be cheerful one day, terse the next, and all anyone would think is that they're having a bad day. In a book, if you're not careful, it seems like their personality is all over the place. It's a lot harder for a character to randomly try something or behave a certain way, without a lot of set-up--which is totally not the case in real life.
Once, a game commentator mentioned something very similar in his own life. Day9 has done extensive StarCraft casting and analysis for years. One day he was streaming Team Fortress 2 or some such, because hey, he occasionally plays other games for fun, and he complained about how strongly viewers react when he deviates from the norm--"OMG are you not casting StarCraft anymore?!" He commented on how streamers/commentators are held to this strange standard, a lot like fictional characters are, and I totally agree.
I don't mind this double standard. Fiction is a stylized version of reality. Just as dialogue isn't a transcription of real-sounding conversation (full of pauses, filler words, and repetition), scenes and characters are also designed to maintain interest, "feeling" real while actually only highlighting the juiciest bits. I think it is important to define a character as impulsive or unpredictable before allowing them to behave erratically without reason.
One of the best things about fiction is the character's growth (or fall from grace). When you only have 100k words to tell a whole story, you can't show every single day of their lives, and all the subtle nuances of their personalities. I think it's totally fair to simplify and streamline their arc--remove the "noise" of daily variation and focus on the big milestones. Define them by a few major traits (eg short-tempered, naive, altruistic, bookish, whatever) which consistently show up in their actions and dialogue. Real people aren't so simple, but I think fictional characters do need to be more predictable and logical, or at least understandable.
That said, there's nothing as annoying as a character simplified too far in the other direction, to the point where they become defined by their role instead of their personality. This will be my topic for next time, so stay tuned!
Once, a game commentator mentioned something very similar in his own life. Day9 has done extensive StarCraft casting and analysis for years. One day he was streaming Team Fortress 2 or some such, because hey, he occasionally plays other games for fun, and he complained about how strongly viewers react when he deviates from the norm--"OMG are you not casting StarCraft anymore?!" He commented on how streamers/commentators are held to this strange standard, a lot like fictional characters are, and I totally agree.
I don't mind this double standard. Fiction is a stylized version of reality. Just as dialogue isn't a transcription of real-sounding conversation (full of pauses, filler words, and repetition), scenes and characters are also designed to maintain interest, "feeling" real while actually only highlighting the juiciest bits. I think it is important to define a character as impulsive or unpredictable before allowing them to behave erratically without reason.
One of the best things about fiction is the character's growth (or fall from grace). When you only have 100k words to tell a whole story, you can't show every single day of their lives, and all the subtle nuances of their personalities. I think it's totally fair to simplify and streamline their arc--remove the "noise" of daily variation and focus on the big milestones. Define them by a few major traits (eg short-tempered, naive, altruistic, bookish, whatever) which consistently show up in their actions and dialogue. Real people aren't so simple, but I think fictional characters do need to be more predictable and logical, or at least understandable.
That said, there's nothing as annoying as a character simplified too far in the other direction, to the point where they become defined by their role instead of their personality. This will be my topic for next time, so stay tuned!
Another perceptive commentary! A "stylized version of reality" (love it) allows you to do things you couldn't in a sociologist's direct transcript of everyday life: bring out traits, meanings, values, and let them shine. Fiction isn't supposed to be an imitation of reality: it is, you might say, the distilled and intensified version.
ReplyDeleteYeah I totally agree! You hit the nail on the head there, I think.
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