On Writing: Character Building
Jun. 23rd, 2005 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantWhen I went back to work, I said to myself: OK, it's basically as if my scholarship money ran out before I quite finished my MFA. I've got to bring some money in, but getting the homework done still has to be a priority.
So, on a recommendation from someone in my romance writers' group, I've been reading Tami Cowden's The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines.
Initially I had a wildly negative reaction to the very idea of this book. What it does is divide all characters into eight male and eight female "archetypes" -- the Chief, the Crusader, the Waif, etc. And my first thought was, "Oh, great, it's a list of cliches I can choose from."
But I read through the whole list of "archetypes." (I can't seem to use such an exalted word without irony when we're talking about a list drawn from things like the Die Hard movies.) And then I read through the list of their various interactions. And I had to admit that (1) they allowed for quite a lot of complexity, and (2) every fictional character I could think of could be described, meaningfully if not comprehensively, with either a single archetype or a combination of two.
Real people can't, however, and this was a stumbling block for me for some time, because if they're simpler than real people, then they must be cliches, right?
Until finally I had what the Space Alien used to describe as "a blinding flash of the obvious," namely: Characters are different from people in the same way that plots are different from real life.
See, in real life, lots of things happen for lots of reasons, and some things happen for no reason at all. In a plot, though, most things happen, basically, because the character wants something and the world (on behalf of the author) wants to prevent her from getting it, right?
Well, in the same way, real people do things for lots of reasons, and they do some things for no reason at all. But characters, now -- characters are motivated either by one overriding desire that is in continual conflict with reality, or by two overriding desires that are in continual conflict with each other.
I've known for a long time that when you try to make real people into characters, they're ... fuzzy. Unfocused. And this explained why. Why I can only occasionally make characters out of people I know, and then only when I don't know them very well, but it's easy to make characters out of people I see in airplanes and people whose conversations I overhear at the coffee shop.
Fanfiction spoils you, in a way, because when you're working with other people's characters, some of these decisions have already been made for you.
The rigid gender breakdown of the book bugged me -- I realize that the writers are trying to be practical, but how can you possibly set up the Charmer (male) and the Seductress (female) and not even be tempted to analyze the differences between them in terms of sexual politics? How can you not make a note of the fact that the Librarian (female) and the Professor (male) are basically the same character except that the Librarian's secret inner passion is everyone's fantasy, while the Professor's secret inner passion apparently interests no one except slashers?
Semi-relevant story: The reason I went looking for this book in the first place is that I have a persistent problem with conceptualizing heroes who are appropriate for romances. I keep writing the kind of guys I find irresistible, and the people in the romance writers' group keep telling me that they read as gay.
I actually think it would be more accurate to say that, within the rather limited context of romance fiction, the guys I like read as women. They talk a lot, they're curious and intelligent and imaginative, they think before they act, and they don't require a whole novel's worth of conflict before they begin to treat the women as human beings.
Benton Fraser, for instance, would totally not make it as the hero of a romance novel. All that stuff with the score of a Mahler symphony? No amount of wavy hair and daring rescueage can make up for that.
So, on a recommendation from someone in my romance writers' group, I've been reading Tami Cowden's The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes and Heroines.
Initially I had a wildly negative reaction to the very idea of this book. What it does is divide all characters into eight male and eight female "archetypes" -- the Chief, the Crusader, the Waif, etc. And my first thought was, "Oh, great, it's a list of cliches I can choose from."
But I read through the whole list of "archetypes." (I can't seem to use such an exalted word without irony when we're talking about a list drawn from things like the Die Hard movies.) And then I read through the list of their various interactions. And I had to admit that (1) they allowed for quite a lot of complexity, and (2) every fictional character I could think of could be described, meaningfully if not comprehensively, with either a single archetype or a combination of two.
Real people can't, however, and this was a stumbling block for me for some time, because if they're simpler than real people, then they must be cliches, right?
Until finally I had what the Space Alien used to describe as "a blinding flash of the obvious," namely: Characters are different from people in the same way that plots are different from real life.
See, in real life, lots of things happen for lots of reasons, and some things happen for no reason at all. In a plot, though, most things happen, basically, because the character wants something and the world (on behalf of the author) wants to prevent her from getting it, right?
Well, in the same way, real people do things for lots of reasons, and they do some things for no reason at all. But characters, now -- characters are motivated either by one overriding desire that is in continual conflict with reality, or by two overriding desires that are in continual conflict with each other.
I've known for a long time that when you try to make real people into characters, they're ... fuzzy. Unfocused. And this explained why. Why I can only occasionally make characters out of people I know, and then only when I don't know them very well, but it's easy to make characters out of people I see in airplanes and people whose conversations I overhear at the coffee shop.
Fanfiction spoils you, in a way, because when you're working with other people's characters, some of these decisions have already been made for you.
The rigid gender breakdown of the book bugged me -- I realize that the writers are trying to be practical, but how can you possibly set up the Charmer (male) and the Seductress (female) and not even be tempted to analyze the differences between them in terms of sexual politics? How can you not make a note of the fact that the Librarian (female) and the Professor (male) are basically the same character except that the Librarian's secret inner passion is everyone's fantasy, while the Professor's secret inner passion apparently interests no one except slashers?
Semi-relevant story: The reason I went looking for this book in the first place is that I have a persistent problem with conceptualizing heroes who are appropriate for romances. I keep writing the kind of guys I find irresistible, and the people in the romance writers' group keep telling me that they read as gay.
I actually think it would be more accurate to say that, within the rather limited context of romance fiction, the guys I like read as women. They talk a lot, they're curious and intelligent and imaginative, they think before they act, and they don't require a whole novel's worth of conflict before they begin to treat the women as human beings.
Benton Fraser, for instance, would totally not make it as the hero of a romance novel. All that stuff with the score of a Mahler symphony? No amount of wavy hair and daring rescueage can make up for that.
(no subject)
Date: 6/23/05 09:40 pm (UTC)Hey has anyone read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon...I'm not sure if that's a romance novel or not but I thought it was unique in some ways. I mean I think it's categorized under the regular fiction section though to me it's a romance novel but it doesn't fit the "romance" formula. (which is probably why I loved this novel)
(no subject)
Date: 6/23/05 10:35 pm (UTC)I loved Outlander, and have read several of the sequels -- I'd say the first one is sort of a historical-romance-heavy-on-the-history and the others I've read have been more like historical fiction with a bit more of a relationship focus than most.
I certainly don't think very many genre romances any more could get away with having the hero be a virgin and the heroine not!
(no subject)
Date: 6/23/05 10:39 pm (UTC)I tried reading the newest books but just couldn't get into them.
But definately Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber were excellent.
I think they are more historical but these two books were the romance novels I've always wanted to read but could never find.
(no subject)
Date: 6/25/05 02:02 am (UTC)Here via <lj comm="metafandom">
Date: 6/28/05 11:00 am (UTC)I also have read a few in which some of the supporting characers are gay, which pleases me to no end. One I recall, there was the heroine's gay roommate and the guy she was supposedly dating, a sports star. Knowing she wasn't dating the sports star, I immediately thought, "beard, and the sports guy and the roommate are dating." Then I thought, "turn off the slash brain, it's a romance novel!" But then it turned out my instinct was right. And they're not all nice guys - in one I read, it was the heroine's ex-husband and he was so closeted it wasn't funny. Of course he wasn't presented as a generally nice person, but I appreciated the diversity hugely.