Summer Boogaloo Challenge #10 (Write an Original Essay)
A/N: This is an opinion based essay written in regard to bad characterization in written works. It reflects no ones certain opinion but my own and I apologize in advance to any offended party who failed to take the time to read the tiny authors note.
Proper Characterization in Roleplaying and Writing- Essay One: The Issue at Hand
No man is immune to the most basic of temptations: the opportunity to play God. As readers we imagine and as writers we indulge. Our characters, both original and adapted cannon are our children and we vest our hopes and dreams upon the fragile chance that an audience, any audience will accept and support their brainchild through those first tentative, beautiful years of their early lives. It is here, with this sentiment and this boundless creativity that we make our first and most terrible mistake.
The following informal essay exists as a guide to artists of two different disciplines: Roleplayers and Writers. It’s sole purpose as a written work is to expose the flaws and traps of bad characterization, to help creators identify faulty characterization, to teach artists how to rehabilitate their characters and lastly, to outline good characterization and the traits of effective characters.
At first glance, writers and roleplayers display very little difference between their crafts, but after months of consideration, I, personally, have come to the conclusion that roleplayers are not writer. Roleplayers can be writers and writers can be roleplayers, but they are not inherently one and the same. Too many roleplayers scarcely write at all, relying on symbols and effects to get their point across, and others write without thought to the traits of good prose we were all taught in grade school. For this reason, this series of essays will be written with consideration to each as its own, rather than one large mass of useable characters.
The first and most noticeable difference between characterization in the written work and in the roleplaying universe is that within the confines of a roleplay, no matter how like minded the participants and how elaborately constructed the world, there is no plot. In reality, plot would defeat the roleplay’s purpose altogether. Rather than a dozen people reacting to one another, playing their roles as though the characters were real, you would encounter a dozen people trapped within an assigned role, unable to move their characters and allow them to evolve like humans rather that paper. Unfortunately, while the randomized roleplaying school of thought has the definite advantage of nearly boundless freedom, it also posses nearly crippling drawbacks.
Those roeplayers among my friends know at least to an extent that I am not nearly the avid roleplayer that they are. This reluctance stems not so much from time, of which I admittedly have very little, but from style. In my mind, the first of those crippling drawbacks is speed. Rather than allowing for conversation outside of play and development of some semblance of plot, a majority of roleplayers I have found are all too eager to rush through the plot and move on to their next fandom. I have a great deal of respect for some of the people I roleplay with and I don’t mean to insult their styles, but the speed with which they maneuver their characters through roleplays both baffles and frustrates me. It was this frustration that drove me to examine why I find myself less and less inclined to join in, or even to look for another group to sojourn to for a while. Along this path I arrived at what I feel to be te motivation and the muse that begat this essay series. My problem, as it were, lay not with the players, but the characters. In ever roleplay I investigated, I found the same characters, acting in the same manner, wandering through new worlds but essentially having the same adventure.
Somehow, no matter how originally we started out, our characters always wandered back onto the same paths. We always had the wise but jaded one, the reckless but brave one, the creepy villain, the bitter loner, and me, the girl next door. Part of my love hate relationship with roleplaying stems from my inability to step away from that character. I’ve come to hate her, a pity really since she fit so well in so many other places. If I made her edgy, I lost interest, if I made her older, she became the mother and if I made her powerful she became lost.
Withing writing, I have encountered innumerable instances of this same problem. Although less in my own examples (considering I seldom finish anything I begin), canned characters litter the tomes I frequent. A thousand times over I have remade the characters in my own novels after stepping too deeply into one these common pitfalls. As a young writer (although by all rights I still am one) I went out of my way to create non-stereotypical characters, in hopes that they would liven up my writing. As a reader however, I have come to see that by reversing a stereotype I merely fall further into the cliche I was trying to avoid. As a happy medium, I have recently begun to experiment with mixing the two in an attempt to marry originality into my writing through a muse that has a very specific set of characteristics he must, to some degree, follow.
For example, take one of my earlier characters, a vampire who loved humans and drank from a blood bank to spare their necks. The cliche is obvious, as trying too hard to break a stereotype destroys the characters purpose. Now take that same vampire and compare him to one of my modern characters.
Malcolm Solei is my newest vamparic character, as easygoing fellow with curly brown hair, sharp green eyes and fangs. He works as an interdimensional police officer along with my main character and her partener and feeds on the blood of whomever, or whatever, he finds easliy available (Including, but not limited too animals, villains and co-workers).
I’m sure that I won’t avoid every cliche trap with him; in fact I’m not even sure it’s possible, but Malcolm has a backstory, a job and a motivation for his actions. He drinks blood like any other vampire and uses his odd feeding habits to the best of his ability. He has flaws and strengths and he adds flavor, humor and drama to my story.
How well will he work? I won’t know until I write him in. Will he be revised? Absolutely. Does he glitter? Thank God, no. (Sorry Ms. Meyer).
As an avid reader, I am always on the lookout for an original character. I inhale promising books on the first read and them pass through them once more, savoring the characters. Danielle Bennet and Jaida Jones’ Havemercy, for example, contained a refreshing cast of original characters in an original setting spun from an age old mold. A battle between the good dragon riders and the bad enemy has grown so cliche that my heart hurts to even look at Eragon anymore.
However, in this strange tale a fleet of gigantic metal dragons manned by crass, rough, hilarious pilots and monitored by a studious, morose young intern had me alternately in stitches at their antics and in tears at their inability to effectively communicate.
Add in homosexual overtones between a pair of loveable, believable character and I was in love. If you’re thinking ‘fanservice much?’, so was I, but these particular character’s relationship simultaneously showcases how much a character can change simply by learning about himself and how easily a character who knows himself well can remain solidly the same without being paper flat.
On the topic of paper flat, I shall adjourn from the subject of published works and move on to the realm of fanfiction and original, unpublished fiction. Before I really lay into these poor writers, I feel obligated to mention that one of my closest friends write a fanfiction series followed by what seems to be half the know world. This writer is among the most talented I have ever had the pleasure of reading and I dearly look forward to the day when I can tell my children that yes, not only have I read her works, I know her. I am also impatiently awaiting the completion of her first novel, whichever of the nine she gets around to first.
Unfortunately, however much I adore her writing, she is the exception, not the rule on fanfiction. I personally hope with all my heart that should I be lucky enough to be published I will never have the misfortune of reading a fanfiction based on my work. Not to insult any writer out them, particularly those just entering the world of writing, but I shudder to think of what the original creators of some of my favorite books, games and animes would think if they saw how other writers portrayed their characters. Written work is always debatable, particularly as so much of the art relies to heavily upon the audiences perception of it. Nevertheless, perception only goes so far before absolute fantasy kicks in.
Far too many authors in this day and age allow their characters to run away with their imagination, or vice-versa. They place their characters in impossible situations, drag them through hell and back or set them up in impossible romances. I have nothing against homosexual or heterosexual pairing, when it makes sense. Unfortunately, all too often it doesn’t. Too many pairings are born simply because the character s are “soooo, like, perfect for each other, ya know?” Rather that based on some semblance of a cannon relationship, or, at the very least, some manner of contact within cannon conversation.
Having now touched upon character types, stereotyping, good characterization and characterization and romance between fictional cannon and original characters, I can successfully introduce the installments of my essay series. All will likely be shorter than this one and all will be absolutely simpler to understand.
They will address:
Common Character Pitfalls
The Downside of Bad Characterization
The Benefits of Good Characterization
Healthy Character Relationships and Why They’re Important
Coining Your Character
A/N: To any and all of my friends and acquaintances that I’ve cited in the above essay, I apologize if I have offended anyone. That was not the intention of the essay. The roleplaying paragraph noted out guild specifically because of a problem I’ve notices (see above) and how frusturating it’s been attempting to fix my characters. See you next time!
Peace out,
TBR
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