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reenkaThis may seem obvious in retrospect, but I'm only just realizing why I've been reading so much manga about all these new characters & barely feeling any sense of disorientation which would come with the need for constant adjustment. I mean, having read so much fanfic almost exclusively, you'd think I'd be struck by how difficult or at least -noticeable- constant novelty would be.
And yet, there is no constant novelty. I mean, I find that comforting & quite fitting, since I'm looking for the same old thrill with the same old buttons, basically, but then I realized that it's not just manga which revolves around the same five or six (maybe ten at most) personality types. It's popular books, movies, everything-- the more I think about the personalities I remember from any kind of story, especially a popular one, the more I see repetition. I mean, fanfic makes it -blatant-, but really it's everywhere, and the rampant familiarity I feel goes way beyond any sense of deja-vu.
It's mostly startling to me because one of the things I learned with writing fanfic was to pay attention to characterization, which I never had before, really. I used to just write out whatever action came to mind for a character, without actually being aware of who that character is supposed to be and why they'd be acting this way. I'd never thought of people as having 'types' that could be successfully used without looking totally lame and obvious enough to be a parody. It's kind of jarring to think that what seems to be the majority of writers operate by apparently starting from cookie-cutter personality stereotypes they'd thoroughly labeled and then (hopefully) adding layers. I mean, I don't -know- this, since I haven't asked these manga writers in particular, but it just seems so obvious, and not just in manga.
Anyway, that's the source of the familiarity, at least-- it's that the cookie cutter stays consistent across authors, across titles, across cultural barriers, even. That pleasant buzz of "I know this person" which fanfic is supposed to give you-- I don't need fanfic for that; it's just that in fanfic that's excused, and you don't get called a bad writer if you write quite transparently from a cultural/literary "cheat-sheet".
And once I've opened my eyes to this, I see the repetition nearly everywhere, but especially in the most popular stories (anything from JK Rowling to Shakespeare). And it's not even something over-arching & meta like Jung's concept of 'archetype'-- this is about seeing quite literally the same five to ten personalities in what amounts to a number of AUs written by different people. The more I think about it, really, the more laughable I find the sheer conceit of calling most non-fanfic 'original' fiction. I mean, the only thing that's ever original that I've found so far (that is, different from the norm) seems to end up being a commentary on all the derivative work. It's only original insofar as it's a contrast and a departure, basically.
For instance, you can have a 'normal' story with two normal-acting stereotypical guys become 'breakthrough' and amazing in a field where all the guys act like 12 year-old girls. However, this does not make this one story original-- it just makes the other stories badly written and preposterous.
All the same, none of this is a criticism of stories with stereotyped personalities on my part. I quite enjoy them, and actually prefer them that way, since it makes for a smooth, comfortable shift from one story to the next-- a few things change, yes, but enough stays the same that I feel like I'm always basically reading a variation of the same 3-4 storylines, each with perhaps a dozen subtypes. If I wanted to waste my time, I could even list them all, but I think people have actually already done that sort of thing.
The more interesting angle to me isn't criticism (which is hopeless anyway) but rather the question of whether I myself should try to write this way. It's not natural to me, but people in general as well as myself seem to respond best to this sort of easily typified behavior in fiction. I suppose people like to be surprised, too, but the surprise seems to work best when there's a background of familiarity. I guess most readers like being able to connect & identify with a story, which depends on the characters being easily recognizable in some way, and they would also feel reassured by being able to predict (as well as understand) the characters' behavior to some degree. Not so much that all suspense is lost, but enough that they can apply any behavior in some way to their own experiences, which means it has to be able to be readily reduced to some lowest common denominator.
The thing is, it's hard for me to be that... uh... rationalist, I guess. That's the main reason I haven't fully grasped the extent of the repetition everywhere before-- I just preferred to let it slide because it was working so well for me. I've heard people complain about it, but I never thought it mattered, and therefore I didn't bother admitting those people were actually right. These predictabilities of behavior seem so... cut and dry, I guess, so stifling to creativity for me-- and yet the vast majority of all writers use them to great effect. Humanity itself is like this of course, so perhaps it's only 'realistic'-- people's actions -are- largely predictable and governed by certain constants of interaction between personality & circumstance. Basically, 9 times out of 10, personality type XYZ will react in a certain manner to stimulus ABC. Some basic part of me hates thinking that way, though, tempting as it is given the high apparent success rate of this approach. Even anomalies in behavior are consistently present enough so that both psychiatric & sociological principles can be successfully applied.
Perhaps it's just that I've been projecting too much of myself all this time; since I don't find myself all that obvious or predictable or even recognizable among most characters I see in fiction, I assign people in general complexity they don't even want to possess...? Or perhaps I should admit that even though I find stereotypical mass-produced stories fun and readable, they still basically suck as far as being good fiction.
And yet, there is no constant novelty. I mean, I find that comforting & quite fitting, since I'm looking for the same old thrill with the same old buttons, basically, but then I realized that it's not just manga which revolves around the same five or six (maybe ten at most) personality types. It's popular books, movies, everything-- the more I think about the personalities I remember from any kind of story, especially a popular one, the more I see repetition. I mean, fanfic makes it -blatant-, but really it's everywhere, and the rampant familiarity I feel goes way beyond any sense of deja-vu.
It's mostly startling to me because one of the things I learned with writing fanfic was to pay attention to characterization, which I never had before, really. I used to just write out whatever action came to mind for a character, without actually being aware of who that character is supposed to be and why they'd be acting this way. I'd never thought of people as having 'types' that could be successfully used without looking totally lame and obvious enough to be a parody. It's kind of jarring to think that what seems to be the majority of writers operate by apparently starting from cookie-cutter personality stereotypes they'd thoroughly labeled and then (hopefully) adding layers. I mean, I don't -know- this, since I haven't asked these manga writers in particular, but it just seems so obvious, and not just in manga.
Anyway, that's the source of the familiarity, at least-- it's that the cookie cutter stays consistent across authors, across titles, across cultural barriers, even. That pleasant buzz of "I know this person" which fanfic is supposed to give you-- I don't need fanfic for that; it's just that in fanfic that's excused, and you don't get called a bad writer if you write quite transparently from a cultural/literary "cheat-sheet".
And once I've opened my eyes to this, I see the repetition nearly everywhere, but especially in the most popular stories (anything from JK Rowling to Shakespeare). And it's not even something over-arching & meta like Jung's concept of 'archetype'-- this is about seeing quite literally the same five to ten personalities in what amounts to a number of AUs written by different people. The more I think about it, really, the more laughable I find the sheer conceit of calling most non-fanfic 'original' fiction. I mean, the only thing that's ever original that I've found so far (that is, different from the norm) seems to end up being a commentary on all the derivative work. It's only original insofar as it's a contrast and a departure, basically.
For instance, you can have a 'normal' story with two normal-acting stereotypical guys become 'breakthrough' and amazing in a field where all the guys act like 12 year-old girls. However, this does not make this one story original-- it just makes the other stories badly written and preposterous.
All the same, none of this is a criticism of stories with stereotyped personalities on my part. I quite enjoy them, and actually prefer them that way, since it makes for a smooth, comfortable shift from one story to the next-- a few things change, yes, but enough stays the same that I feel like I'm always basically reading a variation of the same 3-4 storylines, each with perhaps a dozen subtypes. If I wanted to waste my time, I could even list them all, but I think people have actually already done that sort of thing.
The more interesting angle to me isn't criticism (which is hopeless anyway) but rather the question of whether I myself should try to write this way. It's not natural to me, but people in general as well as myself seem to respond best to this sort of easily typified behavior in fiction. I suppose people like to be surprised, too, but the surprise seems to work best when there's a background of familiarity. I guess most readers like being able to connect & identify with a story, which depends on the characters being easily recognizable in some way, and they would also feel reassured by being able to predict (as well as understand) the characters' behavior to some degree. Not so much that all suspense is lost, but enough that they can apply any behavior in some way to their own experiences, which means it has to be able to be readily reduced to some lowest common denominator.
The thing is, it's hard for me to be that... uh... rationalist, I guess. That's the main reason I haven't fully grasped the extent of the repetition everywhere before-- I just preferred to let it slide because it was working so well for me. I've heard people complain about it, but I never thought it mattered, and therefore I didn't bother admitting those people were actually right. These predictabilities of behavior seem so... cut and dry, I guess, so stifling to creativity for me-- and yet the vast majority of all writers use them to great effect. Humanity itself is like this of course, so perhaps it's only 'realistic'-- people's actions -are- largely predictable and governed by certain constants of interaction between personality & circumstance. Basically, 9 times out of 10, personality type XYZ will react in a certain manner to stimulus ABC. Some basic part of me hates thinking that way, though, tempting as it is given the high apparent success rate of this approach. Even anomalies in behavior are consistently present enough so that both psychiatric & sociological principles can be successfully applied.
Perhaps it's just that I've been projecting too much of myself all this time; since I don't find myself all that obvious or predictable or even recognizable among most characters I see in fiction, I assign people in general complexity they don't even want to possess...? Or perhaps I should admit that even though I find stereotypical mass-produced stories fun and readable, they still basically suck as far as being good fiction.
