[...ground control to...]

[reenka]

So I was pondering (yeah, ponderponderponder, that's me), and I can't decide if this is just my own experience, or a specific writing philosophy at work, or what: basically, I find I can't -force- characters, most especially fanfiction characters, to do things-- I can't control them, if(!) controlling them and/or making them bow to my godly will is in fact the point of writing fics.

I suppose I -could- go into all sorts of way-out meta directions like wondering what this says about Creator-as-God, whether original or fanfic, vs. Creator-as-Voice-of-a-Greater-God or whatever, but that's all sort of irrelevant, in the end. For once, I'm thinking in more practical terms (I know, I know).

Just recently sistermagpie had a post that mentioned this, in terms of the fanfic writer having ultimate power over their fanfic, in the end, to make the characters do things they wouldn't in canon. And obviously that's true, in so far as fanon can clearly get rather divorced from canon pretty successfully. But general definitions of fanon/canon aside, in my own experience, the things that fanfic characters just refuse to do both transcend and include both areas.

    I guess it all revolves around my personal conception of them-- I mean, not that they're so deeply predictable or consistent, but rather that I see an inexorable logic-- a sort of arc, I suppose-- in how characters & people act, even when they're acting illogically. I feel that human behavior, in other words, just isn't either random or so easily changed from its most likely course depending on context and overall circumstances that would influence it.
    That's why I see transcendence of this personal 'arc' to be such an amazing/worthy goal, and it's actually been a driving force in my obsession with H/D, btw, and my frustration with any serious attempt to simplify the struggle to escape our own selves (which is the closest I come to seeing destiny-- your basic self-fulfilling prophecy).

On some level, I just honestly don't know how much of this is just my style of writing, my frequent inability to think in terms of projecting into the future and so on, and how much-- well-- some semi-objective way of seeing writing, as in what works better to create 'truer', more powerful narratives, given that's the goal.

In the end, I just don't actually have a clue: how -does- one control fanfic or even original characters, anyway?? (Oh, and have them make sense as still being themselves at the same time-- I mean, if you don't care about that, all bets are off. And I don't mean this takes crackfic or surreal fic out of the running-- take Kafka's Metamorphosis: the man may have become a cockroach, but in all other ways, he was still a man.)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Good writers (I'm in a weird mood, so I include us in this) can't help it, the characters get in the way. Of course it's not them but just another part of our subconscious that has strong feelings of what is and isn't possible.

I cannot write badfic. I tried. It worked in comment porn once, but when I tried to tidy it up for posting, it got bad - because (my beta said) somehow one started to care for my character, and then it's not badfic anymore.

I think you can transcend with determination ... but I think it would have to be constantly consciously working against something, and then you still follow your own ... railroad track. Somehow.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knoooow :(( I feel like you see my pain, you know, not just 'cause I tried writing badfic-- as separate and distinct from crackfic-- too, just, er, to get more comments, ahahah, and. -.- No go, I start to take it too seriously-- and yeah, it's exactly as you said, the -caring-. It's like, I can always tell somehow when a decent enough writer just doesn't -care- about one of the characters-- usually it's either Harry or Draco in H/D depending on who the writer likes more and/or thinks is more hawt and sexxxxy (or less of a moron, since that's the opinion some people have of Harry, it seems). -.-;;; Anyway, even if they're basically a decent/good writer, I can't help but feel their writing is crap on some level because they just slapped the behavior/feelings onto that character like slapping a fish on the table or something :>

Though actually, I started out in fandom & H/D wanting to change and/or have Draco transcend himself, I guess-- y'know, the whole redemption-from-being-terminally-daddy's-boy deal. And the more I wrote, the more I beat my head against the wall because I found I -couldn't- 'redeem' him even though I never made the mistakes the others made by cheating, I thought-- I couldn't because he was just... -himself-, in the end, and there was nothing I could really do about it. Though in my current novalla, I suppose he does undergo some painful changes, of course, but still nothing to really make one -admire- him, y'know? So yeah, I definitely feel that the more I feel I know a character, the more solid that railroad track grows. -.-;;

...Though I'm still not sure if this isn't some basic character-driven vs. plot-driven fics debate in the end, and therefore like comparing apples and oranges ^^;;

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Haha, did it work? Did you write real badfic, and did you get more comments???

I'm happy to be on the same wave-length.
I think the caring does not come from Draco either, it's still you. Not that you just always write the same characters and they are currently H/D, but that you are always you, even if you change and grow, you know the deal, all characters of all writers ever are always Mary Sues to some degree.
So you try to both stay true to JKRs canon and to how you perceive it, how it makes sense to you.
And then there is the bit I cannot explain either, because techically we should not be able to judge if a good writer cares about the character or not - we should take our perception as just one way of reading her text. Except ... we know; we do feel it.
So you cannot really redeem Draco, but you might be able to do it in a year or so, or at least in a way it seems redemption to you.


Before I forget: I'd be interested in reading your views on what I ponder in my current post. I think it's general and symptomatic of all fandoms.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think I never got past the planning and/or putting 2-3 paragraphs down stage, ahahahahfalskjal;fkjldsk I AM SO HOPELESSFLakj;l skfljgdsll Ahem. Yeah -.-

You know, I think a consistent attitude I see from the 'I can control!!' camp is a sort of... lack of awareness of how all our characters, fanfic or original, are basically self-inserts and/or reflections of ourselves. I think a lot of more plot-driven(??) writer 'Other' some characters if not all (though usually they fixate on one-- usually Draco 'cause he's the more malleable for most H/D writers). Like, I haven't really seen anyone but me talk about how they identify with -both- Harry & Draco, for instance-- but then, I identify with -any- character I've written on some level, yeah. Because how could I -not- and still write them?? I seriously don't get this and suspect mine and their ways of thinking/writing are like so different as to be alien! And yet! I still want to understand even more! :))

And yeah, we -shouldn't- be able to judge, but I can and do, all the time. It's just one of the more obvious things to me about any piece of fiction, but then I always pick up in the emotion sort of coded into words-- people really can't help it. The coding is always there, muwahahahaha!! :>

And that bit about writing him redeemed in the future-- aww. That made me all happy and reassured. I think that deminds me of the sorts of things Rainer Maria Rilke (MY HERO!!) used to say about writing.... As in, living one distant day into the answer~:)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Hahaha, well, I don't think you'd have managed a real badfic either.

*nods* Yes, their attitude smacks of conceit. I find them a bit lacking in self-awareness. No amount of intelligence can compensate for that.
*glomps* it's a relief to read this, even if you have no clue about the kind of bnfs in my SGA who do just that. They are plot driven and I find characters (usually my favourites) suffer because they either make them bad, flat or weak in order to showcase the one they focus on.
As you said, it only works for me if the writer likes (identifies, to a degree therefore) BOTH. Or it's not slash but ... top/bottom in a way, one just there to be the other.

Hehehe, we are both so horribly anti-post-modernist here, you realise? I keep shocking ... intellislashers *lol* by saying that it isn't true that EVERY text has infinite ways of reading.

Heeee, Rilke?! But you read him in translation?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I have a weird attitude towards postmodernism, in some ways-- I mean, I love, -love- John Barth and Barthes' Lover's Discourse and y'know, a number of the actual things the postmodernists wrote, but am wary of the philosophical movement itself because it goes overboard, I feel. There are definitely lots of ambiguities in both writing & existence, but... without balance, without a reference point, the randomness sort of swallows everything.

I still remember my pomo theory professor asking the class how we could prove we exist-- after all, how can we trust our memories, especially if it our memories that define us...? And he said something about how fleeting memory is, how we forget so much that's important to us, how we're like floatsam of the universe, never as anchored as we like to think-- and I keep thinking of this ever since then, and how that's true on one level but it's just not the whole picture, and how in a way, it's not -about- knowledge or certainty or memory, but about existence itself-- the very act of living, ineffable and inarguable and just-- there. Individual knowledge can always be doubted, really, but... at the same time, truth exists. It's a paradox, of course, but I can't get around it except to say-- we can hoard our little precious boxes of truth like hourglasses-- until they run out on us-- and then even the memories fade, and so do we-- but the sand remains, all around us, every second of our lives, even if the glass that held it disappears.

I think it's sort of like the idea that we can fall in love over and over again, all with the same person. The notion kind of makes me sad, but in a way it's the nature of the universe manifesting itself more obviously, that's all-- we -always- fall in love with the same person over and over again. We keep on re-sifting the sand, remaking the hourglasses... but the continuity of the universe is just as constant as its constant shifting. Er.... OKAY, and that was me going on a complete and utter tangent... -.-;;;

Aaaanyway, yeah, I agree, ahahaha, though I do find postmodernism-- and intellislash!-- quite interesting, I guess. :>

And yeah, hehe-- I looove Rilke, but not enough to learn German ^^;;;

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Oh Barthes is very enjoyable (I only grump at him when I consider that he simply wrote into the blue, no footnotes and grunt-work and what-not; which makes good reading but ... envy).
Yeah, I think it's the randomness. I was surprised to go at loggerheads(?) for the first time about this in fandom, of all places. I could not believe my friends seriously claimed that there can never be a wrong interpretation of any text *shrugs*

Let me counterpoint your deep, intellectual existence paragraph with a story from a girly magazine I read decades ago, in which they found in the end they were living in a cage and kept by big aliens. Erm, that was already it. It's been with me ever since. For me, it's the same *ashamed* I should not answer you in the middle of the night.

Why does it make you sad that we are able to fall in love with the same person? I never heard that, and I wish it were true! It would give me hope. Or do you mean - with the same TYPE and not the actually same living person?


Heh. I do wonder if it's possible to love translated poetry ... of course it is, I just mean ... the translator is at least half of the equation then, n'est pas?

*goes off wondering about sand and how sad it is to not properly live since living is all we have ... booohoooo*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think my braaaiin hooorts when I seriously consider the idea that subjectivity can be utterly and completely total. It's like, how can you -function- in such an environment, ahahah--?? It's like, my own limitation, in a way, since I feel like the human brain-- or at least my brain-- deals in little truths. Without them I would... well, I would be very confused, ahahah.

I love the whole big alien idea. Heh. There was once a sci-fi story where the aliens kidnapped/stole Manhattan (...yes) and the people then had to escape from their spaceship by luck and er... luck, and... Erm. -.-; Don't get me started, clearly ^^;;

I think I meant a mixture of 'the same living person' and a type; because our memories are so unreliable and we randomly forget things rather than keeping everything in RAM, so to speak, in a way we -do- fall in love over and over, for as long as we're in love, at least, ahahahah. Therein lies the rub, I suppose. :> But yeah, in another sense, and here I'm quoting/paraphrasing Wilde, we're always falling in love with the same person even if it's a 'type', in the sense that we only love once and its object changes, ahahaha :D But yeah, that's also true, I think :> Though that made me sad because of my instrinsic nostalgia and sentimental attachment to memory and my own reliance upon it-- to the point where if I were made to choose between memory and love, I do not know which I'd choose, because sometimes I -do- feel that my memory is what gives me my sense of self, the self that loves in the first place. In way, constant re-falling seems lonely somehow....

Um. Hahah, though I do love what poems of Rilke's I've read, I really did mean I loved -him-, not necessarily his writings-- based off 'Letters to a Young Poet' and various philosophical writings/quotes :>

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

*nods* And I will under-m/line your philosophical answer with ST:TNG where Picard says we cannot live a life without any pain, because it makes us human. Hey, I hated it back then, and I railed against all TRUE art ultimately being about death and how only death gives life meaning ... but in the end I agree that limitations are the thing that gives us ... shape, whether I like it or not.

I know about the memories; in that documentary on happiness they showed that happy people twist their memories better than unhappy ones (I have horribly accurate memories).
Hm. Then I forever only loved my cat and bands? *g*
When you say you'd chose your memories over love .... Don't you ever have that ... don't your memories ever get tainted to the point where they are no longer pleasant, consciously I mean?

Right, so it's more the contents and not so dependent upon the translation.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Heh, I think I'm torn between being a total escapist who wants to be happy all the time and being obsessed with pain because it brings about intensity.... Without intensity, happiness is just so... bland -.-

But yeah, I'm actually the sort that fixates on unhappy memories and remembers them over and over again in exquisite detail. Possibly, this is -why- I'm so escapist, ahahah. It's not that my memory is so -sweet-, but rather that I've obsessively fixated on bits of it for so much of my life that to lose it would be to lose a lot of my identity, and I've always been a self-centered bitch, I guess. :> In fact, even as I'm so masturbatory in my reading habits in terms of... uh, over-indulging a lot, I'm actually pretty obsessive about avoiding the pleasant-for-the-sake-of-the-pleasant, if that makes sense. I want the real more than the pleasant, it's just that I take the pleasant over 'completely unsatisfying', which is how I often see my life.... -.-;

I also think memory is what gives love that certain weight beyond the immediately physical-- which I love but would also grow tired of after a while...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I am not torn. I still want to be happy. As I've never been, it'd make a nice change *lol* But in what I write or watch, there needs to be something to give it shape and texture, to make the good bits stand out.


So no "love" has ever been tainted in retrospect for you? Memory only ever gave it weight? That's interesting, as it contradicts you fixating on the unhappy - or maybe it's not contradictory, as you prefer the real and so the unhappy makes you happy *g*

[triestine.livejournal.com]

You can't. You can interview them if you manage, but they're as alive as you are and just as stubborn. Let them do things their way. Forcing anything in creativity does not a good work make, so just lay back and enjoy.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I know -I- definitely feel that way, yeah! But at the same time, I know other people -do- claim to control their characters, so I'm like... o_0

No clue how that works :> But I hear some people (otherwise decent writers) laugh when you tell them characters are alive, so... yeah ^^;; I suppose a part of me is almost jealous and wanting to learn from their wisdom... except not, ahahah :>

Ah!

[triestine.livejournal.com]

They're alive all right - if somebody thinks that's weird, that's their problem. *hugs her characters*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

guess it all revolves around my personal conception of them-- I mean, not that they're so deeply predictable or consistent, but rather that I see an inexorable logic-- a sort of arc, I suppose-- in how characters & people act, even when they're acting illogically.

I suspect that's the way everybody feels--well, everybody's who's *somewhat* competent. The thing is, I think, that sometimes different things are telling you what's logical. So one person might be just following her feelings about a situation where somebody else is thinking of something else about the story. Probably there are tons of even well-written stories or published stories where when you think about it doesn't make complete sense. That was one of the things I remember being aware of after OotP, how often I felt like plot dictated character. It wasn't so much that I would think something was illogical, but just that everybody pretty much faded into the background so that Harry only had to deal with people when JKR wanted him to deal with something. It's not always that it's the most realistic thing, but she sells it because I guess she's able to sell her vision of things. You're not thinking about it objectively, you're following your narrator.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it just occurred to me that JKR actually does this a lot, ahahah -.- Oh man. Yeah-- though I'm a lot more willing to go along with the narrator/Harry because I happen to like him-- it's a lot harder all around when the narrator/main pov character is also written either coldly or incomprehensively.

I don't mean to say, though, that you'd have to follow your feelings as a writer to have a 'believable' result-- you could theoretically take any number of approaches to arrive at a conclusion/story that holds water all around, not just from a certain perspective. I mean, it's not like one -has - to either value character over plot -or- plot over character. I think seeing it as such a dichotomy in the first place is a weakness of vision all by itself....

Although this also has to do with why I think JKR is a decent or maybe even a good writer in some ways, but not a great writer-- because then you would have fusion, the interdependency and mutual development of character and plot. Though I wasn't even necessarily thinking about a story that makes total and complete sense as the ideal, but rather just-- my confusion about how does one sidestep one's -own- sense of logic or innate understanding of a character in order to then achieve that feeling of ultimate control over their behavior....

I mean, it really wouldn't be control-- plot over character or otherwise-- if the writer were -just- following their own brand of logic, right...?

[mgsmurf.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom, and thought I'd add my opinion, as I think I may well be one of those coming from the other camp.

I see logic and reasoning in just about anything in life, search it out, actually deal with work that relies upon it. So, I need it in my writing. I have to have a reason for the character doing something, a logic to how they look at the world and would interact with it and other characters. Given the angle I can see it for almost all characters, and it's not always about personally connecting with them. There have been characters and ships I don't "feel" as I term it, but given the reasoning I can write them fine. And I love turning characters dark, making them do something that is against their canon predisposition by giving a logical means for leading the reader there so they buy it.

And logic and reasoning, I think, is what is lacking from writing that feels amature. As readers you sense it's not following the rules who know people, relationships and the rest do follow. And that throws you out of the story.

But, as much as me the writer must know the reasoning to things, most people/character don't realize they exist, think about them, or even care. So I hide it all, make it shown not told, let the reader infer what the reasoning is because they've lived life and know the rules, if that makes sense at all. This is why I can write things I don't always emotionally connect to (although I likely can write a little better when I can) because if I can see the strings to the reasoning, use them to move about the characters and the plot, and then actively as a writer hide them, it will work for the reader, and that's what matters.

Lastly, I think there are people that naturally see and get all that inner reasoning without thinking about it. Maybe it's hard for them to wrap their minds about it because it comes so easy for them, while I have to struggle to make my thinking fit with presenting myself in writing. Nothing right or wrong with either way of writing. And I admit, I'm not sure I understand the other side, the inablity to control and see and know that its what behind the scenes that moves any piece of writing and character. But, much as almost all my English teachers never understood my angle on writing, I'd never fault someone with the utter ease to just know all that without thinking or even consciously knowing about it.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's just that I didn't explain myself well enough or there's genuinely ambiguity in the subject, but-- I didn't mean the sort of 'control' you're describing, heh. At least, I wasn't meaning the difference between the rational & the intuitive approach to the same end result-- I mean, for these purposes, I only care about the 'point', so to speak, not the process (for once).

You describe a different -approach- to understanding character logic, but not the sort of 'control' where you -force- the characters to conform to whatever vision you have for them, not try to 'outwit' the characters by presenting them with situations which should logically change their responses. I wasn't talking about emotional connection vs. lack thereof; I was talking about writers who may feel connected or not, it doesn't matter, though it's -more likely- they don't feel connected to the characters they're forcing to act a certain way whether or not it's logical based on who that character -is-.

I see where you had the snag, though-- because while you consider yourself logical, you're differently logical than me, if that makes sense-- I guess I think that it doesn't matter if you're intuitive/non-linear or rational/linear in process-- if you have a logical end-result. I really wasn't talking about the process at all, but rather a question of a goal (a certain end-state where characters follow plot willy-nilly) reached by cutting corners and forcing things, which I find I can't do.

I mean, I too think out characters' motivations and sometimes reason things out step-by-step, and the more interested I am in a character the more I think things through, but regardless to me that isn't nearly as alien and 'weird' as thinking mostly about something -other- than characterization when making characters act a certain way. So yeah, that throws me out of a story, but at the same time I wouldn't necessarily call the story illogical in terms of plot-- there just wasn't the -priority- or attention paid to the characters there.

I -do- know someone who pays that priority to one character (that they understand) and uses logic to construct the plot but simply -discounts- the other character's wishes because their point is to achieve something with that character whether or not the character is likely to cooperate in the most expedient fashion. It also doesn't help that this person doesn't understand this character very well but needs him for the story, or in another case, another person may very well understand the character logically (though generally not emotionally, but maybe) and discount this because they don't -like- it, so they write him out of character because it's more expedient for their story. Anyway, that's what I was talking about.