character complexity
Cynical Reader or Unconvincing Character?
Allow me, if I may, to put on my reader-hat for a moment. See, there’s this thing that happens sometimes when I’m reading, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the book.
“Sorry, book, it’s not you. It’s me.” Ugh. Good thing books can’t throw their readers across the room.
It’s a little hard to describe. I’m reading along, enjoying the story well enough, even liking the side characters, but there’s something about the protagonist.
I don’t believe her.
(Yes, it pretty much always happens to be a female protagonist. Maybe that’s more for me to ponder.)
Not like I think she’s lying, not directly. But what she’s trying to be or supposed to be doesn’t feel real. Not to me. And that’s where I’m not sure if it’s me or her (or rather, her author).
The verdict might vary by book. Sometimes it might really be me and my cynical side getting in the way. Maybe that keeps me from being open to certain traits coinciding. That wouldn’t surprise me.
Sometimes, though, I think it might be a weakness in how the character’s written. Here’s a fairly common manifestation: Female MC is stubborn and insists on being self-reliant. Hates getting help from anyone.
That’s all well and good, and plenty of YA heroines these days fit that description. It doesn’t always fly believably, though, and I think sometimes it’s because the author shoehorns those traits into the character. The author wants a character like that, because who doesn’t love an independent female who isn’t afraid to butt heads with other people?
Wanting that kind of character and creating one are two different things. It can’t be pasted on top of everything else the character is. Pasting is for flat objects. Who the character is needs to be pervasive, leaking through in moments that seemingly have nothing to do with that aspect of them.
With my writer-hat back on, how does one accomplish that?
That’s a post for another day. If you have ideas, please share.
Speak up:
1 commentEpiphany of the Week: Hot Girls Can Be Smart
Not my epiphany … that of a 9th grade boy. A very girl-crazy 9th grade boy. (“Aren’t they all?” you say. No, not really. Not like this.)
The student in question was in my room, discussing with another student how astounded he was to discover this older girl (cheerleader, no less) is super-smart and able to help him with his math homework. I said (uh, pretty sarcastically), “Incredible, isn’t it? A hot girl and she’s smart?”
He could’ve really dug himself into a hole then, but he managed a save. “I know! But then I thought about it, and there’s [names several girls in his grade who fit in the cute-and-popular category and have high academic achievement].”
It struck me that teens can be a little one-dimensional in their thinking, but they can also add dimensions to their view pretty easily when they let themselves.
It parallels the experience I often have when students find out I write fiction. “But you teach math!” Like they’re these mutually exclusive things. Like I have to fit neatly into a stereotype.
Then there was the time a student reported that one of the English teachers had said English is harder to teach than math. (I hope she was joking around. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know.) I teased back that he should tell her we can switch places for a day and we’ll see what happens, because I know a thing or two about English.
Really, though … why must we try to fit people into these boxes? The analytical side of me can see the appeal of simple categorization. It keeps things organized. Much easier to split things into hot blondes (in the blonde-joke sense) and ugly nerds, math people and English people, jocks and band-geeks.
Real people tend to have overlap somewhere, though. More often than not, a lot of overlaps. That’s trickier to wrangle with, but makes life a lot more interesting.
On a quick writing note … I’m always glad to see characters that reflect the kind of multifaceted-ness I see in real-life teens. Sometimes, though, I find that one or more of those blended aspects lacks authenticity. The cute, popular girl who reports she loves math/science and is good at it … but doesn’t show any of the thinking processes that go with skills in those areas. Not that she can’t still make stupid decisions—all humans do sometimes. But saying she’s “that kind of smart” isn’t the same as behaving like a person who really is, with all the complexity that includes.
I guess that makes another case for “Show, Don’t Tell.”