When you are writing characters one of the harder things to do is creating personalities. It's really easy to fall into the trap of making someone a caricature instead of fleshing them out a bit more. We use shorthand in fiction a lot to let you know who you are dealing with. Who is the good witch and who is the bad witch. But it's easy to get sloppy and go over the top.
Reading about a slew of things former President Trump did over the years this morning and was reminded of the number of times I would preface a news article that I linked with, "You wouldn't believe me if I wrote him this way."
Because that's the biggest part of fiction, right? You know I'm making it up. You know I'm lying to you the whole way. BUT you have to believe it for it to work. You have to agree to suspend disbelief and act like I'm telling you something that happened. And as soon as my character becomes a caricature you're out of there.
It's a struggle. Because it's just easier to give you all the short hand clues as to who someone is. To get around it I generally paint really light strokes of personality on my people. You get flashes of who they are with what they are doing. But they tend to talk a lot and do less. (Hmm...I wonder why?)
I also like to tell stories that don't go the way you expect them to all of the time. For that I have to really be careful not to give too big of a tell in my character's personality. I can't pull the twist ending out of thin air though either. There has to be something there that when you go back and re-read it (if you go back and re-read) you will see, oh there it is. I see now... If I just write a straight up story then take a left turn it doesn't work. You don't believe me.
Talking to Dana about some research she was doing into the science for a story she's working on and told her that was our biggest difference, she researches and I just "sounds about right" it. She does the science research for the same reasons I was talking about characters. If the science is wrong, and you know it's wrong, you are pulled out of the story and that's that. You have to trust the story, the science, and the path to keep agreeing to believe the lies you are being told.
It's all a bargain we make. Reader and author. You believe me. I will try not to make the lie really obvious.
And people who read, watch, consume in any way fiction all make that deal. And we are all really willing to go far to make it. I go to musicals. I like musicals. I am fully willing to believe that people break out in song and dance routines to express how much they hate the traffic on the 405. Yup. I'll buy it. I watch some science fiction. I am fully willing to believe that the majority of alien races speak English and are bipedal. Okay. Works for me. I mean, I might just make the excuse that there is a universal translator involved but that actually gets more murky for me when those are introduced. Like how would you get a universal translator that works with an alien race you've never encountered before? That doesn't make sense...and I am out of the story for a moment. Best to not address it and let it just wash over me to not think about until later.
Because that's the other piece. I can think about something later and still have enjoyed the story while I was in it.
SPOILER ALERT FOR WAKANDA FOREVER:
The princess goes to the underwater kingdom. She is told she's the first outsider they have ever let be there. So why did they have a dive suit for her?
It pulled me out of it when Katie and I saw it in the theater and again when Brent and I watched this weekend. But there were other things that didn't bug me at the time that after watching it I thought about and thought, well that doesn't make sense. But they didn't pull me out of the story at the time.
BACK OUT OF SPOILER ALERT
You have to be careful with the agreement.
And that means writing realistic characters.
What I really need is the republicans to get better at it.
The Tucker Carlsons and Donald Trumps and George Santoses are pulling me out of their story and I just can't buy into the lie they are trying to sell me.
Not that I have ever agreed to buying in to it, but come on...at least try.
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