meridian_rose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meridian_rose) wrote2012-02-26 06:41 pm
meridian_rose) wrote2012-02-26 06:41 pm
Entry tags:
How Fiction Works Writing Meme - Day Twenty Five
I'd almost forgotten about this, and so close to the finish too.
25 - Is there only one correct way to interpret or view a character? What makes a character 'out of character' ? Is everything created by the original author 'in character' ?
I think interpretation is always open to personal biases but it's the character question that intrigues me here. I don't know for sure and I think it's a very interesting question. Where we're talking one author and their characters, I think it can be argued that everything is 'in character'. Where we're talking about characters written by multiple authors [co-authors, tv writers, etc] there's more scope for characterisation to drift.
That said, perhaps the author is having a character act oddly for a particular reason. Or maybe they're changing how the character behaves completely. Or maybe they're using the character to demonstrate a particular point of view that doesn't really match the character's overall behaviour up to this point.
Just the end of section exercises and the index post to do :D
25 - Is there only one correct way to interpret or view a character? What makes a character 'out of character' ? Is everything created by the original author 'in character' ?
I think interpretation is always open to personal biases but it's the character question that intrigues me here. I don't know for sure and I think it's a very interesting question. Where we're talking one author and their characters, I think it can be argued that everything is 'in character'. Where we're talking about characters written by multiple authors [co-authors, tv writers, etc] there's more scope for characterisation to drift.
That said, perhaps the author is having a character act oddly for a particular reason. Or maybe they're changing how the character behaves completely. Or maybe they're using the character to demonstrate a particular point of view that doesn't really match the character's overall behaviour up to this point.
Just the end of section exercises and the index post to do :D
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I think the character interpretation question is really complicated. There have been times when I've thought, 'So-and-So is being so OOC right now!' and it turns out to be a plot point, and there have been times when I've thought it and it turns out the author thinks that is how So-and-So would behave, in which case I may start thinking the show/book/whatever has jumped the shark. But even then, character is one of those eye-of-the-beholder things, almost as much as pairing preferences, so it's hard to say.
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