It Goes Both Ways
Posted By Ardellis on July 4, 2007
I try to make all the characters in my writing into real people, you know, the way you do. Because no one is interested in reading about propped up bits of painted cardboard.
But when you (and by “you” I mean “I”) start delving into the heads of violent antagonists in an attempt at fleshing them out, when you start understanding who they are and why they are the way they are, you start maybe sympathising, just a bit, with their worldview. At least when you’re looking at their world through their eyes.
And you start, maybe, liking them. Just a little. Or more than just a little.
Which can be damned disconcerting, considering the nasty things they do.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s kept me out of writing fiction [apart from the crippling inability to come up with plots...ahem]. I have a bad case of Mary Sue syndrome and I feel so uncomfortable having anything bad happen to the character that I can’t make the story go anywhere.
Meh.
Hi, Frida!
Bad things happening isn’t an issue for me. I’ve made characters that I absolutely adore miserable in all sorts of ways: body parts blown off, kidnapped family members, drug addiction, and torture.
It’s the part where I find out that I genuinely like my villains and can get far enough inside their heads that what they do seems reasonable, at least for the moment. The one I’m working with right now, for instance, is a religious fanatic who’s committing murder for what he thinks are the best reasons. And it squicks me out that when I’m writing his POV, what he does seems perfectly reasonable, given what he believes about the world. Then I finish the scene and look at it from outside and shudder.
Also, about the not being able to come up with a plot thing? I find the plot happens on its own when you create a nice big problem and then throw a handful of interesting people at it.
Ahhhhhhh. Thanks :->