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Aug. 20th, 2015 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThis week has felt a bit like herding cats. Very frustrated.
1. Having managed to write 129 pages of my new novel, I got stuck at page 129. The characters just stopped talking to me for some reason. I don't believe in writer's blocks, just story blocks - which happen when the characters stop talking to you.
2. While I've stated on various occasions that I love the idea of doing the worst thing possible to a character to see what they will do, this doesn't always work. Or it works better in theory than in practice. And it has to be done carefully and only if it works within the story thread and in a way that is interesting and pushes both story and characters forward. If you do it? You have to live with the consequences. Too often writers, particularly television, soap opera, and comic book writers will do it -- then go, whoops, ret-con!! Or oh, we did that. Now lets forget we did and move on. Or they end up writing themselves in a corner and are stuck.
For example?
In Buffy, Whedon did this a lot. He even states that he believes in doing the worst thing possible to his characters - to explore them. Keep in mind - Joss Whedon is a HORROR writer and that's how HORROR writers think. He is NOT a science fiction or fantasy writer - they think in world-building terms.
Nor a romance writer -- who thinks in terms of the romantic relationship and how to make it work.
Nor a mystery writer who thinks - how do we solve the puzzle and how does it affect the characters.
The HORROR writer is interested in how horrible things, nightmarish things effect us and how we survive them. They like to torture characters. If this isn't your thing? Don't watch horror. (Honestly? It's not really mine, I don't tend to like horror that much. After a bit, it's exhausting.
And you start to wonder if the frigging writer is a sadist. And if you're one too for watching, reading along.)
Comic books also do it a lot. They also do a lot ret-conning. As too do soap operas. I have to admit to enjoying it too a degree -- I like what-if scenarios, and have a weakness for emotional upheaval in drama.
That said? I don't think it is always a good idea. Any more than I think gimmicks or hair-pin plot twists are. They have to come organically from the characters. You can't superimpose it on them. You're characters should have some semblance of free will, not appear to be puppets on a string that you the author are manipulating to your whim.
When I was writing Doing Time on Planet Earth - there was a point in the story, where one of my female protagonists had to confront the antagonist of the story and convince him to do something he didn't want to do. My initial impulse was to have him rape or sexually assault or come one to her. She was meeting him in his hotel room, and he was a bit of a womanizer. Also it would be the worst thing that I could to the female protagonist, the male protagonist, and the antagonist (who was the male protagonist's brother). But it was also cliche and would go against the antagonist's character.
(He argued strongly against it in my head. )
ME: I think I'll have you rape Caddy.
Carlos: I don't think so. First? She's not my type. Second? I don't rape people. Not honorable.
Me: You kill people.
Carlos: No I don't. Or I try really hard not to.
Me: But...
Carlos: No. Figure something else out.
You have to stay true to your character. And if you change them, you have to be willing to justify it.
Each character must be complex and a hero in their own head. People don't think of themselves as villains or antagonists. We're all the protagonist and hero in our own play. That's the problem.
We think we're the lead. When in reality, we're just supporting players.
That's not to say doing the worst thing won't work. Sometimes it does. I thought it did work with Spike on Buffy. The split between me and a good portion of the Spike and/or Spuffy fandom, is I really no problem with Spike getting a soul. I found the fact that he sought one out fascinating and in character. It revealed bits of his relationship with Angel, which was in some respects snarky hero-worship or a desire to emulate, however reluctantly and he would never ever admit it. The thing to remember about Spike is over half of what he tells you about himself is a lie. Oh he believes the lie - but it is a lie. He's formed a second persona or false persona, which he plays to the hilt.
Pretending not to care about people that he clearly cares greatly about. The character is the consummate actor.
Now, you could say getting a soul for Spike wouldn't amount to much. And perhaps not. I mean he already appears to show remorse and care about others. But it depends on how you think the world that Spike lives within defines a soul. And how getting one changes Spike as a character within that world and more importantly affects the other characters in that world. The worst thing they could do to Angel and Buffy was to have Spike of all people seek out a soul for his love of Buffy. Why? Because it shines a spotlight on what was wrong with the Buffy/Angel romance and why Angel can't really be redeemed. It makes you as a viewer question that relationship. But more importantly, it makes Angel and Buffy question what they know about vampires. It also makes Giles question what he knows about vampires in that world. In short, from a world-building and mythology standpoint - it changes things a bit, without changing them too much.
The other thing it did - is it explored on a metaphysical and psychological level - the question of guilt. And how people deal with it. How it can drive you insane. And how to deal with the dark side of yourself - do you wall it up and push it away from you? (Which both Spike and Buffy and Willow attempt to do at different points, not quite succeeding). Do you go hog wild and just give in to it, revel in it? (They also all do that, without good results). Or do you find a way of making it work for you...accepting the anima, but not letting it take you over? Making peace with your dragon so to speak?
Giving Spike a soul in the manner that they did enabled the writers to explore various angles or things in ways they couldn't or rather felt they couldn't do within the rules of their made-up universe. Now, you may disagree with that. But really that's like me quibbling with choices you made in your fic. We tell the story that is organic to us. And we relate to the story that is organic to us. We don't think the same. And some stories just won't work for us. But that doesn't mean they don't work for someone else.
For me, giving him a soul worked better than not. I've read a lot of fanfics where Spike wasn't given a soul - and I have to say, they didn't work for me. There was always something lacking. I felt the character was somehow flatter in those stories. Lacked something. While the stories that followed canon and explored the soul or even made him human, worked better.
But I'm looking for something different in the story than many of the people who felt he should have not gotten a soul were looking for. Or at least that's what I think. I just know, that the soulless Spike fics always felt off to me. The character just...lacked a dimension. He was the cool snarky dude - dangerous and edgy like out of some noir novel, but it felt as if the writer was afraid of making him vulnerable, weak, or at war with himself, afraid of losing that coolness. So he felt flat to me. I emphasize to me, here, because, mileage varies.
Anyhow it's late...long day tomorrow with my parents, and then the family dinner at the posh restaurant on the East River overlooking Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline. A little nervous about it. I hate planning and coordinating things. Makes me edgy.
1. Having managed to write 129 pages of my new novel, I got stuck at page 129. The characters just stopped talking to me for some reason. I don't believe in writer's blocks, just story blocks - which happen when the characters stop talking to you.
2. While I've stated on various occasions that I love the idea of doing the worst thing possible to a character to see what they will do, this doesn't always work. Or it works better in theory than in practice. And it has to be done carefully and only if it works within the story thread and in a way that is interesting and pushes both story and characters forward. If you do it? You have to live with the consequences. Too often writers, particularly television, soap opera, and comic book writers will do it -- then go, whoops, ret-con!! Or oh, we did that. Now lets forget we did and move on. Or they end up writing themselves in a corner and are stuck.
For example?
In Buffy, Whedon did this a lot. He even states that he believes in doing the worst thing possible to his characters - to explore them. Keep in mind - Joss Whedon is a HORROR writer and that's how HORROR writers think. He is NOT a science fiction or fantasy writer - they think in world-building terms.
Nor a romance writer -- who thinks in terms of the romantic relationship and how to make it work.
Nor a mystery writer who thinks - how do we solve the puzzle and how does it affect the characters.
The HORROR writer is interested in how horrible things, nightmarish things effect us and how we survive them. They like to torture characters. If this isn't your thing? Don't watch horror. (Honestly? It's not really mine, I don't tend to like horror that much. After a bit, it's exhausting.
And you start to wonder if the frigging writer is a sadist. And if you're one too for watching, reading along.)
Comic books also do it a lot. They also do a lot ret-conning. As too do soap operas. I have to admit to enjoying it too a degree -- I like what-if scenarios, and have a weakness for emotional upheaval in drama.
That said? I don't think it is always a good idea. Any more than I think gimmicks or hair-pin plot twists are. They have to come organically from the characters. You can't superimpose it on them. You're characters should have some semblance of free will, not appear to be puppets on a string that you the author are manipulating to your whim.
When I was writing Doing Time on Planet Earth - there was a point in the story, where one of my female protagonists had to confront the antagonist of the story and convince him to do something he didn't want to do. My initial impulse was to have him rape or sexually assault or come one to her. She was meeting him in his hotel room, and he was a bit of a womanizer. Also it would be the worst thing that I could to the female protagonist, the male protagonist, and the antagonist (who was the male protagonist's brother). But it was also cliche and would go against the antagonist's character.
(He argued strongly against it in my head. )
ME: I think I'll have you rape Caddy.
Carlos: I don't think so. First? She's not my type. Second? I don't rape people. Not honorable.
Me: You kill people.
Carlos: No I don't. Or I try really hard not to.
Me: But...
Carlos: No. Figure something else out.
You have to stay true to your character. And if you change them, you have to be willing to justify it.
Each character must be complex and a hero in their own head. People don't think of themselves as villains or antagonists. We're all the protagonist and hero in our own play. That's the problem.
We think we're the lead. When in reality, we're just supporting players.
That's not to say doing the worst thing won't work. Sometimes it does. I thought it did work with Spike on Buffy. The split between me and a good portion of the Spike and/or Spuffy fandom, is I really no problem with Spike getting a soul. I found the fact that he sought one out fascinating and in character. It revealed bits of his relationship with Angel, which was in some respects snarky hero-worship or a desire to emulate, however reluctantly and he would never ever admit it. The thing to remember about Spike is over half of what he tells you about himself is a lie. Oh he believes the lie - but it is a lie. He's formed a second persona or false persona, which he plays to the hilt.
Pretending not to care about people that he clearly cares greatly about. The character is the consummate actor.
Now, you could say getting a soul for Spike wouldn't amount to much. And perhaps not. I mean he already appears to show remorse and care about others. But it depends on how you think the world that Spike lives within defines a soul. And how getting one changes Spike as a character within that world and more importantly affects the other characters in that world. The worst thing they could do to Angel and Buffy was to have Spike of all people seek out a soul for his love of Buffy. Why? Because it shines a spotlight on what was wrong with the Buffy/Angel romance and why Angel can't really be redeemed. It makes you as a viewer question that relationship. But more importantly, it makes Angel and Buffy question what they know about vampires. It also makes Giles question what he knows about vampires in that world. In short, from a world-building and mythology standpoint - it changes things a bit, without changing them too much.
The other thing it did - is it explored on a metaphysical and psychological level - the question of guilt. And how people deal with it. How it can drive you insane. And how to deal with the dark side of yourself - do you wall it up and push it away from you? (Which both Spike and Buffy and Willow attempt to do at different points, not quite succeeding). Do you go hog wild and just give in to it, revel in it? (They also all do that, without good results). Or do you find a way of making it work for you...accepting the anima, but not letting it take you over? Making peace with your dragon so to speak?
Giving Spike a soul in the manner that they did enabled the writers to explore various angles or things in ways they couldn't or rather felt they couldn't do within the rules of their made-up universe. Now, you may disagree with that. But really that's like me quibbling with choices you made in your fic. We tell the story that is organic to us. And we relate to the story that is organic to us. We don't think the same. And some stories just won't work for us. But that doesn't mean they don't work for someone else.
For me, giving him a soul worked better than not. I've read a lot of fanfics where Spike wasn't given a soul - and I have to say, they didn't work for me. There was always something lacking. I felt the character was somehow flatter in those stories. Lacked something. While the stories that followed canon and explored the soul or even made him human, worked better.
But I'm looking for something different in the story than many of the people who felt he should have not gotten a soul were looking for. Or at least that's what I think. I just know, that the soulless Spike fics always felt off to me. The character just...lacked a dimension. He was the cool snarky dude - dangerous and edgy like out of some noir novel, but it felt as if the writer was afraid of making him vulnerable, weak, or at war with himself, afraid of losing that coolness. So he felt flat to me. I emphasize to me, here, because, mileage varies.
Anyhow it's late...long day tomorrow with my parents, and then the family dinner at the posh restaurant on the East River overlooking Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline. A little nervous about it. I hate planning and coordinating things. Makes me edgy.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-21 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-08-21 12:58 pm (UTC)For me, it depends. It is to a degree a big story-kink for me -- I like to see how they handle it. Self-loathing often can be narcissistic in character - the person has no real sense of self. I found the character of Angel extremely narcissistic, he reminds a little of Don Draper in Mad Men, who also was filled with self-loathing, was incredibly charming, but could not truly love - because there was no sense of self.
That, can get really boring to watch after a while. I got bored of both Don Draper and Angel after a while, because neither really evolved.
Spike's self-loathing was interesting to me because this was a character who had little patience with it. His way of dealing with it - is to escape via "black-outs" with the aid of the First. A way of forgetting. (The Aimee Mann song - Pavlov's Bell really underlines it.) I felt in some respects they explored it better with Spike. Again, it has a lot to do with what draws you, personally, to a story or what your kinks are.
Spike, to me, at any rate, was a character constantly at war with himself. Particularly after the chip and then the soul -- which acted in similar ways on his character. Giving him pain, when he attempted to hurt humans. But he's resourceful and not patient with wallowing in self-pity. Actually he hated that part of himself - the whiny, weak, self-pitying portion. Which is why getting a soul was interesting to me - because suddenly he found himself hating the cool tough guy who raped and murdered more than William the Bloody Awful Poet. He had loved the tough guy persona, spent a lot of time and effort building up that cool character.
And now, suddenly, he was faced with the fact that this character he's worked to build up and adored, was horrific.
I don't think Spike was a narcissistic personality - he appears to be very empathetic in the series - which made him vulnerable. So his self-loathing isn't the sense of no self...but rather the anger at the choices he made and regret over them.
At any rate - that was what intrigued me. That dichotomy, which is lacking in fics that don't choose to go there. Herself tried, but really only managed to explore it when she gave him a soul.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-21 03:49 pm (UTC)I guess I feel that there are many ways to develop a character, and exploring guilt is one perfectly valid avenue, but far from the only one. Writing souled vs. soulless characters is, for me, the equivalent of prose vs. poetry, or black and white vs. color photography. There are things you can do in one medium that you can't do in the other, but that doesn't make either medium 'lesser.' Both have different strengths and different limitations, and for me the attraction is making the two interact, and using both of them to contrast with and illuminate the other.
Clarification?
Date: 2015-08-21 07:02 pm (UTC)And to a degree that may have a lot to do with what the writer and/or reader/viewer is currently going through at the time. (Shrugs).
I'm not saying I didn't find what you wrote or anyone else, for that matter, that preferred Spike soulless, uninteresting. And I am speaking rather generally on the topic.
Nor do I think it can be categorized neatly. As either black &white or technicolor, or prose vs. poetry. I don't think we can put a value judgement on it. For me, Spike continuing without a soul in the verse, didn't quite work. But...that has a lot to do with how I personally viewed the idea of a soul within the series and outside the series. A very long time ago, I had a discussion regarding "the soul" and how it was defined in the Whedonverse in my lj. I think it was back in 2004. And I vividly remember realizing halfway through that no-one on the thread agreed on the definition of soul. And various people did not believe in the existence of souls and felt, rather strongly, that anyone who did believe in the existence of souls was either an idiot or a naive child who hadn't evolved. And the world would be a much much better place, if they'd just give up this foolish and childish way of thinking and get with the program. (Sigh. Which is why I decided discussing this topic was painful and most likely should be avoided along with religion.)
Anyhow, getting back to the topic at hand? I think for me at least, it had a lot to do with how I viewed a soul. (I believe everyone has a soul. And see it in both the series and in life, as something greater than just a conscience. If you don't view it that way -- than your take on the idea of Spike getting a soul would be completely different.)
Herself's take didn't quite work for me. She went too far in one direction -- mainly because she saw a soul as a conscience and didn't quite see it the same way I did.
I did like her exploration of self-loathing to an extent, mainly because at the time, it was a topic that personally fascinated me. What fascinates you is something different.
That's one of the problems with writing a story by the way -- you have no control over what will fascinate a reader. What fascinates you as a writer, may not interest or resonate with a wide-readership. While what fascinates the wide readership may not interest you at all as a writer. It's pure luck when the two interconnect. You can't force it. You can't study readers/viewers and plan it. No, it's sort of a kismet - you just happen to hit what interests them.
I noticed it when I wrote fanfic or meta or anything -- to a degree it's writing style, but also it's the subject matter. And what interests us as writers or readers, isn't always something we ourselves understand completely or can explain. (shrugs) I'm moody.
I read your fic - because I wanted to see what happened if Spike didn't get a soul. It didn't quite work for me within the rules of the verse that I'd figured out or in how I defined a soul. You and I don't define souls in quite the same way. I don't define it as "conscience" but as a spiritual connection to everyone in the universe. The energy that makes us alive and who we are. But I believe in souls, and if you, as a writer, don't, there's going to be that cognitive dissonance. OR if you do, but you view the concept of a soul in a different way -- then yes, it will seem off slightly. It, doesn't, and I want to emphasize this, it doesn't mean that your fic isn't good, or interesting to me, or that I don't enjoy it on a certain level, I do. But I don't quite buy something about it...something is throwing me off. Nothing you as a writer can do about that - no should you. You write what is inside you, what works for you, you communicate it as best you can, and hope the reader connects to it on some level. But you can't force it. You can't make someone see your perspective or grok what you wrote. It's too subjective.
And you can't understand why they don't...that's not quite possible either. It's like trying to herd cats - they have minds of their own.
Re: Clarification?
Date: 2015-08-21 07:32 pm (UTC)It's not so much that that definition of the soul doesn't work for me -- I could see it working fine in some other fictional world. (I don't have any deep personal convictions about real-world souls.) It just doesn't seem to me to quite fit with what little we know about souls in the Jossverse. Ironically, the only people I can recall saying that they felt a spiritual connection to anything larger than themselves were vampires...which I'm assuming is the connection of the demon essence back through generations of sires to whatever Old One spawned the first vampire, and then back all the way to the First Evil. But it's all so vague that I've seen dozens of different takes on what a Jossverse soul is, and you can't really say for sure that any of them is right or wrong.
Re: Clarification?
Date: 2015-08-22 01:52 am (UTC)Yep. Made it a lot of fun to debate though. Actually I think that's partly why people got so into it - because it was vague. Stories that are vague - seem to result in more fans, because there's multiple ways of interpreting it. Reaches a much broader audience.
So I think that may well have been deliberate on the part of the writers. I've also noticed that it is a trend with a lot of genre television serials, and novels. Particularly ones with active fandoms.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-22 02:02 am (UTC)Have to admit that I had similar issues with her Spuffy fic. Some of the stories were just too dark and the characters too brutal. Her Buffy - I had problems with. Also, there was lack of humor or wit in the story. It's a problem I have with Margaret Atwood's writing as well -- beautiful prose, but lacks wit or a sense of humor.
It's a problem I have with a lot of literary novelists and various romance novelists - they lack humor. Too much angst, not enough humor. I want to tell them to lighten up! Stop taking life so seriously.
It's what I loved about the series of Buffy in part - was the humor. And a lot of fic writers - can't quite recapture that. So their Buffy feels off somehow, as does their Spike -- because both characters had a sense of humor. They made fun of their situation, and themselves constantly. Same deal with a lot of fic writers in regards to Xander - if you ignore Xander's sense of humor, the character gets lost.