Meme

[brigdh]

I'm stealing a meme from, well, everyone, even though I've been bad and haven't answered anyone else's. Hypocrisy yay!

Pretend for a minute that the only contact you have ever had with me is through my fic. We've never exchanged LJ comments or emails, never hung out in chat or on YM, never talked on the phone or met each other in person, none of that stuff. The only thing you know about me is the kind of fic I write.

What kind of person would you think I am? How would you describe my attitudes and opinions about real-life issues? Or, to use the rephrased question:

Based on the way I write my characters, and the way they speak, think, and behave, what would that say to you about my attitudes and opinions about real-life issues?

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

it's tremendously difficult to answer

It is. And for most of the people who have posted it, I feel like I'd need to go back and read their work; I don't remember enough off-hand to have any coherent image of them. You should post it, though!

Still, I'm amazed again by your ability to pick things out of fiction. You're right that you don't need to quote text, because yes to all of them, but I'm shocked that they'd seeped through so clearly into my writing. I had no idea.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Hey, I went to a fancy school to learn to do that. It would be embarrassing if I never could.

But those three are easy to see, although it's less easy to explain the one about picking on the weak than it is to explain the other two. It's relatively unusual for people to really pay attention to the world around them; the degree to which you perceive and note sensory detail in all your work, and draw attention to detail that means something because it's not part of a standard pattern, makes it a good bet that you'd be equally observant in real life. That, in turn, means that you're relatively unlikely to be an ideologue, because you'll notice facts that don't fit an ideology where most people would be incapable of noticing the facts, or correctly evaluating them, once they'd adopted the ideology in question.

As for the thinking with your thoughts rather than your feelings, one need only pay attention to the way your POV characters tend to think. It's true that a writer might try to fake that because of the way she sees a given character, but it's also a difficult thing to fake convincingly for anyone who doesn't come by it naturally. Finally, as to sheer intelligence -- well, I actually have a whole theory about this, having to do with the range of intelligence of the characters a given writer can manage believably. You often see writers who're merely reasonably bright trying to write characters who're supposed to be brilliant, and it's always sort of painful: the cruel fact is that it's hard to imagine what it's like inside the mind of somebody who's really, substantively smarter than you are (as opposed to someone who's merely quicker).

Much more rarely, you'll also see writers who can't write a stupid character at all, and I've come to think that the reverse of the first issue is at play in those cases -- that the writer is herself so smart that she cannot begin to imagine how the world looks to a not-very-bright person. So even if she tries, it's unconvincing, and a lot of the time she knows better even than to try. As I say, it's relatively unusual, and it always jumps out at me when I see it.

See? Pretty straightforward, really. I'm too much of a coward to go and take big intuitive leaps with a lot of this stuff.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm still impressed by how accurately you managed to draw your conclusions. Like this?

because you'll notice facts that don't fit an ideology where most people would be incapable of noticing the facts, or correctly evaluating them, once they'd adopted the ideology in question

Someone accused me only a few days ago of always needing to play devil's advocate, but it's not that I like to argue. It's just that I get annoyed when people continually reduce to a complex problem to a simple solution, and then ignore all the rest of the still-present complexity for the sake of, I don't know, proving their side right or something. So while you're right, you're still so right that I find it surprising.

well, I actually have a whole theory about this

Oh, that's interesting! But I think you're very right. I was reading a book a little while ago with a character who was supposed to be so smart, a genius of incredibly subtlety who was known throughout the country for his intelligence. And yet, in every scene where he should have displayed this trait, he just... wasn't. He wasn't bad, but I couldn't imagine that he would actually be famous for his skills, either. It really was painful to read.

Though, heh. Does this mean I can't write stupid characters?

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

people continually reduce to a complex problem to a simple solution, and then ignore all the rest of the still-present complexity

Argh! Greedy reductionism -- it's like waving a giant red flag in front of me. It's my bugaboo to end all bugaboos.

Does this mean I can't write stupid characters?

Actually, yes. I think how you write Goku is a completely telling example. Okay, so Goku isn't of course stupid, but he is uneducated and intellectually not very developed. And yet when you write him he's so clearly smart and canny and insightful. And if it wasn't so very late, I'm sure I'd have some point to make about how rendering smartness without relying on intellectual trappings is more difficult and telling and whatnot.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

rendering smartness without relying on intellectual trappings is more difficult and telling and whatnot.

I don't know about more difficult, but it's certainly telling. As in, strongly diagnostic of that whole thing where the writer is too smart to be able to write a stupid character. It's like, there you are, you've got a character who doesn't have any formal education or guided intellectual development, who is presented in canon as emotionally and intellectually young despite his vast age. So you consider his POV, you look around inside his mind, and you find -- well, come on, there's got to be something there, right? Something more complex than, food good, Sanzo pretty? So you find it and put it all there, because for there to be nothing complicated and perceptive is just -- it's not only not interesting, it's not even comprehensible.

I suppose I shouldn't say categorically that you can't write stupid characters, since I can't recall seeing you try. But I suspect you can't. And really, why should you? There are so many other people who can.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh. I suppose I'm just proving your point, because my first thought when reading this was Wait, there are people out there who don't have boggingly complex stuff going on under the surface all the time? Really? ...How does that even work?

Also, I feel like I should say thank you for the compliments. Everyone uses this meme to say such nice things!