This (remote & asynchronous) class is about developing all sorts of characters but does so through an examination of the most fun kind--villains!
It's about how to create complexity in characters--sometimes building it (counterintuitively) through flatness, sometimes through the opposite. And we also get to do some deep thinking about the nature of evil and what it can mean to empathize with those we also abhor. It's one of my favorites!
Starts Mar. 15.
And you know, when characters are not V-illains, but just regular people who make harmful choices, it's really interesting to think about what sort of value system they have and how/whether they messed up according to that system, especially if it's not the same value system as another character--or the reader. Sometimes moral frameworks clash in ways that are very generative for stories.
#WritingCommunity #WritingClass #writing #Characterization #WritingCraft #AmWriting
Jeez. And thinking about competing loyalties. How a character might commit a horrible act but it's done to save someone else.
And I think it's interesting to think about how we sort of rate such things on the scale of evil. Whether harming someone you love is worse than harming a stranger. Whether it's about the body count or the relationships involved or the intentions or a whole variety of considerations.
#WritingCommunity #WritingClass #writing #Characterization #WritingCraft #AmWriting
Very interesting. And yet it tracks that a loved person is more easily forgiven. (But maybe not if the harm was against the one loved? Or I don't know!) I definitely find that in my own life!
I think a lot about how we tend to forgive so much more of POV characters than we do of not POV. Why is that?
But also. We find it easier to forgive those we see as part of our family or community. It's a thing I noticed by paying attention to fiction. But I think it has very significant real-world implications.
@allisonwyss I think we forgive POV characters more quickly because we spend so much time in their heads. We know why they’re doing things and feel the impact of those choices. But at the same time, they aren’t us, so we don’t hold them to the same standard we’d hold ourselves to.
With non-POV characters, we don’t become emotionally attached as quickly, so it’s harder to relate and easier to pass judgment.
Right? And maybe as the reader I sort of agree with both. And the situation is still impossible.
I wonder if that's a way to turn the reader's attention to bigger problems, to systemic issues. I don't know though! I have to think more about it.
@allisonwyss I aspire to write only regular people making harmful choices, but it can be hard. Creating characters who are evil for evil's sake is like a cheat code for creating conflict.
One of my favorite tropes, and I do this constantly in my own writing, is to take the flaws of my protagonists and say, "what if the antagonist has the same flaw, but they respond to it way more dysfunctionally?" The dark mirror/shadow trope, I believe it's called. Like Buffy and Faith from BtVS.
Oh I love that. The same basic flaw CAN manifest in different and interesting ways.
And then shadow self is definitely something I love to talk about in relation to all kinds of characters, really. It's such a great way to surface the inner stuff that's going on.
Allison Wyss
Kate Branden
M.C. Benner Dixon
PhillipBrandon
Shauna GM