I love this post because it rings true for me for many reasons. First of all, I think you're making an importantt distinction between "love" for characters and "infatuation" -I would assume that generally love for characters, makes for great writing, while infatuation with them will make for crappy writing. Because in my opinion, "love" is the same thing as "recognising" and "accepting", ie, you recognise the person as who they really are, without rose-coloured glasses, and you're honest and accepting of the flaws they have and mistake they make, but love them nevertheless, whereas "infatuation" is having those rosecoloured glasses on, and putting the object up on the pedestal. I think it's pretty common for female writers to do this to their female characters as well, btw. Just look at Mary Sue, how oftten have you not seen the writer of her defending her with flesh and bone, totally uncomprending the fact that the readers aren't as in love with the Mary Sue as the writer herself is? (And yes, I'm generalising here, since there are both male Mary Sues, and male writers probably write them too.)
People are fascinating, so much so that even when I don't like someone, I find them interesting. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a dull person (dull characters? yes. people? no.). Even someone who lives a dull life is a whole world entire, with unseen currents and hidden waterfalls. We live in a world that is both enormous and tiny, partly so because there are billions upon billions of separate lives, bumping together and drifting apart again, captive universes huddled inside a small town or racing down narrow streets.
Yes, this is so true. This is why any character who seem like a real, live person can never be dull to me. If a writer finds one of their own characters dull, they are probably doing something wrong with them. I do think it's possible to create good characters that you don't like (even though I would probably not be able to write characters I don't, on some level, like myself), but it's not possible to create a good character, if you find them dull. You must find something in them that makes them interesting. And you always can with a real human being, so you should be able to, in a character as well.
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regna
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Date: 2005-05-06 09:58 pm (UTC)People are fascinating, so much so that even when I don't like someone, I find them interesting. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a dull person (dull characters? yes. people? no.). Even someone who lives a dull life is a whole world entire, with unseen currents and hidden waterfalls. We live in a world that is both enormous and tiny, partly so because there are billions upon billions of separate lives, bumping together and drifting apart again, captive universes huddled inside a small town or racing down narrow streets.
Yes, this is so true. This is why any character who seem like a real, live person can never be dull to me. If a writer finds one of their own characters dull, they are probably doing something wrong with them. I do think it's possible to create good characters that you don't like (even though I would probably not be able to write characters I don't, on some level, like myself), but it's not possible to create a good character, if you find them dull. You must find something in them that makes them interesting. And you always can with a real human being, so you should be able to, in a character as well.