"How do I write an 'X'?" - Scriblerian Speaks

There are a lot of threads in here regarding questions about how to write this or that type of character. I can understand why - fiction is populated by A: massive numbers of majority-intersection heroes and B: bad, campy cliches that never should have walked out of the author's imagination intact. Being as most of you are young, and liberal, and aware that bigotry in modern mythology is a thing, y'all would like to avoid continuing these stereotypes in your own work. So with that in mind, "how do I write (X person) and not be offensive?" is a valid question.

There are a lot of little pitfalls to be avoided...modern fiction is rife with offensive portrayals, and it can be tough to know how to proceed. However, always keep in mind the basics.

It pays to remember that all of genre fiction is descended from heroic myth...and in those myths the hero is always the reason that good wins out over evil. Seeing this basic trope played out is what we, the audience, pay our money for.

We also pay to see our basic idea of fairness - that sappy virtues like courage, honor and so forth have meaning and value to the world. And we pay to see someone who looks, thinks and believes like we do display those values in their vanquishing of evil.

Simply put, we don't learn our morals from reality. We learn them from myth. Which brings us to my main point - presented as a Maxim because I'm an egotistical son of a bitch like that.

Scriblerian's Maxim of Heroic Agency states: A character's worth to the intended audience is defined by the damage they would do to the story if they were removed from it.

Want to know if your character is a "good" character? Erase them from the story. If the bad guys would win without him/her/zir/ and their actions, then the character is at bottom heroic. If the story proceeds just fine without them, either erase them in fact or give them something more to do.

In terms of character development, it does not matter what color your character is, who they like to sleep with, or what gender they define themselves as...what matters is that they have agency. They must personify those timeless values I talked about earlier, and those values must be superior to the antagonists' power and strength. Like I said, that is what people pay their money to see - and women, people of color, and the LGBT community like heroes too. It really is that simple.

Heroic agency is timeless, genderless, all-ages-appropriate and colorblind. Remember that, and the rest is just doing your homework. Forget it, and...well, you'll end up with people crying foul, justifiably so.

TL:DR: The difference between a good character and a "token" is the difference between a support column and a throw rug - one performs a vital service, the other just hangs out, looks pretty and gets walked on.

edited 16th Jul '13 1:39:11 PM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Ok, and? Are you trying to start some kind of discussion? Do you have a question?

Just making a statement that the people here are free to try and poke holes in. Also, if anyone has anything to add, they can go for it.

I just saw a lot of people asking how to write this or that type of character, as if the process were somehow fundamentally different, and I was pointing out that it isn't...and that treating it as different is how tokenism happens.

If you disagree, go for it.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

If removing my hero from the story means that the end of the world doesn't happen, or is at least substantially put off, (and ending the world is not my hero's goal by any means; in fact he is actively trying to prevent it), then what does that say for my hero's agency?

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

If the story dramatically changes when you take your hero out of it, then your hero has agency. If the story would proceed the same when you take them out, then they don't have agency.

You'd be surprised how many published works can actually fail this test - especially when female protagonists are involved.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

I'd like to add that no matter how you write a character and no matter what their role is or how important they are to the story, you can't please everyone. The odds are high that somebody, somewhere will take issue with their portrayal, but this should not dissuade you from writing them.

edited 16th Jul '13 10:08:13 PM by CaptchaTheFlag

Quod possumus!

What Capcha said. You simply cannot please everyone.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I would say that DS's criteria of agency is the minimum element that any character has to have, but by itself it wont always be enough. DS is defining agency by the effect that a character has on the plot, but a character can play an essential role and still be objectionable, if the plot itself is objectionable. For instance, a plot could hinge on a female character seducing the bad guy. This may play a critical role in resolving the conflict in favor of the good guys, but if that is all that she can do, while other characters, who are male, do other things, this wont come across well.

A slightly different case in point might be the Danerys character in GRR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. She plays a critical role in a major sub-plot within the series, but her only apparent form of agency is inspiring other people to follow and serve her. Consequently, she is a controversial character to the fans.

In order for a character to be really well written, I think that the type and amount of agency, and the characters role within the plot, all have to be appropriate given readers' expectations and an awareness of social perceptions in the real world. This will be different for different genres and the approach the author wants to take with respect to the traditional troopes within each genre.

BTW- I'm not sure why DS limited his statement to heroic characters, but I think very similar considerations apply to other character roles as well. I'm writing an action adventure novel in which the villain is an Islamic terrorist. I'm being very careful in how I approach this character- being neither a Muslum nor a non-American I know that I'm navigating a minefield. I want to do this in a way that's sensitive and simultaneously serves the story. That's a tall order, though!

edited 17th Jul '13 9:18:00 AM by demarquis

Er, what? Daenerys is controversial?

I thought she was beloved. She looks beloved to me.

Read my stories!

She is hated, it is known.

This is getting rapidly off-topic. It's enough to say for now that opinions about Dany are variable.

Fair point, although the maxim I stipulated applies to villains as well.

Also...what you said about it being the "minimum requirement" is accurate; there are plenty of other considerations to take into account during the character-development process. However, it remains a minimum requirement; fail that, and all the other work you do is for naught.

And again, you'd be surprised how many protagonists - conspicuously, those of minority persuasions - fail the test of agency.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Can you give us an example of what you are talking about, Drunk?

Okay, here are a couple of examples; I'll pick famous ones everyone here has probably seen or heard of...The Terminator and Shaft.

First off, The Terminator. Now, most of you are probably not old enough to remember how well-worn the whole "damsel in distress" plot had gotten for action flicks; even in 1984 that plot was a high-mileage clunker. On the surface, there isn't much to distinguish Sarah Connor (in the first movie at least) from the legions of silly useless screaming women populating even good action movies...after all, she spends the first half of the movie helpless and frightened. So why do we like her, but hate the others?

So, point-by-point. When we're first shown the character, she is painted as a fairly ordinary young woman *

, working a crappy job and living in a crappy apartment. She's not very good at her job (she shows up late, spills stuff, etc.) but we sympathize because hey...she deals with it the way most of us would. Namely, by just sorta taking her lumps and getting on with things. I mean, who hasn't worked a shitty job and had a bad day?

Basically we're shown that this is an ordinary, everyday person and that sets our expectations of her behavior.

In short order things start getting bad for her; she finds out about the other women sharing her name getting killed. She blows off the first, but the second gets her attention. Now, what's the first thing she does? What any normal person would do; she tries to call the cops. The phone doesn't work, so she goes looking for one that does.*

Along the way she sees Kyle Reese.

Now, we the audience have somewhat been led to believe this guy isn't a bad person...after all, the other guy is out killing people, and Reese hasn't done anyone any real harm yet. But Connor doesn't know that; she sees a dirty bum with a thousand-yard stare following her, when she suspects someone might be stalking her...what does she do? Try and avoid him, like any normal female in her position would do. She ducks into a public place and goes looking for a phone. The cops blow her off, so she calls her roommate and then goes back to trying the police. Eventually she gets in touch with the police, and they tell her to wait and stay public. She does as instructed.

Why is this important? Because it's believable. We are shown an ordinary, everyday young woman...and when she is put under stress she reacts like any ordinary person in her position would; she stays public and tries to summon the authorities. That's smart, and more to the point it is believable within the context of her character that we the audience have been shown. *

To sum up: Even in the part of the movie where we're being shown how vulnerable she is, her actions are consistent, believable, intelligent *

and above all proactive.

Even as a potential victim she demonstrates agency, trying to improve her situation; sure she's helpless, but her actions are all about getting help instead of doing something dumb on her own. Which is an important difference between her and all the other stupid female characters which populated '80s action movies.

And this theme persists throughout the entire movie. As Reese starts to flag - from wounds and whatnot - she starts doing more of the heavy lifting...first keeping him going, then (in a more obvious display of agency) killing the titular character herself. And considering the context we're shown - the terminator's implacable and ferocious nature is a major part of the movie's tension - her destroying it is a pretty big deal.

Another point I'd like to make here, and that's about the sex scene.

Action movie sex had a bad rap even back then; most intimate scenes were basically just an excuse to show some titties. And when combined with the stupidity and obnoxiousness of most action movie love interests, the guys in the audience were happy...not just because of the boobs, but because at least the actress finally did something we weren't upset about. I'll leave it to the reader to fill in the unfortunate implications present in that sort of characterization.

On the other hand the sex scene in The Terminator was arguably the most crucial sex scene in all of cinema; the story basically couldn't have happened without it, right?

Now, look who makes the first move. Sure, Reese does the Anguished Declaration of Love thing, but he doesn't follow through. She does. So it can be fairly argued that the most plot-critical sexual encounter in movie history was initiated by a woman. Chew on that for a moment.

The result was a cinema classic that both male and female sci-fi fans enjoy. Also, the movie was well-received by critics, some of whom specifically praised Hamilton's character as "surprisingly touching" and "believable". Now, I don't know the feminist opinion of this movie - either in 1984 or now - but I know I've never seen one single it out as a cause for complaint.

So let's move on.

For those of you who don't know, the film Shaft was based on a novel by Ernest Tidyman - who was white, more on that in a moment - and made into a film almost as soon as it hit the stands. According to Tidyman's son, his father's basic reason for writing the character was as follows...

"Why a black private eye? This was how my dad told it. Big cities like New York have winners and losers of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and it's really kind of random who comes out ahead. It was time for a black winner, whether he was a detective or a shoe salesman. So he created this character to be very tough, very cool, very black, a superhero of sorts."

The result was a bad-ass of the first order, beloved of whites and blacks alike, a film everybody's heard of and most of us have seen *

. How did that happen?

Again, its the agency of the protagonist which sells him. Think of the opening scene; the first exposure we have to the character is him coolly blowing off a pair of (white) detectives in search of information. Now, I'm not black...but I've got a sense of history. A black man who feels confident enough to tell a couple of law enforcement officers to go fuck themselves -not angrily, but with a sense of humorous detachment - clearly has a set of balls big enough to need a dump truck. Let's be frank; a black man showing that much empowerment was some pretty heavy shit for 1971. Hell, watch the news...it's pretty heavy shit for the 21st century.

And his sense of agency and intelligence continues throughout the film. Everything that occurs happens because John Shaft makes it happen; either by direct action or by manipulating others. Shaft plays a crime boss and a would-be revolutionary for his own ends, rescues a young girl and averts a mob war that could easily have become a race war *

, all while turning a hefty profit for himself. Yeah, you forgot about that, didn't you? Even while doing the right thing Shaft remembered the bottom line.

Now, there is plenty of bad shit at play in this movie. Shaft as a character hasn't aged well in some ways; his propensity to violence and his hypersexuality - both persistent and damning stereotypes for black masculinity - are not as attractive as they once might have been. But, his agency as a character allows even a modern audience to ignore those negatives more or less. He's a winner, and people of all colors can see that.

The proof is in the pudding as they say, and what was the result of the film? A raft of accolades, including Ernest Tidyman winning an NAACP Image Award...yes that's right, a white guy won an award from an African-American activist organization. He remains one of a very few Caucasians so honored.

I could go on, but what's the point? Agency sells a character - target audience doesn't really matter, race and gender don't really matter...hell, plot doesn't really matter. Both movies I have discussed here have retarded siblings best not mentioned which use the same genders, races and stories but fail utterly in entertaining us.

There you go. Examples. Note: I might edit this post a bit.

edited 20th Jul '13 12:57:38 AM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

Very well said, Scriblerian. I never really thought about it like that before.

Quod possumus!

I agree with your analysis of SC's agency in Terminator, she is a competent character. But us feminists always find a way to feel seixsted against, so I will just point it out here - Sarah Connor's entire justification for being in the plot (and the cause for her empowerment) is her future role as John Connor's mother.

Now, admittedly her take on motherhood is rather, ah, unusual and undoubtedly she is an empowered heroine even in the second movie, but it's there. A woman whose whole existence is defined by her relation to a man (and Motherhood).

...I've pointed it out. It is a trend in female characterisation on the whole. Now I'd also like to mention that there's no point in getting hung up on it in these particular two films, they treated their female MC very well indeed.

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.

@Mont: there was a reason I limited my analysis to the first movie; I feel Sarah Connor suffered what is perhaps the worst case of Character Derailment ever as the series goes on; in the second movie her agency actually diminishes, despite her obvious displays of increased competency...and I'm not even going to talk about what happened after that.

And, you know, it does show in how critics received the character. Despite her being an obvious Distressed Damsel in the first movie, critics actually preferred that to what we saw in the second film.

But that's a discussion for a different thread.

You do make an interesting point about the motherhood thing though; I tend to view that as a Justified Trope. Sure, John Connor is more important in story as the savior of humanity...but we're shown far more of her story than we are of his.

And considering how important parenting is to a person's development, showing the development of a hero from the perspective of the woman who created and nurtured him is interesting. Exploring motherhood as a legitimate, important role a woman can play - because come on, John Connor wouldn't be the man he was without Sarah as his mother - in that department does play with a lot of tropes regarding masculinity and family.

I will point out that for the first two films, John Connor was a background character - or a Kid Hero who needed someone to protect him - whereas Sarah is somebody we're shown intimately...yeah, John's more important to the plot but Sarah is the person we care about and know well.

edited 22nd Jul '13 1:31:02 AM by drunkscriblerian

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

All of that, which is why I don't think you should get hung up on it in these particular films. As for Character Derailment , I saw T2 (several times) before I ever saw T1, so for me it always went the other way around. And no matter what you say, I will maintain that nothing happened after T2. Nothing. There were no sequels.

-engages in self hypnosis-

There's a lot more you could say on Terminator, but I'll desist. This Thread is about agency and stuff.

Complicated - because simple is simply too simple.