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whoa hey a meme!
Pick a character I've written and I'll list the top ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing them that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.*
*I don't think it follows that if other people don't have those concepts in mind they're inaccurately depicting them. For what it's worth.
*I don't think it follows that if other people don't have those concepts in mind they're inaccurately depicting them. For what it's worth.
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(Anonymous) 2012-12-06 05:09 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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1. Natasha didn't have a normal childhood, so she can't relate a lot of the time to what "normal people" feel and think.
2. However, she's a fantastic spy, so she can appear perfectly normal. She can talk perfectly normal and have perfectly normal conversations and fool people into thinking she's an American gal in her late twenties with a perfectly adequate grasp of pop culture, traditional childhoods, and healthy emotions.
3. She never feels normal.
4. Her English is better than most native speakers (she has a substantial vocabulary, because sometimes she has to pretend she's a diplomat, etc), but every once in a while she still searches for words or translates things in her head. It's never obvious that she's doing this--for instance, she doesn't have to pause to think, and her wording is never awkward and she never says, "how do you say?"
5. Clint saved her and she's highly aware of it.
6. She doesn't ever think she can repay the debt to him.
7. She's convinced that she should, and seeks ways to compensate.
8. She wishes she could be Clint when she grows up.
9. She doesn't feel compelled to follow orders.
10. She can't destroy her emotions, though she wishes she could--so she uses them against people instead.
11. So she doesn't visibly emote much around people she cares about.
12. She doesn't really feel guilty about this, because she pretty much always assumes she's being used.
13. I don't do this with every TV/movie canon I get into, but I think because the movie wasn't really long enough for me to feel settled about everyone's speaking patterns, I look at pictures of the cast a lot to try to think about how they would say things. When I look at Johannson, I always notice the way she smiles. It's very unique. And cute. I suppose that's why Bruce notices it too.
14. She trusts people more easily than you might think, because she knows she can take them down. So obviously, she doesn't trust people all the way.
15. Except for Clint, who is Natasha's every exception.
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1. Is that why she was so good with kid!Bruce? He wasn't exactly a "normal" kid, and maybe because of that it was easier?
3. She deserves all the hugs, too. :(
4. (My college Russian professor, though he did have an accent, still had a better English vocabulary than most native speakers. It was damn impressive - I could just sit and listen to him talk all day.)
8. D'aww. Cute and sad at the same time.
13. That is neat! When I read Bruce's interactions with Natasha, I was kind of delighted that he noticed that about her smile too, because I think it's adorable and full of character. (In fact I've enjoyed reading all of the characters because you do such a good job of making me see them, from Tony's intense gazes to Steve's unconsciously noble postures, and Clint's smile too. I love it.)
14. I like this one a lot too.
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4. I took a Dostoevsky class in college, and the prof was actually the Russian prof. Excellent English and more articulate than most--but I have to remind myself not to make Natasha as articulate as my prof was, because otherwise Natasha would stand out. And the point is, she blends in.
13. Thank you! I still feel sort of like I don't have a handle on understanding how to describe these characters, so I'm glad you think it works :o)
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Here are some things I keep in mind when writing Draco.
1) I've never really decided who he is. Some characters, I know exactly who they are and what I want to say about them, and I keep writing different stories because I want to see how those things play out in different situations. Draco, I write in frankly very similar situations, because I want to find out who he is.
2) So most of the things I keep in mind are canon details, because I think the character, canonically, doesn't give us the true sense of a human being who acts in a certain way. He's written as a foil to support/play-off the character of Harry, and I don't get a sense of his actual motivations and what he feels and thinks, except for glimpses (esp. in Book 6).
3) I keep in mind that Draco is very young in canon. I think about how I acted, and how I later changed, and try to remember that there is so much room for growth in him.
4) I keep in mind that canonically, Draco does creative things, such as impressions in the Great Hall, making Potter Stinks! badges, apparently writing lyrics to Weasley is Our King, and I think he may have fed stories to Skeeter.
5) He also did some fairly crafty things, such as (again) the Potter Stinks! badges, fixing the Vanishing Cabinet, and honestly the necklace with Katie Bell and the mead with Ron all were fairly skillful ways to kill someone.
6) He didn't want to kill anyone.
7) He really was very much obsessed with Potter in school.
8) Lucius Malfoy was fairly hard on him, but Draco was always, "My Dad this!" and "My Dad that!" Now, you can say those things and hate your father, but I prefer to think of Draco's relationship with Lucius as fairly complex--he loved him, felt oppressed by him, wanted to rebel against him, feared his reprisals, wanted to impress him, wanted his affection, etc.
9) Draco is never described as good-looking, but also never described as ugly. Therefore I assume he is middling, or else fairly attractive but in a way closed Harry Potter third person POV might not remark upon.
10) Draco's friends appear to honestly love him, or else Draco has some kind of power over them. I often think about the way he had his head in Pansy's lap at the beginning of HBP, or the way Crabbe and Goyle disguised themselves as girls. It could be they just hung with Draco because their families were all friends and they thought they were supposed to, but you'd really think if that was the only reason, they'd've drifted apart. And it could be that Draco just bossed them around and they were more intimidated than friendly, but Draco proves again and again that he just is not very imposing. I prefer to think they genuinely cared for him.
11) Draco makes himself a fool a lot, and people see him do it. And then he just keeps doing it. He keeps doing it and doing it and doing it. His family is very proud, and he doesn't like to be humiliated, so often people write him as completely unwilling to behave ridiculously or take risks etc etc, but it's like Draco just . . . forgets. He completely forgets Harry is better than him at like, everything, so he just keeps challenging him.
12) Draco doesn't really get to choose. Book 5, he really doesn't seem to have an idea of what is going on, and if he does, he has no idea what the implications of it are. Book 6, he's forced into doing a task he obviously does not want, and he spends book 7 terrified. Draco doesn't get to have a period of rebellion because he's too oppressed and terrified. I like to think he has it later, and that in that period, he really tries to decide who he is, deep down. I like to think he really tries to make an impact on the world, because he never got to do so as himself before.
13) This, to me, is fundamental: JKR doesn't really do such a fantastic job of showing where people like the Malfoys, Pure-bloods, and people who support Voldemort are coming from. I mean, you can understand why they thing Muggles are inferior--but frankly, I think Muggles are inferior. She really didn't address why people like Harry Potter (who has been abused by Muggles his whole life) think Muggles are worth caring for. And obviously I think they are, because I'm a Muggle, and also I think caring for human beings is just important. But basically you've got these two fundamentally opposed philosophies, and frankly I can see both sides, and JKR just doesn't really flesh out the background or the history of these people and where they are coming from. And I think that she should have, because it does appear to matter where they come from, because it appears to be a matter of culture.
Pure-bloodedness is written as an analog to aristocracy, and I'm not justifying the misbehavior of the aristocracy in history, but they did have a different way of looking at things, and even though it was wrong--it really helps you understand why they did things the way they did. So, the number one thing I try to remember is that there is this whole other culture, this whole other way of seeing, that we didn't get to see.
So I try to remember that Draco doesn't think of Voldemort as the "bad guy." He doesn't see Harry Potter as the hero or the good guy. He doesn't grow up thinking his dad is the analog of a Nazi, and if he does, he doesn't understand that Nazis are bad--and neither does Lucius.
And--here's another really important part--for a good long while, he doesn't get to see the amazing things that Harry Potter does. At the end of the first book, he just gets told that Harry and his buddies did something amazing, and that's why his House doesn't get the House Cup. At the end of the second, he hears Harry did something amazing again. At the end of the third he doesn't even know anything has happened. From Draco's POV, it must look like Harry Potter is this teacher's pet suck up and show off, and that's really gotta tee Draco off in particular because Draco's trying to show off, but no one notices; Draco's trying to suck up, but no one likes him. They're all just swooning over Harry and he doesn't know why, when he was raised to believe people should be swooning over him--and Harry doesn't give him the time of day.
So that's part of the fundamental rivalry--I mean, Draco thinks that Harry has what he should have had. But also he just fundamentally doesn't understand who Harry is, what Harry is doing, and why. He isn't privy to all the "Chosen One" bullshit; and when he finds out, he has no good reason to believe it. Harry Potter is not the hero of Draco Malfoy's story. In fact, the only hero of Draco Malfoy's story is Narcissa . . . and that's got to kind of fuck you up, when you're 15 and wanna be a big boy like your daddy.
Wow, that got really long.
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Anyway idk if I'm making sense; it's just...it tilted my world too :o)
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2) Combine this with abuse as a child, and consider the idea that those emotions were bottled possibly partly due to abuse as a child.
3) However, canonically (what I understand of canon I read on Marvel Wiki) Bruce's dad is abusive at least in part (or it's the excuse he give himself, anyway) because he fears he fucked up his son with radiation or something. So what were the signs of Bruce being fucked up?
4) He's really freakin' brilliant.
5) But also he was the type of kid who did really creepy things. Like the type of kid you look at and think might grow up to be a serial killer.
6) Eventually he learned that he was creepy and freaked people out, so by his teens he sort of stopped doing creepy things.
7) But he kept thinking them.
8) So pretty much by his twenties he wasn't telling anyone anything.
9) And was very disdainful of most people.
10) And was also disdainful of Betty Ross.
11) Who saw right through him.
12) And decided to try to pick apart his defenses just because she could.
13) And then fell in love with him, because she believed he was a beautiful person underneath all that damage.
14) He wasn't really all that beautiful under all that damage. Betty Ross sort of had a boys-with-damage complex.
15) She doesn't any more.
16) But she will always love him.
17) At first he didn't believe that she was in love with him.
18) And he never believed that he was a beautiful person.
19) In fact, before Betty he'd never really considered his fellow men or other people's feelings. He thought people should look out for themselves and that feelings were stupid.
20) Even after he fell in love with her, he still sort of thought that, and he thought Betty was naive for being so passionate about other people all the time.
21) But he thought she was hot. So he tried to be more considerate.
22) And he thought that it would be nice, if the world was as she believed, so he tried to be more generous.
23) And he loved her, so he would've been any goddamn thing she wanted.
24) And that was partly why he was working on making the super soldier serum.
25) But it was also because he's an arrogant bastard who believed he could make something better than Steve Rogers.
26) But really, he just wanted to make himself kinder and--and gentler, like Betty deserved.
27) In fact, he just really, really wanted to be Steve Rogers.
28) Bruce Banner will always want to grow up to be Steve Rogers.
29) He never will.
30) He sort of hates Steve for that.
31) The Hulk fundamentally changed Bruce's personality. Before becoming the Hulk, Bruce could believe he wasn't hurting anyone with his arrogance and generally closed off nature. Betty helped him shed some of that, but it was the Hulk who made him believe that he'd been a pretty horrible person, and that he should change.
32) He knew that Bruce Banner being a good man was never going to make up for the Hulk.
33) But he really overhauled his entire system of belief over time, and dedicated himself to helping others.
34) He has never seen the Hulk as separate from himself.
35) Though at first he kept trying to.
36) He doesn't hear the Hulk as a voice in his head or a separate presence.
37) Bruce Banner is demisexual.
38) Bruce Banner doesn't know he is demisexual.
39) Since Bruce was hardly ever attracted to anyone, he thought he was a freak.
40) Later, he learned that the word was asexual.
41) But he knew he wasn't asexual.
42) Because he had weird feelings about his mother that he is never, ever going to face.
43) At least he hopes not.
44) Bruce was never attracted to a man before he met Tony Stark.
45) Bruce thinks maybe the Hulk fucked with his sexuality.
46) It didn't; Bruce just hadn't met a guy he was attracted to before Tony.
47) Even though he was in his forties.
48) And then he got to know Steve.
49) And then he stopped thinking about it altogether because it was horrible and confusing.
50) Bruce Banner thinks that the person he was before he was the Hulk is the more dangerous than the Hulk itself, because it's that sort of person who could produce more Hulks.
51) Sometimes Bruce Banner sees that former self in Tony Stark and it terrifies him.
52) But then he realizes Tony's intentions are so much better than his ever were.
53) And that's even more terrifying because what if intentions don't matter at all?
54) Bruce's life has become a series of what ifs; he never has answers. Only questions.
...wow that got long. Apparently I have feelings. *coughs*
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#50-53 in particular break my heart.
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(Anonymous) 2012-12-07 02:38 am (UTC)(link)Wow.
I am in awe of the amount of thought you put into writing these characters. Like, it was obvious already that you do, but seeing it laid out like this is stunning. Aaaaaaah your Bruce is my favorite forever.
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I feel like I discover more about the characters the more I write them, so these thoughts change and grow as I go on, but these were some things I started with.
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2. She doesn't read that way in the movies.
3. Mostly though they avoid it by not explaining where her character is coming from at all.
4. Which means there's a fair amount of creativity involved trying to figure her out.
5. But that doesn't make it any easier for me, because I don't identify with her. I'm interested in what makes her tick.
6. I like to read her as strong and in control of her choices, partly to subvert #1. But also because I don't see how Tony would go for someone who wasn't.
7. I also like to see her feelings for Tony as a choice. She's not in control of all of it--sexual attraction, or how he makes her feel sometimes, but I like to think she decides whether she'll allow herself to be in love with him, and could walk away before she made that decision, and didn't.
8. This is partly because I love Tony Stark as a character, but can't see hooking up with him or why you would want to. Actually, I can see why you would want to; I just can't see why all the reasonable objections wouldn't prevent you. But in this particular instance, I'm not interested in a character who can't help themselves, who lets emotion get the better of her, who does things against her own judgment. That can be interesting, but in this particular stereotypical secretary/powerful man set-up, I've seen enough of it and I'm interested in something else. I'm interested in why someone who confidently and in line with her own judgment, choose to be with Tony Stark.
9. I feel like it's partly because she has her own issues--which, while not as damaging as Tony's, are just as extensive.
10. I interpret her as someone who would simply not be interested in a lower stress job with less responsibilities or less impact on the world. Basically, being one of the most important figures in one of the most important corporations in the entire world is the only job that could make her happy.
11. Other things leave her fairly cold.
12. She fears that this makes her weird and different.
13. Which she is able to hide under a veneer of perfect amiability. She often doesn't talk about the things that make her truly passionate, and is able to converse with feeling, humor, and understanding on any number of subjects. She's very sensitive to other people's lives, concerns, and feelings, and is always considerate of them in every action she takes.
14. And all of this is perfectly sincere. She is a compassionate person and cares about things other people care about.
15. But they don't stir her deep down the way her job, career success, and power do.
16. Tony Stark stirs her deep down.
17. I like characters who act tough and are pretty repressed. Obviously, that is the bit of the way I'm writing Pepper, but I have to remind myself over and over that she is very emotive in the movies and that emotion is not faked. She feels real terror in scary situations and expresses it. Quite vocally.
18.
19. Oh yeah, so in case all of the above doesn't make it apparent, Pepper Potts is a control freak.
20. She's had a number of lovers and was in love with at least two of them.
21. She doesn't really love Tony more or less than those other two.
22. But she has to admit that he excites her more.
23. The number one thing I kept in mind while writing the Pepper that I've written so far is the fact that she stuck with Tony when he was developing weapons and acted like a playboy. When he decides to renounce these behaviors, she announces she can't handle it and that she's going to walk away--and the reason is because he's putting himself in danger. This has some interesting implications for her morality. Sure, she could be just upset and frustrated because she loves him and doesn't want him to get hurt. But I like to read it as she is more concerned about him than she is about the bigger picture. She has less of a concern for abstract morality and also the fate/future of the world than she does for concrete personal feelings.
When I think about this I often think about the difference between Spike and Angel. Angel focuses on this abstract concept of righteousness. Spike focuses on his relationship with Buffy--a woman who is herself righteous. I don't think one focus is more right or more valuable than the other. However, I really identify with Angel, because I understand abstract righteousness. I really don't identify with Spike, because it just feels wrong to me to put my feelings above what I think is right; or to put one person I love above a hundred people I don't know. Even the way I'm wording this is skewed, because I'm making it sound like the way that I view the world is better. But it's not; it's just a different way of interacting with the world. That abstract value can be just as damaging in its own way, partly because it doesn't put value on individual peoples.
Anyway, what I mean is that I try to view Pepper as someone coming from a completely different moral stance than a generic "I try to do the right thing."
24) I feel like Pepper really, really likes to win.
25) And that makes her do and try things she might not otherwise try.
26) And that when it comes to Tony, she really, really wants to win.
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Anyway, thank you so much for all this rich characterization food-for-thought.
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Yeah. I find this frustrating. Because I still want to BE THE BEST, but more and more I find I son't actually want to. How do I manage to want and unwant the same thing? Or want different things. Idk.
am suddenly thinking of myself as a combination of Pepper Potts and Bruce Banner
Well, what I love about fictional characters is that they are just manifestations of one person's mind. Well, in the case of Pepper and Bruce, obviously different people invented them and worked on them--but in the end they all just illuminate different aspects of ourselves. Real people do this too, but it's harder to see because real people are more complex (and I think that in some ways we are less comfortable ripping apart real people for this kind of analysis).
Anyways, I find that even when I write characters with whom I do not identify, such as Tony and Pepper . . . I end up identifying a lot in spite of myself.
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To write is to call up little bits of yourself to act as the characters you write - how could you not identify in spite of yourself, even just a bit?
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Harry?
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Right? Right. So true. Um, Harry. ok.
1) I keep in mind that Harry was abused as a child.
2) And he has anger management issues.
3) And that what he went through at Hogwarts was not a normal childhood/teen years. He was under a lot of pressure, forced to do violent things, and often fearful for his life and those of people he loved.
4) So he's probably pretty fucked up.
5) He didn't get to spend a lot of time socializing, so I tend to imagine he's bad at making friends, small talk, and getting to know people.
6) I keep in mind that he didn't like to study, and often got Hermione to do intellectual tasks for him.
7) So I try not to think of him as an intellectual, philosophical or in general someone who sits around and thinks about things.
8) He's not all that insightful either.
9) He's more of a man of action.
10) Things were expressed to him as binary when he was young (Dudley is beloved, you are not). This continued throughout his childhood and teen years (Voldemort is evil, you are not). Harry has trouble not seeing things in black and white.
11) However, there were obvious hints that the world was gray: he found out his father could be kind of a dick. He found out Voldemort had a similar background. Snape saved him in Book 1 even though Harry was convinced he was evil. I've never thought about it in quite this way before, because I've never really written it down like this, but I guess I feel like Harry felt there was something missing from his binary viewpoint--but since he never really sat down and thought about it, and Hermione didn't explain it to him, he didn't really get what he was missing.
12) Harry also saw the world as binary because people acted as though it was, and his childhood was so fucked up that he didn't have the means and time to make other discoveries. Death Eaters and Voldemort saw the world as black, and forces on the other side chose to see the world in white, partially in order to be able to fight. Dumbledore knew the world wasn't binary, except he had to express to Harry the idea that it was so that Harry wouldn't shirk his duty. Maybe Harry always knew that there were things Dumbledore wasn't telling him.
13) Harry doesn't actually like binary. People treating the world as binary was why the war happened, and how Harry got locked into step with this, "You must slay Voldemort!" gig.
14) The reason I ship Harry with Draco is I feel that if Harry learned that Draco was more than Harry thought he was, Draco would always represent for Harry that there are deeper truths than black and white. Every time Harry looked at Draco, he would see the world for all its colors, and once he saw it, he would never be able to unsee.
15) I think Harry feels like his life was chosen for him, which it mostly was.
16) I feel like Harry feels the way he does about Ginny for a number of reasons, not the least of which is a Laurie-esque desire to be with someone from the family. I think it also has to do with Harry doing things that are fated, and it feels fated for a number of reasons--canonically she resembles his mother; also, she's loved him since she was little and he saved her when she was young, which are very similar to the beginnings of many fairytale romances.
17) Harry is very serious and dramatic a lot of the time. He also feels pretty sorry for himself, but expresses most of that self-pity as anger, since he thinks that moping is weak.
18) Harry thinks that plenty of things are weak. Vernon Dursley reads as pretty conservative, and Harry was raised in that atmosphere. Then when he gets to Hogwarts, he gets into all these situations where asking for help, giving up, admitting he can't do something etc would likely result in The End Of The World. Thus he has some pretty stereotypically "manly" behavior, and represses a lot of emotion.
19) But Harry is also funny. His tends toward flat delivery of one-liners, and people often can't tell if he's joking.
20) Lots of people are afraid of him, especially after the war.
21) Harry is very attractive.
22) Harry is quite sure he's attractive. He's pretty sure everyone just wants a piece of him because he's Harry Potter.
23) Harry often wishes he wasn't Harry Potter.
24) Harry gets upset when Ron and Hermione fight.
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The reason I ship Harry with Draco is I feel that if Harry learned that Draco was more than Harry thought he was, Draco would always represent for Harry that there are deeper truths than black and white. Every time Harry looked at Draco, he would see the world for all its colors, and once he saw it, he would never be able to unsee.
especially that. That's so cool.
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