Pet Peeve #7-Who Was That Guy?
C1424
I'm going to go out on a limb, leave lurker-mode, and disagree with some things
in this post.
>1) Is the character good, bad, or neutral?
You know, however a reader may choose to write her characters, I have yet to
encounter a single real human being that I can honestly say falls into one of
these categories.
>If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for him.
>You can, but the impact the killer has on your story isn't quite the same.
That may be true, but I think that the impact is more realistic. I prefer
stories in which I'm torn as a reader between my sense of justice and my sense
of compassion. I prefer stories that don't give me an easy way out of a
situation. It leaves the judgement of the bad guy up to me.
And really, I don't believe that anyone is all good or all bad. Everyone is
human--everyone has laughed and cried, has had a moment of true sincerity and
weakness and good intention. If I can't believe that a "bad guy" has had that
moment, then I'm not going to take him very seriously. He'll never be real to
me. And as for secondary characters, I happen to get annoyed when nasty
characters are made heinous just to provide an easy scapegoat. 'He made lewd
comments to Scully--of COURSE he's going to be an ax-murdering Tom Colton
wannabe.'
I consider it the greatest achievement of a writer to be able to give each one
of her characters at least a little human dignity.
>When he
>dies or is captured at the end of the story, make your readers feel as though
>there is a god, that there is some justice in the world. Otherwise, they are
>going to feel cheated, and rightly so.
If someone needed an immediate, complete sense of resolution after every
conflict, then they would have a hard time watching 'The X-Files'!
Respectfully disagreeing,
Cheryl
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^^*^*^*^*^*^*
Co-Founder, Fox William Mulder on the Web
http://members.aol.com/sally700/fwmw.html
" People that are really very wierd can get into sensitive positions and have a
tremendous impact on history."--Dan Quayle
JenRose
is that each of them manage to have characters who are COMPLEX, neither
all good nor all bad.
Scully and Mulder don't always do "the right thing", and the Cancer Man
isn't completely evil. Skinner walks a fine line and Krycek is
impossible to place. The reason we hate Spender at the moment is that he
seems too flat. He's a plot device at this point, and so is Diana. Both
characters can still be redeamed and made interesting, but they're not
going to inspire loyalty until they're more complicated then the thin
sketches they are now.
I've recently gotten addicted to Babylon 5 for a similar reason. G'Kar
and Londo are so damned *interesting*. They grow, develop, change,
mature, and they don't behave as "cookie cutters" of good, evil, noble,
or petty.
The problem with following the rules in character mapping is that it is
predictable. If I see a character as a cardboard cutout, I won't care as
much or think as much about what happens to that character. It's okay to
empathize with the serial killer... it adds punch to the climax, by
putting a poignancy to the ending. With such a sheer volume of fiction,
anything that manages to be different while being internally consistant
is going to rate higher for me than something that follows the rules.
Good writing can get away with just about anything.
JenRose - Haven
Queen of my domain!
http://www.jenrose.com
X-Phile T-shirts, Storytelling forum, Fanfiction, and more!
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Katie English wrote in message ...
>In article <19981010011137...@ng87.aol.com>,
>laliz...@aol.com (LaLizWoman) wrote:
>
>>If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for
him.
>...
>>If he is a monster, make him a monster. Don't pull out the stops.
>
>
>Hmm... I've been reading along with these threads with interest, but
I've
>gotta say I disagree with LaLiz here.
>
>Characters that are ALL good or ALL bad are inherently dull; they are
>unrealistic, emotionally ineffective, and helplessly two-dimensional.
>
>Consider one of my all-time favorite movies -- Star Trek: First
Contact.
>(No, really, bear with me here.) The primary reason I feel the movie
>succeeds is its LACK of typical Trek heroism. Sure, they ultimately
save
>the universe, but on the way the characters confront some very real,
very
>human issues: Greed, revenge, and lust, among others. Essentially, they
>must confront the very opposite of the standard Trek idealism. Without
>this struggle, you still have the good-guys-triumphing at the end, but
>it's less satisfying.
>
>I suspect we can all see how the Perfectly Good Guy is inherently
boring;
>Mulder and Scully are pretty damned screwed up in a whole lot of ways,
but
>I think most of us LIKE them. The Wesley Crusher model, on the other
hand,
>is obnoxious, dull, and incredibly annoying. Later on in his
character's
>development, he became much more interesting, and nearly tolerable...
why?
>Because he screwed up. He was no longer the perfect good guy that would
>sweep in and save the day.
>
>Conversely, the Perfectly Bad Guy is equally dull. Sure, it's FUN to
>create a purely evil character and let them get nailed at the end...
like
>the Emperor in the Star Wars trilogy. But dramatic tension is much more
>effective if the characters are more complicated... like Vader. ;)
>
>I have personally found the evolution of CSM's character pretty damned
>fascinating. His motives are murky and his emotional attachments are
>unclear. Though we like to think of him as the ultimate bad guy, HE
thinks
>of himself as some kind of guardian for the safety of humanity (as does
>the entire Consortium, for that matter).
>
>Therein lies the fundamental difference between the Consortium as an
enemy
>and a typical MOTW. Say the MOTW is a possessed doll. Okay... so the
>doll's evil. It does evil things. Scully microwaves the doll. Oooh.
>Whatever. Sorry, I'm unfulfilled.
>
>But, say you're knee-deep in a conspiracy arc. Say your primary
antagonist
>is the Well-Manicured Man. Okay... so he's working for this
multinational
>group that's conspiring to hide the truth about the existence of
>extraterrestrial life from the rest of the world. But THEN... he turns
>around and gets himself blown to bits so that he can provide Mulder
with
>the means to save his partner from that very conspiracy. That's much
more
>interesting, and when that car blows up, you're hard-pressed to cheer
his
>demise.
>
>In short, if you're going to create a bad guy, you need to decide what
>your final goals are, how you want your audience to react. If you want
a
>pure sense of victory, of evil biting the dust at the hands of good,
then
>create a static, Basic Bad Guy. But if you want to complicate the issue
>some, make the victory a little less pristine, go ahead and make your
bad
>guy human... give him some personality, give him some motivation.
>
>Neither method is inherently BETTER. It's okay to have a Basic Bad Guy.
(I
>happen to LIKE Monsters of the Week, I just didn't care for "Chinga.")
But
>for challenging characters, the Complicated Bad Guy is more
interesting.
>(I also really like the conspiracy stuff.) It's just a question of what
>kind of story you want to tell.
>
>My $.02.
>
>--katie
>
>------------------
>
>Katie English
>http://www.nd.edu/~kenglish/
>keng...@nd.edu
MAC
LaLizWoman heeft geschreven in bericht
<19981010011137...@ng87.aol.com>...
I am enjoying these humorous lessons in writing very much.
As much as I enjoy your wonderful stories.
As to your inclusion of real places. I hate you for telling me of a great
cheesecake place, because I found out the don't send international and I'm
dying for a bite of delish cheesecake here in the Netherlands. I'll NEVER
forgive you for this.:-)
MAC
Loligo Opalescens
>If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for him.
>If he is a monster, make him a monster. Don't pull out the stops. When he
>dies or is captured at the end of the story, make your readers feel as though
>there is a god, that there is some justice in the world. Otherwise, they are
>going to feel cheated, and rightly so.
Like some other posters, I have to take issue with these bits here.
You were dead right when you said that heroes need some complexity and
some flaws to be interesting, but the same thing can also apply to
villains, and in the XF universe, it often does. Think of the
"monster" in SLeepless... what was his name... August Cole? Augustus
Cole? He was killing out of very sympathetic motives: to put his
comrades out of their misery and to punish the people who did this to
them. You might argue, "Well then, he wasn't the real villain of the
piece," but nevertheless he was killing people, which is a bad thing,
and it was Mulder's job to stop him. This kind of moral ambiguity and
complexity is not uncommon on the show, and I like seeing it in
fanfic, too.
L.O.
Pamela T. Pon
>If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for him.
>If he is a monster, make him a monster. Don't pull out the stops.
Actually ... I think what you mean is that writers *should* pull out
the stops. All of them, to be precise. ;-D
(Anyone know the origins of the phrase "to pull out all the stops"?
Something to do with some kind of mechanical device? Or a musical
instrument? [For some reason I have the image of a huge pipe organ
stuck in my head in connection with these words ...])
* Saturday on DUE SOUTH: "Diefenbaker's Day Off" * 11 am EST/PST on TNT *
R N Varthen
>
> laliz...@aol.com (LaLizWoman) wrote:
> >If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for him.
> >If he is a monster, make him a monster. Don't pull out the stops.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Actually ... I think what you mean is that writers *should* pull out
> the stops. All of them, to be precise. ;-D
>
> (Anyone know the origins of the phrase "to pull out all the stops"?
> Something to do with some kind of mechanical device? Or a musical
> instrument? [For some reason I have the image of a huge pipe organ
> stuck in my head in connection with these words ...])
You got it. If you pull out all the 'stops' on a pipe organ, you
get this huge, gargantuan, THUNDEROUS sound that will engulf an
entire cathedral. Thus the term of 'pulling out all the stops' to
describe something that's over the top.
I also will speak up for a seemingly sympathetic bad guy. His
sympathetic characteristics make his betrayal of the protagonists
all the more traumatic (a) for those same protagonists, and (b) for
the reader. They're emotionally invested in this character, and
when someone they trusted turns out to -not- be trustworthy, it's
all the more jolting to them.
Now -- it should also be said that doing -just- the opposite is also
an incredibly effective characterization tool.
I mean, look at what a hard-ass Skinner is in the first episodes he
appears in, and how attached we all are to him now that we -know-
he's one of the good guys. Being uncertain of his loyalties made us
dig into his character, find out about him, and then to realize that
someone we were prepared to willingly do in (or at least see written
out) was, in fact, one of the staunchest allies M & S could have
added an element of surprise to the series; the sort that makes one
say "Sheesh. Wish I could say _I_ made this...."
--Rebecca.
>
> * Saturday on DUE SOUTH: "Diefenbaker's Day Off" * 11 am EST/PST on TNT *
--
This message was brought to you by six characters in search of an
opera.
JourneyToX
Just as there are heroes who have no inner ambiguities (e.g., does James Bond
ever stop to contemplate his relationship with his mother and other women, or
does he just suavely blow the bad guy up?), there are bad guys with no inner
ambiguities (fiend is the term that screenwriting instructor Dona Cooper uses).
CSM is a bad guy, not a fiend.
Krycek is a bad guy, but maybe, just maybe, redeemable. (By the love of a good
woman! ROFL!)
Tooms was, I think, a fiend, but he was just doing what he was genetically
programmed to do. Same with the guy in 2Shy.
Gerry Schnauz was pretty close to a fiend.
Donnie Pfaster was a fiend.
Sometimes you fight fiends, sometimes you fight bad guys. Your choice as an
author as to what you pit M&S&S against.
Journ...@aol.com
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
David Duchovny, about Mitch Pileggi: "He's a big boy!"
Mitch Pileggi, confirming same: "Oh yeah!!'
--The X-Files Season Three Gag Reel
See, I told you the truth was out there!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
JenRose
"Don't pull your punches"
and "Pull out all the stops."
Kind of like a Bat's Chance In Hell....
"A bat out of hell" and "A snowball's chance in hell"
I love those things... anyone got any other ones?
Jen
Pamela T. Pon wrote in message <6vnqht$ls5$1...@shell3.ba.best.com>...
>laliz...@aol.com (LaLizWoman) wrote:
>>If you create a killer, you can't make your audience feel sympathy for
him.
>>If he is a monster, make him a monster. Don't pull out the stops.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Actually ... I think what you mean is that writers *should* pull out
>the stops. All of them, to be precise. ;-D
>
>(Anyone know the origins of the phrase "to pull out all the stops"?
>Something to do with some kind of mechanical device? Or a musical
>instrument? [For some reason I have the image of a huge pipe organ
>stuck in my head in connection with these words ...])
>
Sheryl Martin
just being plain wrong...
*********
actually, the MOST annoying thing I find as a reader is when the secondary
characters push Mulder and Scully into the background - not just for a few
chapters or to announce a plot development, but take center stage...
in which case M&S become nothing more than sidekicks to the secondary
characters - which can work if you're dealing with the characters from the
Show itself; but if they're original characters then I tend to get lost
and flip forward frantically to find M&S again...
I guess the episode that best demonstrates this for me would be "The List"
- loved the show, but I could never figure out why M&S were there - they
did nothing except wander around and discover the bodies... the real
"stars" of that show were the inmates and the warden dealing with the
internal/external struggles there...
(and before anyone chortles and hits the reply key to nuke me, I point out
that St. George has NEVER stolen the show in any of my stories... she's a
sidekick of the first degree...)
pre-emptive ducking...
;-)
If
you will
practise being fictional
for a while, you will understand
that fictional characters are
sometimes more real than
people with bodies
and heartbeats
Richard Bach
"Illusions"
GeoRed
In article <eqTvF1I99GA.119@upnetnews05>, "JenRose" <jenr...@email.msn.com>
writes:
>I love those things... anyone got any other ones?
It reminds me of Biff in "Back to the Future"
Make like a tree....and get outta here.
Or something like that. He was always screwing them up.
Heidi
::::::::with head in hands, rocking slowly::::::::::
"It just doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter."
<Mulder: He's not just lean.......he's cuisine.>
Pamela T. Pon
>actually, the MOST annoying thing I find as a reader is when the secondary
>characters push Mulder and Scully into the background - not just for a few
>chapters or to announce a plot development, but take center stage...
>
>in which case M&S become nothing more than sidekicks to the secondary
>characters - which can work if you're dealing with the characters from the
>Show itself; but if they're original characters then I tend to get lost
>and flip forward frantically to find M&S again...
The most disturbing thing I have ever read in my entire life -- including
accounts of real-life atrocities, like MS. magazine's Bosnia articles or
books about the Rape of Nanking -- was the first chapter of "Obsessed,"
posted in the last week of August 1997 (and still available on Dejanews,
if you want to be emotionally scarred for life). The story's summary
states that it is about Walter Skinner & Frank Black solving Mulder and
Scully's Murder, and it should be taken *literally*. The first chapter
was devoted solely to describing, after the fact, in well-written but
utterly HORRIFIC detail, the many myriad ways in which M&S *and* their
unborn child were tortured to death (and *used* to torture each other to
death) in front of each other's eyes. (And I mean *literally* In Front
Of Each Other's **Eyes**. [Oh jeeeez, those EYES!! Aaaaaaaagggghhhhhh!])
I couldn't help thinking that unless Skinner were to suddenly
assume a far larger role in subsequent chapters than he did in the first,
there seemed little point in making this an X-FILES story at all, rather
than a pure MILLENNIUM story. I can understand an author's desire to
increase the visceral shock value of the victims' suffering by making them
characters to whom readers were already emotionally attached, but I still
selfishly wish that he had left THE X-FILES out of it and made it a
straight MILLENNIUM story, with Skinner perhaps joining in to help Black
solve the murder of two *other*, original Agents whose horrendously
mutilated corpses would not have been so immediately identifiable with
the real-life human beings who play them on TV.
Not that the author was irresponsible in any way! He clearly
labeled it as NC-17, stated in the summary that M&S had already been
murdered, and added the (ever-so-slightly understated) warnings
"characer dies, rape investigation" [sic]. It was wholly my fault for
continuing to read past this point -- and to continue reading past the
very first glimpse of the crime scene. It was my fault for foolishly
thinking, as each new, increasingly appalling detail emerged, that it
couldn't possibly get any worse before it finally started getting better.
I have only myself to blame for reading something that will proabably
haunt me for life (and *not* in a good way). In my case, it probably
should have been rated NC-Infinity, because I don't think I will ever
be old enough to read it ...
If my memory could be wiped of just one thing, I would want it to be
wiped of this story. Permanently.
I
wish
I
could
forget
...
* Monday on DUE SOUTH: "North" * 4 pm Eastern & Pacific on TNT *
Vampyres Incorporeal
antagonist in a story can be the nicest guy in the world, but if he is
in conflict with the protagonist, well. . . he's technically the "bad
guy." If you want your antagonist to be evil, make him evil. . . but
he doesn't have to be. Spender was a sympathetic antagonist (yeah yeah
yeah, i know y'all don't like him, but that's how he was designed; a
man protecting his mother and his career at odds with Mulder. He has
sympathetic motivation, but he is also the antagonist.) Quite frankly,
Krycek- a bad guy, can be and has been the protagonist in some
episodes. For true depth in main characters- they have to be able to
be both protagonist and antagonist, depending on the situation. For
one shot antagonists, they just have to be rich enough to hold up the
weight of the evil they perpetrate.
Saundra Mitchell
v...@netdirect.net/slash_e...@ameritech.net
http://netdirect.net/~vii/fanfic/index.html
Gabbygale
Thanks for the warning on that story Obsessed. I probably wouldn't have gotten
past the summary which said character death, I ususally do not, but i sure
don't want to accidentally start reading it if it is half as bad as you say. I
will take your word for it.
Binah
your
house. Ya gotta go out and take a gander. Yep that's right, I went to
DejaNews and read 'Obsessed' by Adam Lee.
It had the makings of a good story. Since only part (1/2) of it was
posted, I guess I'll never know. However, I couldn't see it being
wrapped up in only 2 parts.
However, Miss Pon is absolutely right that this story is not for the
faint of heart. We don't see the murders, but just the description
of the forensic details tell a story you don't want to experience.
But in all honesty, I've read a book on profiling that had scenes
nearly as terrible.
Usually with murder mysteries, you want to go through the murder
to understand what happened or whatever you have to tell yourself
to sleep through the night. It's the allure of a public hanging or
beheading. We wanna see. In this story, the murders are so
terrible you don't want to see. Maybe bits and snatches, but the
whole thing? Umm, that would be too intense. IMO. I think
part of the problem is that we know these characters, they're
not some anonymous victims. Our beloved heroes touched
this way. (that wasn't sarcastic even though it may sound it)
I think if the murders were a little less gruesome or I could be sure
that they wouldn't be reenacted in its entirety, the story could be
really good. Since I was around back in Aug. '97, I'm surprised
I never saw it. It obviously didn't cause a firestorm of critical
reaction as I only saw one other post referring to it. That post
was asking for it to be reposted.
Just my $.02.
--
Binah
Texas Gal Extraordinaire
===========================================================
Brain: "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
Pinky: "Yeah, sure, Brain. But where are we going to find chaps our size?"
Ellen M.
Binah wrote:
> Well, it's just like being told there's a terrible car wreck in front of
> your
> house. Ya gotta go out and take a gander. Yep that's right, I went to
> DejaNews and read 'Obsessed' by Adam Lee.
>
So did I. <hangs head> I couldn't resist.
> <snippage>
> I think if the murders were a little less gruesome or I could be sure
> that they wouldn't be reenacted in its entirety, the story could be
> really good. Since I was around back in Aug. '97, I'm surprised
> I never saw it. It obviously didn't cause a firestorm of critical
> reaction as I only saw one other post referring to it. That post
> was asking for it to be reposted.
>
Funny, huh? If this story had been posted yesterday, I can almost guarantee
there would have been a maelstrom of angry comments about it. . . Strange how
times change.
> Just my $.02.
> --
> Binah
> Texas Gal Extraordinaire
> ===========================================================
> Brain: "Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
> Pinky: "Yeah, sure, Brain. But where are we going to find chaps our size?"
--
Cheers!
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Teddi Litman
"Binah" <v...@pdq.net> wrote:
>Well, it's just like being told there's a terrible car wreck in front of
>your
>house. Ya gotta go out and take a gander. Yep that's right, I went to
>DejaNews and read 'Obsessed' by Adam Lee.
>
I did the same thing.<G> Though when it appeared to be unfinished, I didn't
bother reading it. I just wanted to point out that Adam Lee just posted this
story. The author was Gary Rogers.
Teddi
Pamela T. Pon
>It had the makings of a good story. Since only part (1/2) of it was
>posted, I guess I'll never know. However, I couldn't see it being
>wrapped up in only 2 parts.
Actually, what you see in Dejanews is part 1 of *chapter* 1. Part 2 of
chapter 1 was also posted at the same time, but Dejanews seems to have
missed it. No additional chapters ever appeared. Part 2 was considerably
tamer, consisting mainly of Skinner IDing what was left of M&S' faces,
Skinner informing Mrs. Scully in person, a Clarice Starling cameo,
Frank-Catherine-Jordan stuff, and Frank reviewing the case. I remember
Skinner feeling angry when he looked at Mulder's face because it wasn't as
badly mangled as Scully's: ie., angry because Mulder's digging into things
better left buried always ended up hurting others more than himself (!)
-- a sentiment that didn't exactly endear this Skinner to me. >;-(
Add to this the necessarily detached, analytical approach taken by Frank
(who didn't know M&S and saw this as just another "interesting" case) and
it seemed that there would be no character(s) to identify/sympathize with
in upcoming chapters, since the only characters I cared about were dead.
>However, Miss Pon is absolutely right that this story is not for the
>faint of heart. We don't see the murders, but just the description
>of the forensic details tell a story you don't want to experience.
>But in all honesty, I've read a book on profiling that had scenes
>nearly as terrible.
I've read THE HOMICIDE HANDBOOK while eating lunch. (It helps that I'm
a vegetarian, so I wasn't eating anything that resembled the victims.)
I've read about real-life war crimes that were far worse than this story
(eg. Bosnia & Nanking, as I mentioned). But when I read about those,
I feel I'm doing the right thing by informing myself about atrocities
that occured to real people & crimes against humanity which have been
unjustly covered up and/or forgotten, and which deserve to be retold
& remembered to honour the victims' memories. Reading about what
happened to them is the least we can do, to ensure that we never forget.
But reading about a fictional crime which has been invented and
described in such very great detail purely for *entertainment* purposes
just seems so ... pointless. (For me, that is -- a person who avoids
horror films/literature like the plague. YMMV for those who enjoy them.
It *was* effectively written.) Unless it were to show how a victim
survived & eventually overcame the effects of such torture (like Mulder in
Bliss' "Dark of the Moon"). But to do it to our beloved Mulder & Scully
just to give Frank Black a chance to show off his profiling skills and
Skinner another reason to scowl ... well, maybe it would have been better
suited to a MILLENNIUM creative newsgroup, if there were one.
(Not that I don't think the author had *every right* to post it here! ;-)
* Friday on DUE SOUTH: "The Promise" * 4 pm Eastern & Pacific on TNT *