We Can't Repel Bias of this Magnitude!

This week, I've been cooking up a short story inspired by the Five for Fighting song posted at the top of my home page. It takes place from the point of view two characters with two very different perspectives of both the world and their shared situation. Sometime around last month, I posted my thoughts on bias and stereotypes as they relate to writing characters. It's an important topic and it highly relates to my current project, so I've decided to cover a slightly different aspect of it.

"Oh no," you say. "Not the dreaded and much-maligned repost!"

It's not that bad, I promise. Bear with me, it'll be worth it, I swear.....wait, I can never remember if it's

Bear

or...    

Bare

Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter. Anywho, once more unto the purpose of this post.

Today, I want to talk about perspective. Everyone, as in us humans, perceives the world in different ways. As I discussed before, people form personal constructs or stereotypes based on how they view the world. Because we all have different personal experiences or beliefs, personal constructs and simple perceptions therefore vary from person to person. And because fiction, at its heart, is simply a simulation of real or imagined life, we generally want our characters to reflect this. A classic example of this (stolen shamelessly from the guys at Writing Excuses) is to have a hypothetical full cup of water sitting on a hypothetical table in a hypothetical room. 3 people walk into said room and see the cup. Each person (if they were real) would have somewhat different thoughts regarding the cup of water. For example, a nomad from the desert would view the cup of water differently than someone hailing from a more fertile climate.

Now, because I love fun examples, I'm gonna try to demonstrate this further. The example I'm going to use is...


wait for it......

Oh, yes I did. And yes. It is a trap.

Herein lies a valuable lesson within a lesson for everyone: You can learn something for everyone and everything. I promise you that Admiral Ackbar, commander of the Rebel fleet and failed University of Mississippi mascot candidate, has something to teach us about writing perspective.

At the time Ackbar discovers the potentially-fatal Imperial ambush and emphatically delivers his famous lines, several different things might have been going through his fishy head. Let us consider some of the things we know about our dear Admiral:

1. Admiral Ackbar is a member of the Calamari species (I can't believe Lucas named them that), who risked everything to support the fledgling Rebel Alliance. If the Alliance fails, his people will most likely suffer greatly and/or be wiped out by the Empire.
2. Ackbar is an Admiral and leader of the Rebel Fleet participating in the Battle of Endor. By nature, the small Rebel Alliance must be a tight-knit group. He likely cares a great deal about those whom he commands.
3. Lastly, the Admiral is in a dire situation. He has just discovered that his hopes, friends, entire species, and own life are likely about to go up in a fiery miasma of Death-Star-operational-ness. 

So, when he utters his famous lines, "It's a trap!" and "We can't repel fire of that magnitude!", it initially seems a bit absurd and sensationalist. However, when we viewed through the lens of his perspective, Ackbar's reaction is quite understandable and appropriate.

***

When we write characters, we want to get into their heads. What are they thinking and feeling at the moment? How does their past affect them? These questions and others must be considered when we make our characters, and once considered, their actions should match accordingly -- for characters are simulations and analogs for real humans, and they must be real to us for them to be real for our readers. If we fail, and write characters based on stereotypes and give them no motivations and thoughts to inform on their action, the results will be flat and uninteresting. Remember, everyone (and every character) perceives the world in different ways. Write accordingly.

As always, thank y'all for reading. If you like it, feel free to share it and/or comment. I love hearing what everyone has to say. Until next time...

Beware of traps,

J

In Living Color

So, Star Trek wins this week? Good. Mr. Spock approves.

Indeed.

I'm sitting here at Starbucks trying to decide what I want to say this week. I know, I can hear what y'all are thinking:  

Really guy, you're writing at Starbucks? Could you get any more hackneyed?

Well, that's not exactly what I thought, but hey, don't judge. Being in public is good pressure to write, plus there's this pretty girl who works here that I'm kinda crushing on, so in the name of coffeehouse stalkers everywhere, I'm darn well gonna be a walking (or perhaps sitting) cliche.

Like these guys

So where was I?  Right, Starbucks. People-watching is one of my favorite activities since I've started writing creatively, as it allows me to passively observe the human animal in it's natural, over-caffeinated environment. A busy chain cafe like this one, it turns out, is a great place to learn about writing characters.

Whether we realize it or not, when we observe the people around us, we from personal constructs; which my old communications textbook defines as "a mental yardstick by which we make initial judgments about eachother." Many of these constructs conform to societal stereotypes. For example, one might look at the guy standing at the register right now wearing track pants and a tank top and think "fitness nut." Therefore, he will order soy milk in his latte. Most new writers, again whether or not they realize it, use personal constructs when they create their characters. This is especially true for speculative fiction writers like myself.

Like members of the non-literary population, we form our personal constructs from what we observe around us; what we perceive as norms. Unlike everyone else though, we form most of our constructs from the media we consume, or what we see, hear and read. For fantasy writers, these tends to be greats like Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and (nowadays) J.K. Rowling. I know my first fantasy world formed around a bunch of characters loosely a bit too closely molded after Rowling's heroes and heroines. More traditionally, Fantasy writers fall into modeling their characters after Tolkien's characters, creating eternal archetypes (or, if you prefer, cliches): The wise wizard (Gandalf), the jaded warrior/lost heir (Aragorn), the stubborn dwarf (Gimli), the unlikely hero and the trustworthy friend (Frodo and Sam).

"The Unlikely Hero," Tolkien's one archetype that has survived mostly intact into modern fantasy.

New writers, it's time to take notice! What is your favorite book, movie, or TV show? Now take a look at your fledgling novel and look closely at your characters. You'll notice it too. I did. But take heart, there is hope.

A good way to learn to write believable characters is to first examine your own. Not your main character in your novel: yourself, your mind, you. After all, most define characters as simulations of real people, so how better to learn how to write good characters than to examine the real person you hopefully know best? Look deep down at yourself, and notice all the things you do or think. You may see yourself as a writer, but hopefully you are so much more. Maybe you like to run, or play an instrument. Are you married, or maybe you feel you are unlucky in love? While you may define yourself as a writer or academic, your personality shows shades of many different and changing things, like a living watercolor painting. Your characters should be the same way.

All masterpieces begin with a single color.

The good news is that most writers start with archetypes, and build on them with details and quirks to make them feel alive. This is fairly simple, and is a practice that improves with time. For example, let's take another look at the soy milk fitness nut.


So, there is a fitness nut at the counter. The uncreative writer might make him look impatiently at his watch as he waits for his soy latte. You could look at this another way, however. Maybe he's impatient because he's getting whole milk in his latte, due to the fact that his newlywed fitness nut wife won't let him have it at home. Perhaps he pulled ahead of her to get to the cafe first, so he could secretly enjoy his indulgence before she arrives. Maybe he's wearing track pants in the summer because he is the rare male anorexic, who despite working out constantly feels that his legs are too unsightly for running shorts. You get the idea. :)

There is another, surefire way to write great, real characters. Become them. That's right, I'm not crazy or delusional. Whenever you write a character, try to feel their motivations. Feel their pain and triumphs. Use the basic empathy you have for other humans, and put yourself in your character's shoes. I promise your writing will be more passionate and your characters will feel that much more real because of it. Great actors do the same thing with the characters they play. Here is a link to one of my all time favorite videos, Sir Ian McKellen describing how to do just that.

Well, this has been an extremely lengthy post. Sorry if I took up too much of you all's time, but hopefully y'all learned a bit. Remember, you want characters, not caricatures or cliches.

Best,

J