A Lack of Understanding

[Incanus]

How much trouble am I in if I feel that I don’t understand people in general well enough to portray them effectively? Is this an issue that I can ‘write my way out of’? What I mean by that last question is–can I practice writing about people to get better at understanding them? Or is this something that I need to take away from the writing desk? To go out and talk with people, read up on people (psychology?), and then bring back new knowledge to write with?

I feel like my characters are too rational, not intensely emotional. Occasionally this makes me feel doomed as a writer. Character stories seem to be the ‘in’ thing right now.

And there’s another question. Should I be trying to do the ‘in’ thing, or focus on my particular strengths (I like to think I do have one or two!) whether or not it is the current trend?

My short story WIP seems to have problems of this kind, but I can’t even be sure, there may be no issue at all. This kind of frustration makes me wonder whether I’m cut out for this or not, or whether I can overcome by shortcomings or not.

**sigh**

 

[Devor]

As a writer, you need to play to your strengths. As with most things, fighting your weaknesses is usually a waste of time, if it's really your weakness. But I don't take your words for granted when you say that it is. I think it's more likely you just haven't scaled the learning curve.

I mean, if true sociopaths can fake a bit of empathy, I think you can, too. And there are resources available to help you, like the Emotions Thesaurus, where even just the web site is helpful.

And it's not really about following the "in" thing. If you work at it you can certainly find a niche writing just about anything, but sharing emotion is the biggest strength of the written medium, and that's not going to change any time soon. It's what many readers are looking for.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I feel like my characters are too rational, not intensely emotional. Occasionally this makes me feel doomed as a writer. Character stories seem to be the ‘in’ thing right now.

And there’s another question. Should I be trying to do the ‘in’ thing, or focus on my particular strengths (I like to think I do have one or two!) whether or not it is the current trend?

Cater to your strength and do what you enjoy and what you're good at. These may not necessarily be the same things, but the result is likely to be better than if you do something you don't enjoy and which you're not confident in.

I believe that trying to do the ‘in’ thing because it's ‘in’ and not because it's what you're passionate about is going to result in a mediocre result at best.


As for characters...
I think (hope), that this is something you can write yourself out of. The more you write a character, the better you will get to know it.
Whenever you introduce a new (important) character, try writing a few test stories with them. That way you'll learn about their priorities and experiences and you'll have a better idea of who they are. It's what I'm trying to do and I'm hoping it will result in characters that are identifiable from each other.

 

[Penpilot]

From my personal experience, writing will help you get better. You just have to be ready to fall flat on your face a few... well more than a few... times. I don't know how old you are, but for me, the older I got, the more life experience I got, the easier it became to write about certain things. Some of the stories I wrote, I know I couldn't have written when I was in my 20's.

One of the things an author must learn is to draw from within themselves. Learn to draw upon your emotions and experiences and use them as ingredients when you're cooking up your character. It's one of the things I struggled with when I was starting out. For example, you may not know what it feels like to get stabbed, but heck, I bet you know how it feels like to stub your toe really bad. You draw upon simple experiences like that and morph them to what you need.

Unless a character has some sort of unique psychological condition, I find that writing one character is like writing the next. This isn't to say I write them with the same voice. What I mean is, for me, it's just a matter of finding out what makes that character tick. What drives a character and why it drives them is my jumping off point. It gives me enough to start writing. Once I start writing, I discover more about the character, and find the hot buttons to push to make them go in certain directions.

I use to have trouble with making characters do irrational things too, but I figured out that there's a "logic" to the irrational. It's about setting up the parameters of a character so that a certain illogical choice is within character for them.

For example, if you need a character to get pissed off and throw something at someone, all you need to figure out is one thing that they easily get pissed off about and makes them throw things and have another character do it.

Again, these are things you can mine from your personal experiences. We all have our irrational moments. Think about times you've been this way and try to understand why. If you can figure out how the tumblers fell into place so that you made this irrational decision, then you can use a form of it on the page.

Sorry, this is a bit of a ramble. But hopefully you get something useful out of it.

 

[Terry Greer]

I hear you - I have a similar problem. because I like to think rationally my characters are prone to also think rationally - which isn't always good.

The only way I can get out of this is to think in terms of character's WANT rather than need. these want's I then protect from anything ratonal - they WANT it so they will move anything to get it. It's a childish ego-driven want - but it helps define what a character will and will not negotiate away sensibly. The more 'weants' a character has the harder they are to deal with. But that's fine - many characters are like that in real life - selfish and demanding - wit their wants defined bu]y greed, lust, power or something else they desperately want to possess. (Note this can even be something entirely noble - such as protecting a loved one - but by making it a protected WANT it can never be negotiated away.)

 

[SeverinR]

I agree with Devor, except never accept your weakness. Always work to improve it. Play to your strengths but don't ignore the weakness either.

One thing, remember you don't want average people characters. You want larger then life, special people to be your characters. Average people are boring to read about. You want them to be smarter, dumber, more spirited, more spontaneous, more exciting then average.
They can't be super human but they should be above average or better.
They need to be entertaining even if they aren't the greatest people.

Stories need to be larger then life to keep people interested, but human enough for people to relate too.

 

[Incanus]

Awesome responses. I'm feeling a little better already. A few of these things are things I know already, but need to hear spoken back to me in a different voice.

There's a lot to say, and it may take me most of the rest of today to get to it all; anyway--

I feel like sooner or later, one way or another, I'm going to have to square these two seemingly irreconcilable concepts (as brought up by Devor):

--sharing emotion is the biggest strength of the written medium, and that's not going to change any time soon. It's what many readers are looking for.

--fighting your weaknesses is usually a waste of time

I've always known that I was going to be much more of a 'mind' writer, than a 'heart' writer. Not that all my work will turn out 'heartless', but I feel I need to meet at least a minimum requirement (what that is exactly is not clear, admittedly).

More, later...

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Could I add one more suggestion after agreeing with everyone else. Read biographies. They may not be your cup of tea, but they should give you insight into why people do the things they do.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Incanus]

A related question (from my POV, anyway):

How much can a typical reader be made to care about a character in a short story (say 10,000 words or less)?

Do 'intellectual' short stories (or those low on emotional content) presently have any commercial viability?

 

[Jabrosky]

How much trouble am I in if I feel that I don’t understand people in general well enough to portray them effectively? Is this an issue that I can ‘write my way out of’? What I mean by that last question is–can I practice writing about people to get better at understanding them? Or is this something that I need to take away from the writing desk? To go out and talk with people, read up on people (psychology?), and then bring back new knowledge to write with?

I feel like my characters are too rational, not intensely emotional. Occasionally this makes me feel doomed as a writer. Character stories seem to be the ‘in’ thing right now.

And there’s another question. Should I be trying to do the ‘in’ thing, or focus on my particular strengths (I like to think I do have one or two!) whether or not it is the current trend?

My short story WIP seems to have problems of this kind, but I can’t even be sure, there may be no issue at all. This kind of frustration makes me wonder whether I’m cut out for this or not, or whether I can overcome by shortcomings or not.

**sigh**

All our ideas about "human nature" or how people generally tick are going to be incomplete if not outright flawed. That's why psychology and anthropology are still ongoing fields of study. Since we have so many gaps in our knowledge about the workings of the human mind, it's probably impossible to create fictional characters who perfectly mirror real flesh-and-blood people. In the end our characters are always going to be artificial creations spawned from imaginations that, though versatile, aren't working with all the facts and so cannot make everything "realistic".

As for your characters thinking too "rationally", maybe you should give them an internal conflict between long- and short-term goals. The short-term goals are the impulsive, "emotional" reactions that look appealing when they first come up but ultimately have consequences that set the characters back from achieving their long-term goals. The long-term goals on the other hand are the ones that seem "rational" or righteous.

 

[Incanus]

From my personal experience, writing will help you get better. You just have to be ready to fall flat on your face a few... well more than a few... times.

Yes, yes, yes. I need to give myself more permission to do this. In fact, at least part of the point of working on this particular short story was to push myself in some of the directions I haven't explored very much as a writer. Unfortunately, my perfectionist leanings try to make me get it right the first time, despite knowing that this isn't always reasonable (Aha! Some irrational thoughts of my own to draw on!).

I'm going to see this story through, and I'm going to learn from it, damnit! There'll be others, and next time it will be a little bit better.

 

[FatCat]

How much trouble am I in if I feel that I don’t understand people in general well enough to portray them effectively? Is this an issue that I can ‘write my way out of’? What I mean by that last question is—can I practice writing about people to get better at understanding them? Or is this something that I need to take away from the writing desk? To go out and talk with people, read up on people (psychology?), and then bring back new knowledge to write with?

I feel like my characters are too rational, not intensely emotional. Occasionally this makes me feel doomed as a writer. Character stories seem to be the ‘in’ thing right now.

And there’s another question. Should I be trying to do the ‘in’ thing, or focus on my particular strengths (I like to think I do have one or two!) whether or not it is the current trend?

My short story WIP seems to have problems of this kind, but I can’t even be sure, there may be no issue at all. This kind of frustration makes me wonder whether I’m cut out for this or not, or whether I can overcome by shortcomings or not.

**sigh**

Try this >Personality types | 16Personalities

I think this whole idea is a bit lacking, with 'self-prescribed' types and generalization, but as a starting block to a character's personality it's a neat tool to get a rough draft of a character.

 

[Chessie]

Hi, Incanus. As Jabrosky said, its difficult to get imaginary people down realistically on paper. I do understand your concern though. I struggle with writing emotions as well. I feel them for the characters when I'm writing, but putting it into words is different. But that's where going back and polishing the MS is for. Its good that you are thinking of this, so you can catch this in your writing when you revise. Keep at it. Just one more thing you can improve on. Weak now, strong later.

PS: I use the emotions thesaurus a lot when I revise. Unfortunately, I'm on my phone so I can't post the link but its in Google. Best of luck.

 

[Penpilot]

I'm going to see this story through, and I'm going to learn from it, damnit! There'll be others, and next time it will be a little bit better.

There have been short stories where I've been pushing my limits, and I just couldn't nail the story. One story, no matter how many times I would edit, it would always feel flat. At a certain point, I just said this is as good as I can make it right now and moved on. A few weeks later, I was taking a long drive and my mind was drifting, and suddenly the solution came to me.

Went back and rewrote the story, and it worked. I'd found what was missing. Sometimes you just need to walk away for a while.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I think it's a mistake to believe character stories are "in right now". It's been a major part of written, and oral, story telling for a very long time.

How much can a typical reader be made to care about a character in a short story (say 10,000 words or less)?

Quite a lot. Good execution can get a reader to care in less than a chapter, even a few paragraphs. Ten thousand words is plenty of room for a reader to emotionally invest in a character.

Do 'intellectual' short stories (or those low on emotional content) presently have any commercial viability?

There's a market for everything under the sun, if you can interest the reader. That's the only "Golden Rule" as far as I'm concerned. It has to be interesting.

I agree with the other posters that said it takes practice. It's not easy, for anyone, to convey emotion in writing. You have to study concepts & techniques, then work at perfecting them by trying them in your own writing.

You shouldn't expect to naturally have an ability which takes a long time to develop. You have to work at it.

 

[Jabrosky]

Yes, yes, yes. I need to give myself more permission to do this. In fact, at least part of the point of working on this particular short story was to push myself in some of the directions I haven't explored very much as a writer. Unfortunately, my perfectionist leanings try to make me get it right the first time, despite knowing that this isn't always reasonable (Aha! Some irrational thoughts of my own to draw on!).

I can sure relate to that feeling. Nothing kills a story like the fear that you won't get it right the first time. Even worse, in my case I often see what's fundamentally wrong with a story even before I finish the thing.

It might be worth examining exactly why we're so paranoid about not nailing a story down on the first try. In my case, I believe it's a fear of putting in a lot of effort into a story only to have to rewrite it all over again after a failed first draft. Maybe that's why people say that editing is the most painful part of the writing process.

But yeah, writing requires work whether we like it or not.

 

[Incanus]

This is really amazing. With this kind of input and support and all around cheerleading, I feel I almost can't fail! That said, I'm rolling up my sleeves and getting ready to tackle this thing--there's going to be hard work ahead.

I literally can't Thank you all enough! (I used up all my 'Thanks' for the time being.)

I'd like to individually respond to a number of thoughts here--I apologize ahead of time if I end up ranting or riffing overmuch, I'm kind of feeling exited.

 

[Incanus]

Try this >Personality types | 16Personalities

I think this whole idea is a bit lacking, with 'self-prescribed' types and generalization, but as a starting block to a character's personality it's a neat tool to get a rough draft of a character.

Oh, yeah. I've been dabbling a bit with the Miggs Bryers stuff. For myself, I test as INTJ, which for those not in the know, makes me loosely the 'scientist' type. And this at least partially explains my present difficulties with depicting emotional content.

Totally agree that this may be useful as a starting point for characters, but not the end-all, be-all.

 

[Incanus]

Hi, Incanus. As Jabrosky said, its difficult to get imaginary people down realistically on paper. I do understand your concern though. I struggle with writing emotions as well. I feel them for the characters when I'm writing, but putting it into words is different. But that's where going back and polishing the MS is for. Its good that you are thinking of this, so you can catch this in your writing when you revise. Keep at it. Just one more thing you can improve on. Weak now, strong later.

PS: I use the emotions thesaurus a lot when I revise. Unfortunately, I'm on my phone so I can't post the link but its in Google. Best of luck.

Such great points! I think you're right: depending on the emotion, and the impact it has on the story, some of them at least can be added in during revision. And this means the story isn't yet hopeless (as a story I mean--as a lesson it is becoming invaluable).

Weak now, strong later--that's beautiful, and hopefully it will be describing me.

I'll be checking out the Emotion Thesaurus in short order...

 

[Svrtnsse]

I've linked this before (at least twice) on the forums, but I find that it's really helpful in making a point: Study: body mapping reveals emotions are felt in the same way across cultures (Wired UK)

Different emotions lead to different physical reactions and according to this study, these reactions may be universal for all people.

In my current WIP I'm trying to stay away from directly calling out the actual emotions and instead describing the physical reactions, sometimes accompanied by internal monologue. The theory is that in this way the reader will draw their own conclusions about what emotions my MC is feeling, giving them a stronger/better experience of these emotions.

A few examples:

He sat absolutely still, didn't say a word. Sweat broke out on his neck and breathing became difficult.

Something warm and cuddly nestled in his belly and his heart beat a little faster.

His cheeks burned and his mouth dried out.