Bending the rules

[Russ]

Yeah it definitely bugs me when people don't give certain characteristics of a character enough thought in general. Also, I do take issue with changing a character to a POC simply for money. I don't even have a problem if it's just for the sake of diversity, but if it is obviously just to make money and the story suffers because the creator didn't think it through, then that is a huge issue for me. But that kinda goes across the board with anything really. I could say the same about my opinions on anything that is done for money and not for the story.

Story don't pay the rent.

 

[Russ]

Seriously? I'm sorry, but that's not what I said at all. I find creating a western european feudal style world were everyone is white, and then throwing in one POC with little/no logic is stupid. I would find it equally stupid if a white person showed up in the middle of a book with a setting based on Uyghurstan.

I don't recall anyone advocating doing that. Did I miss that?

 

[DeathtoTrite]

I don't recall anyone advocating doing that. Did I miss that?

Gryphos's post seemed to think I was calling for white as generic, that's all. My point is that anyone off-culture should be a fully-fleshed character with a reason for being in the midst of a foreign culture-- even something as simple as a merchant.

 

[Russ]

Gryphos's post seemed to think I was calling for white as generic, that's all. My point is that anyone off-culture should be a fully-fleshed character with a reason for being in the midst of a foreign culture-- even something as simple as a merchant.

Gotcha. That makes sense.

 

[ChasingSuns]

Story don't pay the rent.

Very true, but if you look at something like GoT, you see characters of a variety of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. And it all fits, it all makes sense. But if you just throw things into the story without giving it the adequate amount of thought, then it tends to come out bad. At least, IMO

 

[BWFoster78]

I could say the same about my opinions on anything that is done for money and not for the story.

My goal as a writer is to entertain people.

My dream is to be so good at entertaining people that I can quit my day job.

I think that the way to achieve both is to give readers what they want.

It seems to me that a certain element "making me money" means that that element is a value proposition for my reader. To me, I see that as a good thing.

The problem with "not for the story" is that that concept usually translates, when you get right down to it, to the writer doing what the writer wants instead of what the reader wants.

EDIT: My apologies if that last sentence comes across as overly harsh. I get frustrated sometimes at "artists" who seem to peer down their noses at writers who seek simply to entertain. It's one thing to hear such from people writing literary fiction, but, c'mon, you're in a forum dedicated to genre fiction here.

 

[Russ]

Very true, but if you look at something like GoT, you see characters of a variety of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. And it all fits, it all makes sense. But if you just throw things into the story without giving it the adequate amount of thought, then it tends to come out bad. At least, IMO

But that was not your point. In your suggestion you said that choosing money over story (or more accurately your objective view of story) is a mistake. For people's who goal it is to make money, it is the right choice, and on some artistic levels it may very well be the right choice as well.