Carnary Gurl
Scribe
I’m pretty much the same gist. You’re normal to me.
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What Makes a good Stoic character good?
- Thread starter Naruzeldamaster
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*hugs* Thank you. I know that this is some tender territory for a lot of people, and deciding to talk some about it is brave. "Brave," gets overused and often misapplied, but as someone who, for all my endless chatter, is an intensely private person, I have deep feels about it. But I also have deep feels about being a good influence and support and how important making these connections is, especially for our younger writers. I think it's important for them to see it's not just them. Yes, they are crazy, but we all are to a greater or lesser degree and I know so many writers who I went to school with and have known in passing who don't know this. And as someone who's nutty as a fruit bat, but did have a writer and a mentor in my early life - and no interwebs, just chat rooms and whatnot, while all around me other kids were barely treading water, I think knowing and grokking being a creative and part of the creator community saves lives.
So, thank you for being brave. It doesn't go unnoticed.
If you are confusing autism with Stoicism, I'd have to say you are off on the wrong foot entirely. The terms speak to entirely different things, which makes me question the advisability of writing about either until you learn more. Much more. Because setting out on the wrong foot is going to take you onto wrong paths, and your readers will not appreciate it. I'll go one step further. In an earlier post, in reply to what you mean by stoicism, you talk mostly about strength and battle skills, which has nothing to do with either autism or Stoicism. Or even with being stoic in the sense of a personality attribute.
Carnary Gurl
Scribe
What makes stoicism the wrong foot? I’ve assumed many roles for folk in my stories, and have seen stories evolve into autism, but the wrong foot sounds evil to me.
Mad Swede
Auror
Put very simply, stoicism is an active choice. ASDs are not. That makes for very different characters.
Carnary Gurl
Scribe
So you put the right foot in, the right foot out, the right foot in, and shake it all around.
I did not say stoicism was the wrong foot. I said profoundly misunderstanding both the philosophy of stoicism and the social and medical realities of autism is the starting a novel on the wrong foot.
As usual, Skip is absolutely correct. I'm getting the impression that you're getting a whole lot of your information and suppositions from anime and other media. Writers do homework for a living. In the series we have in development, one of the main characters is a 17 years-old country girl from an interesting lineage, and also an autist. Now, you might think, "Lowan, you're autistic. Why research yourself?" And the answer is we have more than one young woman and her 700lb, talking black sow. We have more than one character with a social disability, and they all get to be who they truly are when they are liberated by...
MESSAGE REDACTED
Whoops. Shhh
The point is, as in everything, autism is complicated. No two autists are the same, nor are they valued the same. So, in planning for our eventual drafting papers that they have to admit were completely shredded. It's not easy to write oneself into a story, nor should it be.
MESSAGE REDACTED
Whoops. Shhh
The point is, as in everything, autism is complicated. No two autists are the same, nor are they valued the same. So, in planning for our eventual drafting papers that they have to admit were completely shredded. It's not easy to write oneself into a story, nor should it be.
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Naruzeldamaster
Inkling
For the record I did admit that I had thought Soicism is some form of autism, I never assumed anything more than that after learning more about stoicism. I have not doubled down on stoic-ness being related to autism after finding out the definition either, if there was any confusion there. Also for the record it was you guys saying that he was giving the impression of an autistic person, which after that I decided to try and pin down what he might logically fit into if he was diagnosed, while saying that I would personally rather have him undiagnosed and simply on the spectrum, since he doesn't 'neatly' fit into any one category of the spectrum. This is if I decided to make him autistic at all to begin with. He could very well be just a naturally cold and distant person, who approaches things and situations in a far more robotic way.
This being said, there's nothing stopping him from believing in stoicism while also being autistic if I elect to go that route. This being said I'm not set in stone yet on that front, none of the story has been published anywhere yet so I can always add/remove/edit as needed.
> I never assumed anything more than that after learning more about stoicism.
Good to hear. I totally missed that on the thread; apologies.
WRT stoicism or any philosophy, you might consider this approach. Try just writing the character. Have them behave and talk and think in ways you think are consistent, interesting, and relevant to the plot. Once you have the story done or close to done, take a step back and look at what the character did and said and thought.
Then ask yourself if that aligns with stoicism or some other philosophy or whether aligning with any sort of philosophy adds anything to the story. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but at least you'll be dealing with the actual character.
Good to hear. I totally missed that on the thread; apologies.
WRT stoicism or any philosophy, you might consider this approach. Try just writing the character. Have them behave and talk and think in ways you think are consistent, interesting, and relevant to the plot. Once you have the story done or close to done, take a step back and look at what the character did and said and thought.
Then ask yourself if that aligns with stoicism or some other philosophy or whether aligning with any sort of philosophy adds anything to the story. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but at least you'll be dealing with the actual character.
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- #31
Naruzeldamaster
Inkling
Yeah I need to write him some more before I make some decisions on those fronts. This is a re-write of a story I wrote a long time ago (Right around when the show RWBY was new and exciting) and this version of this particular character has changed a lot in the re-write. It's hard to explain but for every way he's 'the same' character, there's other ways where I have him totally different. His origin has shifted about...four or five times, and even then they're kind of the same 'idea' but with minor tweaks.
The biggest change is that he's actually able to emote, or at least pretend to, so his actions don't seem as robotic to the other characters. (A canon character actually takes a liking to him because he's so good at 'acting' per say) The thing that makes me feel he's stoic (personally, I'm not trying to write him that way) is that he operates mainly on logic, his emotions are very controlled and almost muted. He can feel them and process them, but he can't really decipher the meaning behind it. Ask him about the valve modules on a t42 bomber and he'll be able to give a seminar, but ask him about something metaphysical like 'joy' or 'true love' and he totally blanks. That being said, he can kind of 'bounce off of' the right person and connect with them, it just takes him time to adjust to all the new information. Bro has been living in isolation for an odd 200 years and he grew up in (basically) medieval times, so he has a ton of adapting to do.
pmmg
Myth Weaver
Not sure how this thread led to Devor must be on the spectrum but...there it is.
I was to add. I am a hard personality. I've been called stoic and I have strong suspicions that I would be on the spectrum somewhere, or spectrum adjacent. But it has not hurt me personally to know or not know. The question of how to be a good one seems strange to me, how does one be a good stoic? or How does one, being a stoic, remain good? Which one of those is the OP'er most looking for?
I would think the first one would be to have done the readings on Stoicism and that one did ones best to live up to those principles.
The second would be the same for all of us. Discover what it means to be good and choose to be that.
I personally find the term out of place, unless this comes from a world that had Greek Philosophy. In the same sense, that a world placed in the 1400's would never stop to consider spectrum anything, a world without the Greeks would never call anyone Stoic.
Most often, when people are calling me stoic, they are intimating that I am compassionless, or stubborn about something of social import for which they don't like my take on it. I personally find that hurtful to me, but mostly, I just feel pity from them. They have not reached even the earliest level of understanding the world around them. I could argue with them, but there would be no point. So...I'll just let them call me stoic.
Truth is, people are many things at once. One is not always stoic, and one is not always unemotional.
My advice to writing this is to write it true. What and why are some of the reasons he is called such. Who are they that could so. What does he think about it, and start writing from there. In the end, a bunch of characters calling him a name wont matter if the reader never sees it. Write him true and the reader will appreciate it, even if other characters in the story get it wrong.
Anecdotally, I was watching the SuperGirl series and in it, I noticed that everyone kept saying 'Why don't you give Jimmy Olsen a chance, he such a good guy.' That came up a lost. Jimmy Olsen...such a good guy. But I started asking, what has he done to make every one thinks such, and near as I could tell, it was nothing. He was just your basic run of the mill get-along dude who made no waves and had no real opinions, save for all those safe Hollywood ones. Jimmy Olsen was a nothing to me. He could not be in the show and it would not miss him. Which is to say, having a lot of people say it, does not make it so. If you want me to believe your character is this or that, you have to show it, and make it matter.
I was to add. I am a hard personality. I've been called stoic and I have strong suspicions that I would be on the spectrum somewhere, or spectrum adjacent. But it has not hurt me personally to know or not know. The question of how to be a good one seems strange to me, how does one be a good stoic? or How does one, being a stoic, remain good? Which one of those is the OP'er most looking for?
I would think the first one would be to have done the readings on Stoicism and that one did ones best to live up to those principles.
The second would be the same for all of us. Discover what it means to be good and choose to be that.
I personally find the term out of place, unless this comes from a world that had Greek Philosophy. In the same sense, that a world placed in the 1400's would never stop to consider spectrum anything, a world without the Greeks would never call anyone Stoic.
Most often, when people are calling me stoic, they are intimating that I am compassionless, or stubborn about something of social import for which they don't like my take on it. I personally find that hurtful to me, but mostly, I just feel pity from them. They have not reached even the earliest level of understanding the world around them. I could argue with them, but there would be no point. So...I'll just let them call me stoic.
Truth is, people are many things at once. One is not always stoic, and one is not always unemotional.
My advice to writing this is to write it true. What and why are some of the reasons he is called such. Who are they that could so. What does he think about it, and start writing from there. In the end, a bunch of characters calling him a name wont matter if the reader never sees it. Write him true and the reader will appreciate it, even if other characters in the story get it wrong.
Anecdotally, I was watching the SuperGirl series and in it, I noticed that everyone kept saying 'Why don't you give Jimmy Olsen a chance, he such a good guy.' That came up a lost. Jimmy Olsen...such a good guy. But I started asking, what has he done to make every one thinks such, and near as I could tell, it was nothing. He was just your basic run of the mill get-along dude who made no waves and had no real opinions, save for all those safe Hollywood ones. Jimmy Olsen was a nothing to me. He could not be in the show and it would not miss him. Which is to say, having a lot of people say it, does not make it so. If you want me to believe your character is this or that, you have to show it, and make it matter.
"make it matter" is advice with wide applicability!
pmmg
Myth Weaver
Seems like that should be a quotable.
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