X
Xindaris
Guest
Original poster
Hey, just a thought I had. I have a particular way of thinking of characters, whether in an RP or story, whether I'm writing them or not, and it leads to a lot of my philosophy about how writing should go. I'll get into exactly what it is in a moment, but first I want to ask my fellow Iwakuans to describe the same thing: What is a character to you?
Now I'll go ahead and answer my own question down here. To me, a character is a person in every way, except that he or she is fictional. Now, if I just put it that way, a fictional person, it seems really obvious, but there's a lot to my definition of the phrase. I think of each character as an individual with their own thought patterns and mannerisms, beliefs and opinions and feelings. I guess you could say I have a muse with an extreme split-personality disorder, as my inspiration tends to come through as a character's voice speaking (not necessarily to me), narrating just what they think and would do in a given situation, or sometimes just bits and pieces of their life. It's for this reason that I tend to think of all stories as character-driven: Plot is just people doing things while we watch. Mischaracterization is my hated enemy, as it often results from a character's personality becoming inexplicably subservient to a pre-planned plot. Since I think of characters as people, I also tend to dislike it when a character is seriously hurt or killed off in a way that is pointless, reasonless, or just stupid. Don't get me wrong, I accept character deaths wholeheartedly as long as they make sense. This is also why I hate to see an RP die. It's like if you took an entire world's worth of people and just destroyed them for no reason.
Now I'll go ahead and answer my own question down here. To me, a character is a person in every way, except that he or she is fictional. Now, if I just put it that way, a fictional person, it seems really obvious, but there's a lot to my definition of the phrase. I think of each character as an individual with their own thought patterns and mannerisms, beliefs and opinions and feelings. I guess you could say I have a muse with an extreme split-personality disorder, as my inspiration tends to come through as a character's voice speaking (not necessarily to me), narrating just what they think and would do in a given situation, or sometimes just bits and pieces of their life. It's for this reason that I tend to think of all stories as character-driven: Plot is just people doing things while we watch. Mischaracterization is my hated enemy, as it often results from a character's personality becoming inexplicably subservient to a pre-planned plot. Since I think of characters as people, I also tend to dislike it when a character is seriously hurt or killed off in a way that is pointless, reasonless, or just stupid. Don't get me wrong, I accept character deaths wholeheartedly as long as they make sense. This is also why I hate to see an RP die. It's like if you took an entire world's worth of people and just destroyed them for no reason.