Disliked Elements, Mechanics, and Tropes

[Haflaen]

@EvilChani

Part of it is that, when I’m writing, I will create the character, make the foundation for them (with a partial past) and then kind of let them develop on their own. I may throw things into their past if I see them developing in a way I didn’t expect (or hell, sometimes they do it), but I can’t force them into doing something that is outside of their nature/personality/thought processes.

That’s the illusion I described. Your characters aren’t really developing or making decisions on their own because, sorry to break it to you, your characters aren’t real. It’s all you: your intuition for each character’s development, your instincts for what each character would do. And that’s great! The best characters are ones where the writer successfully extends that illusion to the audience, so that they feel real from their perspective too. But I think it’s important to remember that it is an illusion, and that you are actually in control the whole time.

@JBento

If a character suddenly does not behave like that character*, it’s… bad story-telling.

That’s exactly the point I was making. It’s bad storytelling on the writer’s part, because they haven’t constructed a plot that’s in line with the personality and motivations they have constructed for the character. Nothing to do with the character “refusing to be forced to do something”, because again, the character doesn’t exist outside of the writer’s mind.

[EvilChani]

@Haflaen

Your characters aren’t really developing or making decisions on their own because, sorry to break it to you, your characters aren’t real.

You are correct, they aren’t real. And, if I so chose, I could write whatever the hell I wanted with absolutely no consideration for my creation whatsoever. I could have my brave fighters behave like incompetent, untrained chickenshits just so I could have them lose or be in a situation that made them vulnerable. I could have my noble characters crap all over everyone around them. But you know what? I wouldn’t, because that, to me, is poor writing and plot-driven garbage. If I want those things to happen, I need to find something that would make them behave in a way that doesn’t fit them. And, even then, I still might not get the result I wanted.

@Haflaen

But I think it’s important to remember that it is an illusion, and that you are actually in control the whole time.

Please do not condescend to me. I don’t live in delusions where I think my characters are real people. However, when I write them, I have to view them as real in order to tell their stories. It’s why I do more of an RP type of writing (third person, but completely in character, telling it from their POV and voice, and showing their thought processes, if they have any). And, in that respect, I am not “in control” of everything they do, because I have to consider who they are, what their motivations are, and how those things shape their views and responses to external stimuli (much like how real people operate ). If you choose to write in a way where the characters are chess pieces and you force them into whatever move you want them to make no matter how much it may not fit them, more power to you! That’s your prerogative. I’m simply saying I can’t write that way and don’t enjoy things that are written that way. Plot driven things are boring to me–if I can’t connect to the characters, I don’t give a damn about the story, no matter how interesting it may otherwise be.

@Haflaen

It’s bad storytelling on the writer’s part, because they haven’t constructed a plot that’s in line with the personality and motivations they have constructed for the character.

See, I think this may be the problem and why we will never agree…

To me, the plot should shape around the characters. You know where you start and know where you end, and your characters take you on the journey. How you get there may not happen as planned because your characters may not behave as expected. You have to be flexible with the story in order to accommodate the characters as they develop.

To me, it seems that you think the plot shapes the characters. If the plot requires something, then write it. The characters are just a device for presenting the plot.

And that’s fine. I know people who prefer those types of stories. I’m just not one of them.

So I’ll just agree to disagree here.

[HoldTh3L1ne]

@Zyrios

I’ve largely been discussing visual media here, but this applies to written stories as well - when an author feels the need to pump the breaks on the plot and tell me a bunch of shit I didn’t ask about and don’t care to know if it doesn’t add anything worthwhile to the story, that’s annoying. The second Wayhaven story does this at one point, where Unit Bravo suddenly start discussing supernatural power levels for no good reason, and every single time I’ve gotten to that part of the story, I’ve skipped straight to the bottom of the page without reading it because it’s utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Especially since the story doesn’t even follow the rules it’s establishing in-canon - supposedly, Unit Bravo are on the Bullshit Strong end of the spectrum… except for when they’re not, which usually happens conveniently during big, dramatic fights where the Detective suddenly comes out with a wild sucker punch that nobody, not even the Detective, saw coming. The same Detective, who, in the aforementioned power level discussion, sits somewhere around Crap and Utter Crap.

Just… stop it. There’s no need for every stone to be turned, let some mysteries be mysterious. Especially if you’re just going to turn around and pretend you never turned that stone in the first place, what’s the point, then?

IF writers in general could take a lot of cues from screenwriting rather than traditional novel writing. Obviously CoG/HG titles are text-based, but “show not tell” should still apply. Too often many of these titles don’t utilize that, instead opting for a more “traditional” novel style.

That’s not to say all screenplays are all show and no tell, but generally I think IF writing could benefit from more of an influence in that direction.

[Haflaen]

This isn’t really about plot-driven vs. character driven. As a matter of fact I do prefer plot-driven stories, and I wish you’d stop referring to them as “drivel” and “garbage”; creating a gripping and satisfying plot requires just as much skill and craftsmanship as creating compelling characters. And of course, the best stories do both.

That aside, it seems we agree on a fair few things. It does break immersion when characters act in a way that contradicts their established personalities, and that is poor writing. However, it’s totally within the writer’s power to construct scenarios where a character acting in a seemingly out-of-character fashion makes sense; some of the most impactful scenes in all of fiction are built around that idea.

@EvilChani

And, in that respect, I am not “in control” of everything they do, because I have to consider who they are, what their motivations are, and how those things shape their views and responses to external stimuli

You are still in control, because you’re the one who constructed those personalities and motivations and you’re free to change them at any time. You can alter any aspect of a character, retroactively insert past events that shaped them a certain way, delete entire characters if they don’t fit with the rest of your story. If you’re choosing not to do those things, you’re imposing a limitation on yourself - which is a legitimate choice, one that can lead to great stories, but still, ultimately, under your control.

@EvilChani

To me, it seems that you think the plot shapes the characters.

No. The writer shapes both the plot and the characters, and the best writers construct both so that they mesh well with each other.

You say that you’re aware your characters aren’t real; why, then, do you insist upon talking about them as if they are? You’re still doing it: “the characters take you on a journey”, “the characters may not behave as expected”. No they don’t - you extrapolate a character’s actions from the traits you have created for them.

That’s what I take issue with: the insistence upon employing mystical language, ascribing free will to imaginary people. Writing is not mysticism, it’s craftsmanship. Some craftspeople are more intuitive, others more methodical, but they’re all ultimately doing the same thing and using the same set of tools.

[LiliArch]

@Haflaen

mystical language

It’s not ‘mystical’ if that’s plain how your brain works.

I mean, I’m not EvilChani, obviously, but that’s the ballpark I am personally in, so I figured I might chime in here.

Sometimes when I write, my characters end up doing stuff I didn’t expect (for example, one minor character I intended to be there in one scene and then die ended up becoming a major character. Another character ended up befriending their intended rival. I’m a pantser, so I often don’t know what’s going to happen until I’ve written it, and in any case sometimes scenes just pop up in my head without any conscious work on my part). And when a character has been a certain way for, say, two decades, making a 180° with their attributes is… a really hard flip to do mentally. So, while I know I am in control of the writing and the characters, I would describe, as a shorthand (and because that’s how it feels when those scenes just pop up), those as “characters surprising me” and “characters refusing to change”, while it strictly speaking is my brain playing tricks on me. (I did, in fact, a while ago spend a month to solve an issue where a character clashed with the lore and ended up changing the character, so it’s not like I’d think they can’t be changed; it’s just so hard a flip to adjust to that I don’t like to do it without a very good reason. Especially if it means I’ll need to relearn how to write that character all over again.)

And no, it’s not a self-imposing limitation if you’re not doing that on purpose (and if it is, in fact, easier to roll with it than doing the opposite). I mean, unless I misunderstand the term (English isn’t my first language, so that’s always a possibility and has, in fact, happened often enough), Aren’t self-imposing limitations meant to do your work more challenging to do and not less?

I do, however, agree on that there are situations where out-of-character moments can be justifiable. (For example, characters being under so intense stress their normal patterns fail to compute.)

[Haflaen]

@LiliArch

So, while I know I am in control of the writing and the characters, I would describe, as a shorthand (and because that’s how it feels when those scenes just pop up), those as “characters surprising me” and “characters refusing to change”, while it strictly speaking is my brain playing tricks on me.

Exactly. That’s the illusion I talked about; I don’t experience it personally (I have to consciously think about “what would this character do in this scenario”) but I understand how it might feel that way for more intuitive writers. Generally I’ve learned to mentally replace “the characters have minds of their own” with “it feels like the characters have minds of their own”, but in this scenario I thought it worth bringing up my dislike for that kind of rhetoric in general.

@LiliArch

Aren’t self-imposing limitations meant to do your work more challenging to do and not less?

I’d say not. Oftentimes imposing a limitation on yourself can make things easier by giving you boundaries to work within - in fact, all writers do this when choosing to write within a given genre or style.

[Havenstone]

@Haflaen

the insistence upon employing mystical language, ascribing free will to imaginary people. Writing is not mysticism, it’s craftsmanship.

If it bugs you so much, try thinking of it as metaphor, not mysticism. All kinds of crafts rely on metaphorical thinking… reflect on the way we use geographic terms like “field” and “area” and “sector” in talking about ideas, or (more pertinently) how sociologists and political scientists use language that ascribes identity, intention, and other personal qualities to groups of people.

There’s no literal substitute for those metaphors that doesn’t lose the reality of emergent properties that affect the real world. Yes, we know that a nation doesn’t have literal identity or intention, and there are times when it’s crucial to remind ourselves of that – and other times when doing so would cripple the best mental models we have for understanding why all these individuals are acting the way they do.

Not all writers use the same toolkit or conceive of their work in the same way. I don’t naturally tend to think (even metaphorically) of my characters as people I’m discovering rather than creating – but based on my experiences of having to rework a passage until it fit the character, I can certainly understand the metaphor and its power.

I’m not going to tell writers for whom that experience is stronger and more central that they’re wrong to describe it with the metaphor of living characters, or that anything would be gained if they confined themselves to only speak in literalisms. Intuitive (not just “mystical”) phenomena are usually poorly served by literal-analytical language, and this is no exception.

[EvilChani]

@LiliArch

I’m a pantser, so I often don’t know what’s going to happen until I’ve written it, and in any case sometimes scenes just pop up in my head without any conscious work on my part)

This is the story of my life…

@LiliArch

So, while I know I am in control of the writing and the characters, I would describe, as a shorthand (and because that’s how it feels when those scenes just pop up), those as “characters surprising me” and “characters refusing to change”, while it strictly speaking is my brain playing tricks on me.

Again, this fits what I was trying to say. In one story I’m writing, I recently had a “cool” idea of something to throw at one of my characters. While it’s a cool idea, I had to backtrack because, no matter how I did this particular thing, she got her ass killed because of how she reacted to the event. So I had to change the event and now she just almost dies.

@LiliArch

I do, however, agree on that there are situations where out-of-character moments can be justifiable. (For example, characters being under so intense stress their normal patterns fail to compute.)

I agree with this as well. Stress will do different things to different people, and cause them to behave in strange ways. But there are different things that trigger stress, too. As long as it fits the character, then them suddenly behaving out of character can work if the cause makes sense.

@Havenstone

Intuitive (not just “mystical”) phenomena are usually poorly served by literal-analytical language, and this is no exception.

That is a very good description of what I have been attempting to convey. It still may offend someone to think of it that way, but the way I see it, they can write their way and I’ll write mine.

[JBento]

@Zyrios

The same Detective, who, in the aforementioned power level discussion, sits somewhere around Crap and Utter Crap.

Oh, I almost missed this. Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure the Detective’s power evaluation is bogus.

See, that power evaluation was made based on the tests they ran on them about half-way through B1, right after the reveal. The thing is, those tests no longer reflect reality. Not!Murphy replaced half the Detective’s blood with vampire blood with the EXPRESS intent and proven effect of making the blood stronger. When not!Murphy bites you near the end of B1, you can punch him in the face, and if you do it works, and, importantly, Sera hangs a huge lampshade on it working (“much to your surprise, he stumbles back” or something like that). Your blood is what gives you your special powers, and Not!Murphy’s little experiment completely changed your hemological profile.

I think what’s happening isn’t “the Detective pulls off shit they shouldn’t be able to”, it’s “everybody at the Agency is an incredibly incompetent half-wit who surprises me every day they don’t lock themselves in their car and die from heat exhaustion, and therefore nobody thinks that running some power tests on you after your power source has been tampered with is a good idea”. Of course, they ARE incredibly incompetent half-wits all the time, so it’s not like it’s a sudden shift in characterisation.

[Haflaen]

@Havenstone

Intuitive (not just “mystical”) phenomena are usually poorly served by literal-analytical language, and this is no exception.

Though I fear I’m beating a dead horse at this point, I would disagree with this. Expressing “intuitive” concepts in more rational terms can help us to make sense of them and give us a greater awareness and understanding of what’s going on in our heads. In this case, relying on this intuition could lead to people making excuses for themselves, blaming their shortcomings as a writer on their characters being “uncooperative”. Ever played D&D with someone who messes things up for everyone and then says “it’s just what my character would do”?

I agree about seeing it as a metaphor, though. That’s what I was getting at with swapping out “this is what happens” with “this is what it feels like”.

@EvilChani

While it’s a cool idea, I had to backtrack because, no matter how I did this particular thing, she got her ass killed because of how she reacted to the event. So I had to change the event and now she just almost dies.

So as I understand it, what you really mean here is that you couldn’t conceive of a way for the character to survive this event without compromising character integrity. Is that a fair way of putting it?

[EvilChani]

@JBento

Not!Murphy replaced half the Detective’s blood with vampire blood with the EXPRESS intent and proven effect of making the blood stronger. When not!Murphy bites you near the end of B1, you can punch him in the face, and if you do it works, and, importantly, Sera hangs a huge lampshade on it working (“much to your surprise, he stumbles back” or something like that).

I’m really hoping you are correct here. It makes sense to me that, if the detective’s blood was a battery for superanturals before and, after Murphy screwing with their blood, the detective is now a super-battery, then it would also affect the MC’s passive abilities where supernaturals are concerned. This might also explain why everyone was so shocked when the MC punches Sin in the b3 demo and makes him bleed (“You made me bleed my own blood!”).

@JBento

nobody thinks that running some power tests on you after your power source has been tampered with is a good idea”.

And if the MC didn’t take the tests in b1, the subject is never broached again. MCs who were resistant in b1 may actually be open to it now (or not, since the Agency comes off as incompetent, having poor decision-making skills, and not all that trustworthy).

@Haflaen

Ever played D&D with someone who messes things up for everyone and then says “it’s just what my character would do”?

A good DM takes the characters in the setting into consideration. If you know someone is playing a kleptomaniac, then you shouldn’t be surprised when they try to steal from people, even when they shouldn’t (looking at Ashley’s character from Crit Role now). If you’ve never watched Crit Role, then maybe you should, because you very seldom see them have their character behave “out of character.” Even in the first run of CritRole, Sam had his character up and leave after a major event because that’s what he would do. Period. It likely caused problems, but Matt rolled with it, because he’s an awesome DM. When the players start “god moding” their characters into doing things they want, it is obvious. Recently, Ashley’s character waffled on who to save, when one of the team members was basically family to her… and everyone agreed that was Ashley doing it because she felt bad, not Fearne. It was blatantly out of character. Understandable, but out of character.

@Haflaen

what you really mean here is that you couldn’t conceive of a way for the character to survive this event without compromising character integrity. Is that a fair way of putting it?

That is a fair way of putting it. What I planned to happen simply couldn’t happen because her reaction to the event differed from what I thought it would be. I tweaked things… to the same effect. And, the way I was writing the event, it was a choice of her being smart (which she normally is) and surviving or going about things emotionally and getting killed. She chose the latter, every time. So I altered the event, moved some things around as far as how things went down (still staying true to the bad guys who set it up, as well as to her character) and she survives by a hair.

Honestly, it ended up making the story better. Just not how I planned it.

[JBento]

@EvilChani

I’m really hoping you are correct here.

I think what makes me lean heavily in that direction is the fact that Sera goes out of her way to point out in-narrative that that punch should not, in fact, have done jack squat, so it’s not a situation like the sewer fight.

@EvilChani

Recently, Ashley’s character waffled on who to save, when one of the team members was basically family to her… and everyone agreed that was Ashley doing it because she felt bad, not Fearne. It was blatantly out of character. Understandable, but out of character.

I’m going to counterpoint this with “Ashley never actually SHOWED what the coin toss ended up as”, and that it’s entirely in-character for Fearne to go “geez, I don’t actually want to hurt anybody’s feelings, so I’m going to coin flip for it, heads it’s Laudna, tails it’s Orym”, the coin landing up heads, and her going “oh, it’s tails, guess I’m saving Orym and not Laudna, sorry Imogen, not my fault.”

[Havenstone]

There are a lot of interesting rabbit holes in this vicinity that we could go down and take us totally off topic. Before jumping into one, let me just note that I agree with you that plot-driven fiction can be wonderful and shouldn’t be dismissed as drivel. American literary culture will be healthier when its opinion-shapers stop insisting that the most interesting things about stories are characters.

@Haflaen

Expressing “intuitive” concepts in more rational terms can help us to make sense of them and give us a greater awareness and understanding of what’s going on in our heads.

Snipped for those who aren't interested in epistemology

It can do so, and it can also result in a shallow reductionism. I wouldn’t join you in opposing “rational” to “intuitive”; intuition is a form of reasoning. The real opposite of intuition is analysis – making sense of things by breaking them down to their parts and looking at how the individual bits relate. There are a lot of advantages to analysis, notably a higher potential for objectivity and replicability, and it’s played a core role in the achievements of Western science and philosophy.

But analytical reasoning struggles with gestalt phenomena, systems whose level of complexity or emergent qualities mean that the whole can’t be fully understood from the parts. The attempt to “demystify” these (common, and important) phenomena through analysis can yield some insights but if used alone ultimately misses the forest for the trees. Making sense of complex phenomena requires intuitive reasoning based in pattern recognition. While intuition doesn’t offer the same degree of objectivity as analysis, it can still yield valid reasons for belief and action. (If we try to say that we’ll only accept intuition that can retroactively explain itself in terms of analysis, we’ll ultimately find that we’ve stripped much of our actual thinking of its validity).

Recognizing the patterns in systems/phenomena we can’t master through analysis often requires metaphor. A really good metaphor can be the key that unlocks a complex pattern to our understanding. But that doesn’t necessarily make the metaphor something we can then trade in for a more “rational,” non-metaphorical concept and expect it to do the same work.

Our relationship to stories is complex. We aren’t just makers or even inheritors of narratives, we’re made by them, they shape our thought and behavior at a profound level. Talking about a story as something we as authors are discovering more than creating isn’t necessarily just a “feels-like” optional metaphor that could be rendered literal by sufficiently careful psychological, linguistic, or anthropological analysis. It’s one lens on a reality that is hard to break down analytically: that our stories (including the characters that populate them) are bigger than us.

You may well disagree with every single thing I’ve said above. But I think it’s an approach deserving more consideration than you’ve been offering.

@Haflaen

relying on this intuition could lead to people making excuses for themselves, blaming their shortcomings as a writer on their characters being “uncooperative”.

It could, though I’ve yet to see anything like that in person. It could also be the necessary key that helps the writer keep their intuitive grasp on the character. I think I’ve run into that a bunch of times, judging from how people talk about their experience of writing.

@Haflaen

Ever played D&D with someone who messes things up for everyone and then says “it’s just what my character would do”?

I have. I know the frustration of playing with people who’ve lost sight of the fact that it’s collaborative storytelling, and just want to RP their character even when that ruins the fun for everyone else. But I also know that some of the best bits of my own longest-running campaign came when the players RP’d right off the plot rails I had in mind for them, following what their characters would have done, and I had to start improvising in response.

@Haflaen

what you really mean here is that you couldn’t conceive of a way for the character to survive this event without compromising character integrity

Worth noting that “character integrity” here is still firmly within the territory of metaphors that imply independent existence. “…without forcing you to write traits for the character that you didn’t want to write because they felt wrong to you” would I think be the most literal you could get. But it’s not clear to me that that’s half as illuminating or productive as the metaphor of being true to the character, even if the latter risks mystical baggage.

[707iscool]

My ro pet peeve is the “happy go lucky best friend”. I don’t have an issue with sunshine best friend, but it seems like whenever an mc has one it’s always that trope

[Dragomer]

Not sure if it fit the thread but I hate when all the infos on a WIP and its progress is spread out across like 5 websites and at least one paywall.

I also question having a patreon for a WIP because by nature, people who are already paying you money for something are unlikely to provide the criticize needed for a WIP to reach its potential and get published, it also incentivize endless rewritings to keep the patrons around.

[Haflaen]

@Havenstone

You may well disagree with every single thing I’ve said above.

I would question what you mean by “intuitive reasoning”, since intuition is by definition based on gut feelings rather than reason. But this has already gone way outside the purpose of this thread, for which I apologise. You’ve certainly made some interesting points and let me plenty to think about.

@EvilChani

She chose the latter, every time.

I’m still struggling to understand your headspace here. Do you create a kind of “mental simulation” where you put the character in the situation and just go with your instincts as to what she would do? Is that what you mean by “letting the characters take you on journey”? I confess I’m finding this increasingly fascinating as it’s so different from my own approach to storytelling, and whilst it might make sense to you I clearly need a more grounded explanation, hence why I considered this sort of thing “mystical”.

[LiliArch]

@Haflaen

more grounded explanation

See, I think that’s the problem in communication here - you’d want a complex analysis for something where the answer would simply be “I just write” (I still don’t understand why you consider it ‘mystical’ - is it mystical if I pull a 10k-word essay in 10 hours out of thin air? In my head, those are perfectly comparable)

[E_RedMark]

What she said, also Happy Joining day Lili!

[SnowPhoniex]

I agree on the patron part because as a member of two, I see exactly what you’re talking about, as a majority of the time it’s endless praises. There’s not enough of constructive criticism whatsoever in either spaces.

But for the other part, this type of interactive fiction is incredibly niche and this is some folks livelihood. They gotta get as much advertising as possible to reach more people on different platforms. It is pretty annoying having to go back and forth looking for info/lore but people have to make bread some way.

[Graceful-Not]

@Haflaen

I’m still struggling to understand your headspace here. Do you create a kind of “mental simulation” where you put the character in the situation and just go with your instincts as to what she would do? Is that what you mean by “letting the characters take you on journey”? I confess I’m finding this increasingly fascinating as it’s so different from my own approach to storytelling, and whilst it might make sense to you I clearly need a more grounded explanation, hence why I considered this sort of thing “mystical”.

Every one person writes just a little bit differently, but as a person who also writes as these people describe, I might be able to help explain it a little bit?
Personally, all of my fictional writing has been without a storyboard or a plan, (which is exactly why I haven’t done any long term projects- you need some framework before you can start,) and when i write, there is no situation to simulate-

but even when there is, even when you have a plan, you have to understand that writing like this ISN’T a purposeful conscious choice. We don’t put ourselves into this headspace and then start writing, and I don’t really craft how we write that meticulously. I sort of just… write. It’s kind of instinctual when we’ve written something out of character; something just feels wrong about the scene, so we’ll go back and read it and try to figure out how to make it work better.

I think the difference between the writing styles of you and @EvilChani is that you write with plot foremost in your mind- the story moves like meticulously crafted woodwork; everything is considered when you add a part or a piece, and it functions in synch. The characters and events are more there to help the greater structure move, rather than be the bulk of the story itself. But, at least my writing style, is more like throwing stones into a still lake and seeing what happens. You don’t predict the trajectory of the stones, or how the ripples in the water will form; you could, if you really wanted to, but that defeats the thought process of the writing. Sometimes a gust of wind will throw the stone off its trajectory, etc, which can get annoying if you’re trying to make the ripples happen a certain way; (Hence “characters not cooperating”) but you can never really control how the ripples move; just how you throw the rock.

…does that make sense-