​​How Do You Write [_________]

Okycool

“I make 6,000 a day working from home” this made me laugh so hard I had to stop reading

Elliestorm

yeah you make a valid point.

when someone asks say “how do I write a woman?” that is such a vast topic. “Or how do I write a gay person?” or “how do I write a XYZ culture?”

In neurodiversity circles we say “If you’ve met one neurodiverse person you’ve met one neurodiverse person.” Its because while we tend to have common behaviours and overlapping issues, we are all uniquely different.

When people ask these questions I think what they are really asking is “will someone sit down with me and be my source.” what they want is someone they can go to with questions and get answers as they come up.

my husband is the man I go to when writing male characters. He answers questions about … anatomy … that I don’t have and it helps. I would expect a man writing about a woman has a woman he can ask the same questions of.

I think that’s what people are really looking for … someone from that demographic to answer questions openly and honestly for them.

Rodrigocr

I’ve never understood the “how do I write X” questions. If you don’t have a handle on your character, if you don’t know who they are and what they want, why are you writing about them in the first place?
Their gender, sexual orientation, handedness or profession is the least interesting thing about them, and the one you should have the least trouble with if you have any experience interacting with human beings at all.
The salient part is what makes them different from all the other heterosexual, cis-gendered, irish-italian, left-handed TV-repairmen, not what they have in common with them.

Shotgun

That depends on the story. If it’s about the Salem witch trials, then gender is hugely important to the characters. If it’s about Stonewall then the same for sexuality. If it’s about Jason Bourne then his profession is really the most interesting thing about him because he’s a blank slate otherwise. And you really think that if people need to do research about something then they shouldn’t bother writing it? Huh?

Millywithy

This blog post is a great prompt to ask more than one question about your characters. I’ll add that when writing villainous/criminal characters it’s a good idea to research the personality disorders and traits often associated with chronic anti-social behaviors. A villain who is generous and superficially charming and yet entitled and sadistic is more entertaining that one who is simply the latter, for example.

Lmglomar

Good article!

Questions I’ve seen get good answers – here and other places – are about how a character with a certain kind of background or skill set might approach a situation / problem. This can be technical (how would a criminal do a certain kind of crime) or more social (how might someone who recently immigrated to the US handle political conversations at work or at a party?)

In big communities, there’s usually someone there who actually knows and can provide specific, useful answers.

Qacoert

Isn’t this entire article a bit of an overreaction? Herman Mellville wasn’t a giant whale. Lewis Carrol wasn’t a nine year old little girl. You could argue that Johanna Spyri was, at one point, an energetic little girl, but she certainly wasn’t a grandfather, a Peter or perhaps even a Clara. In more recent writing we have Harry Potter created by J. K. Rowling, Sir Percy created by baroness van Orczy, Modesty Blaise created by Peter O’Donnell, Sabriel and Lirael created by Garth Nix and Flicka (a horse!) created by Mary O’Hara.

Even if you try to look at this argument from the other side, the side that says only people who have lived a given character can write a particular character, how many successful examples can you name? But lets assume you can name a successful example, then what? The entire book will be filled with just one type of character? Lesbian women write books about twenty lesbians and not a single other character? Forty year old white men write only about 40 year old white men and not a single other character?

Which leads me to another point. What will you do about characters where no one has lived that experience? Take Ken Catran’s Deep water blue as just one example. By this article’s argument that entire series should not exist, because none of us have ever been working until we collapse, stripping our cities for material to build a spaceship in a desperate attempt to save humanity from a killer virus. None of us have ever been forced, against our will, to pilot this spaceship throughout space in a desperate attempt to bring that DNA home after the virus has burned itself out. Even your example of a left handed woman living in witch trial era Salem cannot be written because not one of those women are still alive today.

I think any writer who say to herself or himself, “I can only write these characters because this is the only life I’ve ever lived” will be doing himself or herself a gigantic disservice. Every single example I quoted at the beginning was a bestseller and almost every single one of them sold millions of copies.

Onalimb

I don’t want to put words in @Rodrigocr’s mouth, but I suspect you’re mis-characterizing the point. All the ways a character is classified have an effect on both the pressures and choices available to them, but what makes a character interesting is what makes that character unique. Statistical truths aren’t necessarily individual truths, and individual truths don’t necessarily apply across the board. Research is important, but bad research won’t yield good results.

Jacksavage

The answer was clear. Listen to person 2 and enter a discussion about what life is like for the left hander.

I dont see the problem.

Rodrigocr

Well said.

Jacksavage

I am pretty sure you dont have to be a serial killer to write a serial killer character.

Nor a crime boss, drug lord, cannibal, chicken, monkey, sex trafficker, alien, living in a fantasy realm, have lived in the 1500s, or 1400s, been a viking, been genghis Khan’s pet tortoise, or have met a frodo or a dragon or a giant eye that sees everything except where frodo is.

Luluo

Is that what this article said? Huh. I must have reeeally misinterpreted it, because I got something else entirely from it. I thought it was just saying to take into account more than one single character attribute.

Lmglomar

You interpreted the article correctly – and it was clearly written.

Sando

Very enjoyable article.

Empathy is an important skill to learn as a writer - everyone has their own perspective and reasons, even if you don’t agree with them.

Even ‘the baddies’ are usually the hero in their own story, and it’s worth taking the time both to understand them, and why they’re wrong.

A good example is most of the cowboy films from the mid 20th century. Those brave men with their guns versus those cowardly Indians with their bows. (And yeah, like any conflict, tremendous evil was committed by both sides at some point)

Cwarkentin

Frequently, it’s because the author is writing a behavior they’ve observed, not an emotion they feel.[…] They behave inexplicably because the author can’t see themself in the character.

Yes, writing is not observational psychology. Your characters have to live in you first, and if you can’t make them work in your head, you won’t on the page.

I’ve never been one to give any credit to the idea that you can’t write characters with identities at variance with your own. It seems really, really narrow-minded and would lead to exactly the kind of segregated literature that’s at odds with efforts to build a less segregated real world. I’d rather screw up writing someone than feel I’m not allowed to try.

I have a character, the main and narrator character in the novel I’ve given up on writing, at least for now, who is very much at odds with who I am along a lot of dimensions. I spent a lot of hours reading and lurking on social media, looking at how people like this character explain and account for themselves. I did do my research.

And one of the things I discovered, trying make this character live in my own head, was that they weren’t really all that much at odds with me at all.

Op3120

I’m very new here, and just started participating. I love the subject of character development. I truly believe character creation/development is a way of seeking how to understand people or put yourself in their shoes. We are all human able to communicate, observe, and understand each other. This is what fuels the inspiration for a story, right?

Something has inspired the character. They are built as you progress the story, determining how they would respond to a situation. The character is why the story exists. It’s about them and their moment.

When you begin making a character you must imagine them as a real individual with a real past and you are trying to understand them. How have they become the way they are now?

I’m very concerned about the real-ness of my characters and their interactions. I will be posting my first story chapters soon, and really hope to receive feedback on this subject.

Jimmygrays

Its almost like you become the actor of a character to really understand their challenges in everyday life. What you seemingly suggested is therefore if I have got you corectly, to immerse yourself in the protagonist and develop it to see the challenges through all their senses. Lefthanded must be part of their challenge. I can only imagine how challenging to wipe their arse would be.

Jimmygrays

Remember to use their five senses, that way they become real, if they sniff and cuss, then they sniff and cuss, if they are full of wind, then they pass wind, if they pick their noses,., same… I watched folk in a big London train station and observed passengers in their rush to go wherever, even getting on a train and observing them how they communicate their feelings and mannerisms and why…I look forward to your development.

Jacksavage

It isn’t almost like it. It is exactly like it, except an actor has a script to follow. We create the script and put ourselves in the character’s shoes at all times.