Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? II

[Atarah]

I've always loved writing, and a few years ago (two years ago on Feb 14th in fact) I decided I'd write a book and go about it properly. I started by coming up with a rough idea for a plot, then drew a map. Strangly the next thing I did was come up with a language for one of the races to speak. I was really into writing the book and so far it's 49 pages of A4 long, font size 12 (i think). I have so many ideas for it, and even ideas for other books set at different points along the time line of the wolrd I created, but unfortunately I'm too lazy to add to it. I also think that the style I've written it in needs to be changed. I put in too much dialogue and not enough description. I also think my main character is a bit Mary Sue... Oh well. I'm sure I'll get round to finishing it one day. I think I mentioned this book on the old thread when I used to be active a few years ago under a different name. I've called it "Eidu Are" which is the name of the "country" the book is set in. I really want to finish it and start work on the sequels. Plus I really want to know if it's good enough to publish

[Aiwendil]

Some very interesting discussion of perfect and flawed characters. I quite agree with Nurumaiel that it is a mistake to overcompensate and, in an effort to avoid perfection, to pile all kinds of flaws upon a character. In fact, I would go so far as to say that there really is nothing disastrously wrong with a perfect character. That is, the mere fact that a character is perfect is not itself detrimental to a work. However I think that there are three dangers with such a character:

1. The work will suffer if the character is annoyingly perfect. There is a natural human tendency to simultaneously admire and dislike those that we perceive as better than us. To an extent, you may be able to inspire admiration for the character in the reader. However, if the perfection of the character is dwelt upon, this can easily turn to dislike.

2. A perfect character is less likely to be believable. Now there are people who are incredibly talented at a wide range of things and who have no discernible flaws. But there are not many of them. Populating one's story with such characters is therefore simply not realistic. There are exceptions - if you provide some reasonable explanation for the fact that your world is filled with this kind of person, you may make it believable. For example, Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars dealt with an incredibly advanced and incredibly stable society the inhabitants of which had long ago eliminated most flaws. To take perhaps a better known example, look at the characters in Star Trek's semi-Utopian future (particularly in The Next Generation).

3. Perhaps most importantly, a perfect character is less interesting than a flawed character. Now this is not necessarily a problem unless your story relies on its characterization to provide interest. A strongly plot-based story can get by with less interesting characters than a character-based story (obviously). Minor characters also need not be profoundly fascinating if that burden is shouldered by the major characters. But all too often, I think, inexperienced writers rely too much on uninteresting characters to provide interest. Worse, some actually expect that the reader will be interested in a character precisely because that character has a long list of talents and virtues and no flaws (though it does occur to me that one might generate an interesting character by taking perfection to the extreme - that would be a special, and curious, case).

I also don't think that it is necessarily flaws that make a character interesting. Flaws can be just as boring as talents if they are simply facts. My theory is that what makes a character interesting is complication. A character who is an incredibly good swimmer and has a fear of heights is not particularly interesting. But a character who is an incredibly good swimmer and has a fear of water is. The interest, then, is not generated by the mere fact that the character is flawed; it is generated by the complexity of a character with two apparently contradictory features. Complexity need not involve flaws. A character can also be made interesting by giving him or her complex views on some important subject, complex or contradictory desires, disparate conscious and subconscious opinions, and so forth.

[Imladris]

I believe that one of the most important qualities of a character is that the reader be able to relate to him. A good or perfect character can be either excrutiatingly annoying in the hands of an inadept writer or loveable and relatable in the hands of a good one.

Now that I have grown older, I don't look for faults or flaws, I look for how a character acts in certain situations. I look for struggles. Example: Frodo in the Barrow Downs. He could have left. He was tempted to leave. He knew that it would be justified. But did he? No he didn't.

Ender in Ender's Game is, in a sense, perfect (at least I think he was). He's a military genius. But I adored him, and sympathisized with him. It was because along with his perfection, he was also human. He was still a boy placed in adult circumstances.

If a character is perfect, it must not be unrealistically so. He must have struggles. If a character has faults, they must also be realistic. Because if you give a heap of perfections to one or a heap of faults to another, it is still the same coin, only a different side.

And, as Aiwendil said, characters must also be complex.