Writers' Corner

[Asterales]

This thread is for talking about writing.

From techniques for world and character building, writing styles, the creation and writing process itself, inspirations, your favorite way to start a scene, the use of dialog, the good and bad points of different types of verse in poetry, to talking about what is especially difficult for you in writing and asking how others solve problems they come upon, in short, anything and everything connected to writing is allowed!

If you want to especially focus on your characters, you can introduce them in the OC Showcase and get to know them a bit better with the prompts posted there.
If you want to talk about your characters and their interaction with their world or plot decisions that might or might not influence them, the Writers' Corner is a good place, but background stories and insights into the characters' worlds are very welcome in the OC Showcase, too!

I hope everyone from the OC Showcase is fine with me creating this thread and its "limitations".

[Mélusine]

*Comes with pens, notebooks, tea, a cushion, and sits in a corner*

[Róisín]

Joins Mélusine, ready to take notes.

[LooNEY_DAC]

* LooNEY_DAC gets out soapbox

So, here's a question: can a character exist independent of the setting?

My personal take on it is: decidedly not. Every character must be shaped by their setting to a greater or lesser degree, which is why I don't tend to put stuff in the aforementioned OC thread, and why, for example, "Jazz Age"!Onni is crippled by stage fright, while Western!Onni is afraid of the racism of the outside world, instead of being deathly afraid of Beasts, Trolls, Giants, and the Rash.

On the other hand, some things can remain consistent in a character regardless of setting. Any version of Emil, for example, will always be a mass of insecurity poorly cloaked by pomposity, and also Lalli's friend, assuming Lalli is present. On balance, though, more is changed by setting than is constant. The Western AU has allowed Emil to gain more confidence than the "Jazz Age" AU, for example, so the former will have fewer outbursts of insecurity than the latter.

So, now you can all tell me every way in which I am mistaken.

* LooNEY_DAC jumps off soapbox before produce begins flying

[Róisín]

No, I think you're right, LooNEY. The character and the environment shape and are shaped by one another. In a different world, the same person will react to different things, but will react to things of similar ........nature? Value? Meaning?......in the same way.

Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.

[Asterales]

So, here's a question: can a character exist independent of the setting?

My personal take on it is: decidedly not. Every character must be shaped by their setting to a greater or lesser degree, which is why I don't tend to put stuff in the aforementioned OC thread, and why, for example, "Jazz Age"!Onni is crippled by stage fright, while Western!Onni is afraid of the racism of the outside world, instead of being deathly afraid of Beasts, Trolls, Giants, and the Rash.

On the other hand, some things can remain consistent in a character regardless of setting. Any version of Emil, for example, will always be a mass of insecurity poorly cloaked by pomposity, and also Lalli's friend, assuming Lalli is present. On balance, though, more is changed by setting than is constant. The Western AU has allowed Emil to gain more confidence than the "Jazz Age" AU, for example, so the former will have fewer outbursts of insecurity than the latter.

So, now you can all tell me every way in which I am mistaken.

Hmm, I think, I agree with you.

Spoiler: To quote (annoyingly) form the OCS • show

"Sometimes I get really attached to some of the environmental features. These dragons, the contract and some bloodsucking, long-legged rat-like creatures that could grow to the size of middle-sized dogs were some of them.
But because Ferusch stopped living in the mansion, the dragons and bloodsuckers vanished and while something like a contract stayed in the story, its nature changed completely.
To be honest, I'm still trying to bring my dragons back  At some point they became shapeshifters and since they had a fairly important role in the original story (which had been created from five of my other stories) I thought I could, but they have lost their purpose. I might need to find a new story for them. I'm a bit sad, because they haven't been compatible with any other world I thought up ever since Ferusch's."

It seems that, for me, characters are so very intertwined with the setting that I cannot even try to build a new world around them. One that would fit their "energy". Simply because other characters will have remained in the world that eventually out-grew them.
On the other hand, from my perspective, characters can be missing energetically in a setting. These fluffy-snake-dragons had a very cool feel to them, like mist or rain and rather mysterious. Taking them out of the story directly affected the weather in certain parts of the country, some scenery choices and the general level of mysteriousness vs straightforwardness in this story.

Then again, the main character has changed to a degree that should make him entirely unrecognizable, whereas the set up largely remained the same.
I think, maybe the traits that remain, are ones that are universal and could have been brought on by many things or something that could happen in any story. Basic emotions or psychological mechanisms. But are we talking about the characters personality here, or their experiences? Where does one start and the other end?

But I also somehow managed to fuse five stories into this one.

Spoiler: show

From one I (energetically, not physically) took the vast, dark forests, from one the strange feeling I had about the main character (a certain feel like a blue darkness, a bit like looking at the still waters of a lake at night where you half expect the stars to shine back at you and instead you see the moon, that, while almost blinding, only makes the darkness seem all that much more engulfing), from one the idea to have dragons, from one the whiteness of the land and from one the hopefulness that is now somehow buried in Anyoh's smile.

What defines a character anyway?

So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?

No, I think you're right, LooNEY. The character and the environment shape and are shaped by one another. In a different world, the same person will react to different things, but will react to things of similar ........nature? Value? Meaning?......in the same way.

Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.

Yes! That!
Possibly the reason "Canon" and "Fanon" characters exist. When characters have been (mis)interpreted by fans, but their behavior has become established as just as valid as the original, due to many ff-writers interpreting them similarly or because certain "what-ifs" had strong impact on the fandom.

[Aierdome]

Something I worked out is that a character is well created (or, for a fanfic writer, well understood), if you, the writer, can drop the character into a situation, watch what they do, and think, 'yes well of course, being X, what else could he do?' If doing that leads to a character reacting in a totally unexpected way, either your understanding of your character deepens, or shows an unexpected facet; otherwise, you know you have it wrong, and will have to take that character back to basics, and build or discover them again.

This, definitely. For me, the moment I know I have a fully-fledged character on my hands is when I want them to do something only to realize that this is a thing they'd never say or do.

As for the question of whether a character can exist independent on the setting, I'd say that the part that stays the same regardless of what situation the character comes from is very, very small - if Tuuri had grown up going on expeditions to Silent World every Tuesday, would she still be so excited for the outside world? While she may still long for being "out", her attitude and reasons behind her wanderlust would be completely different from canon Tuuri's. Would Onni, with his apparently quite impressive powers, still be so scared of the outside world if he was Immune? Probably not, though he might still fret about unexpected problems arising.

For me, the reason AU characters end up looking so similar to their canon versions in many fan-fics is that, consciously or not, the writer tweaks the situation they're in to be similar - or equivalent - to that of the canon versions. A fun thought excercise: if Emil and Lalli were swapped at birth, would they still become friends when they met in year 90?

So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?

I think it's called "expanded universe"...  But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.

BTW, have you read Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books? That's the kind of a thing I'm talking about. With the amount of building that went into it, everyone could create a Cosmere world, magic system and characters and never have them interact with canon characters or planets - and it'd still be recognizably a Cosmere story.

Of course, on the other hand, there are characters so powerful that the setting would look completely different if you were to take them away, but that's probably not someone who'd makes for a good main character. See: the God-Emperor of Mankind in 40K. If you plucked the guy and replaced him with someone caring, pleasant and... let's call it "psychologically canny", the setting would be completely turned on its head. In a way, it's like a "noble vs grim" distinction I've seen once. A "grim" setting is the one where the world is completely immutable, regardless of what the characters do - to continue with my 40K example, no matter how many decisive victories the God-Emperor's side gets, the Imperium is still dying. The "noble" setting is the one where a few men can change the world completely - like in Star Wars, where taking down the Emperor puts the galaxy-spanning Imperium on its knees and gives way for stuff like New Republic and First Order.

...oof, I think I've given you a small essay. tl;dr: characters change depending on the setting, but a well-built setting can carry different characters without changing, unless those characters aren't too powerful.

[Róisín]

'Fanon'. Hadn't heard that one, but the meaning is apparent. And gives me a name for something I'd noticed, but not really understood, since I'm new to writing fanfic. I mean, I've been writing since I was a child, but most of it has been poetry, and all of it has been original. Most of what I've had actually published or broadcast has been poetry, technical articles, the occasional song, filk or script, and some science-fiction short stories. SF tends to be more oriented to the idea rather than to the character, unless it's novel-length so the characters have time to develope. So I haven't written character much, unless it was in the context of poetry. And I still find writing on the internet quite strange - I'm used to having to go through a publisher or a magazine editor, and the liberty possible on the internet is.....interesting.

However, I had noticed that the SSSS fanfic on the Scriptorium, as well as on AO3 and fanficnet, seems to have two distinct strands - one that sticks fairly closely to canon, and another that diverges wildly. And yeah, some of the latter seem to have taken on a life of their own.

[LooNEY_DAC]

So my question would be: Do you think a setting can exist independently from a character? Would you be able to use the same setting for two stories or as habitat for completely unrelated sets of characters?

I think it's called "expanded universe"...  But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.

So, for purposes of discussion, what is a setting, then?

Is it simply a specific place and time?
Is it, for example, "Regency England"?
Is it "Regency London"?
Is it "London immediately before and after the Battle of Waterloo"?

Or is it a specific assemblage of characters, whatever their physical location?
For an example, when I say "Blandings Castle", do I mean the actual (fictional) residence, or do I mean the Earl of Emsworth and all the other Threepwoods and their kin and friends?
Or when I say "the Drones Club", am I talking of the premises, or the assorted Eggs, Beans and Crumpets that frequent them?

In either case, I think many stories, whether successive or simultaneous, can be told.
For my first set of examples, there is an entire sub-genre of popular romance called "Regency Romances" set therein.
For my second set of examples, P. G. Wodehouse wrote numerous stories with either assemblage (or both!).

I know, I'm asking the Deep, Tough Questions, but that's my nature.

[Róisín]

Good questions. If I say: I will set a story in the Real World, what do I mean by that? Do I mean in my household, in the little bush town where I live, on a plane halfway to Tierra del Fuego, in the Oval Office, in the mind of a loser who lives in his parents' basement? All or any of the above. Could just as easily be on Mars.

The setting will only be as interesting as the writer's description of it. As will the characters. So it's important to be able to visualise or remember a setting well enough to describe it clearly to the reader, and to be able to imagine a character well enough to do the same.

[Keeper]

This is an interesting discussion for me because I just drastically changed the setting of one of my stories. It started out as a modern-day small town setting, but I decided I could get more of a story if the characters were in a more medieval/fantasy village. And some of their traits are still there; Diana is still curious, Lucy still cares greatly about her friends, Rebecca is still the responsible older sister for Ethan. But some new traits popped up with the new setting- I figured out that Diana likes to sew, and Matthew likes to bake, and Lucy is average at both of those things. If I put them in the sci-fi setting of my other story, I would probably learn how resourceful and brave each character is, and what advantages they have that they would use in a more tense situation.

What's interesting is that I really changed the social setting than the place. It's still a small town with an old mansion on a hill, but now it's in some medieval-age world/time/society.

[Lazy8]

Ah, ye olde Nature vs. Nurture debate.

I think that, while characters certainly wouldn't be the same characters if they were placed in a completely different environment, you also can't discount the various innate ways in which they respond to environments. Someone used the example of Emil and Lalli being switched at birth, so I'll expand on that one; if the switch had somehow happened, they certainly would no longer be the same Emil and Lalli that we know and love. However, Lalli-in-Emil's-position would hardly be a carbon copy of the vain pretty boy, insecurity-masquerading-as-arrogance either, nor would Emil display Lalli's particular brand of taciturn introversion. Environment does play a huge role in shaping the characters, but there are also a lot of things innate to the characters themselves - intelligence, introversion/extroversion, natural talent, mental dis/ability, even physical appearance - that can't be discounted either. And if you decide to arbitrarily change these factors, then you don't have the same character anymore anyway, rendering the whole point moot.

[Aierdome]

So, for purposes of discussion, what is a setting, then?

I'd say it's the world, the times and, perhaps, the rules. A setting would be "21st century America in a world suffering a vampire plague" You've got the time (21st century), place (America) and rules (there are vampires and they're a plague). A group of characters remaining the same in various settings is an ensemble. Whether Blandings' Castle or the Drones Club is a setting or an ensemble depends on the context it shows in.

Ah, ye olde Nature vs. Nurture debate.

I think that, while characters certainly wouldn't be the same characters if they were placed in a completely different environment, you also can't discount the various innate ways in which they respond to environments. Someone used the example of Emil and Lalli being switched at birth, so I'll expand on that one; if the switch had somehow happened, they certainly would no longer be the same Emil and Lalli that we know and love. However, Lalli-in-Emil's-position would hardly be a carbon copy of the vain pretty boy, insecurity-masquerading-as-arrogance either, nor would Emil display Lalli's particular brand of taciturn introversion. Environment does play a huge role in shaping the characters, but there are also a lot of things innate to the characters themselves - intelligence, introversion/extroversion, natural talent, mental dis/ability, even physical appearance - that can't be discounted either. And if you decide to arbitrarily change these factors, then you don't have the same character anymore anyway, rendering the whole point moot.

Nah, Lalli wouldn't change into Emil clone, and Emil wouldn't change into a copy of Lalli. I think I didn't put it very well in my post, but I agree with you in that there is some part of the character that won't change regardless of setting the author would put it in. If Emil and Lalli were to be switched at birth, they wouldn't become a grey-haired Emil and blonde Lalli, of course. But I don't believe they'd become people we could recognize as Emil and Lalli if we didn't know the switch had taken place.

[Lazy8]

Nah, Lalli wouldn't change into Emil clone, and Emil wouldn't change into a copy of Lalli. I think I didn't put it very well in my post, but I agree with you in that there is some part of the character that won't change regardless of setting the author would put it in. If Emil and Lalli were to be switched at birth, they wouldn't become a grey-haired Emil and blonde Lalli, of course. But I don't believe they'd become people we could recognize as Emil and Lalli if we didn't know the switch had taken place.

Yeah, I think that you can't definitively say it's one or the other, because what shapes a character is very much a combination of nature and nurture. (I also now really want to read a story in which Emil and Lalli somehow were switched at birth.)

[Asterales]

Spoiler: show

I think it's called "expanded universe"...  But to answer the question, this depends on how much you've created of your world. I've recently became quite a fan of worldbuilding - I have an entire world map, with all countries and their capital cities marked, for a story which never moves out of a hundred kilometres' radius from the start point! By now, if you pointed at any random point on the map, I could give you a story set in it. It helps if you approach it sorta like building an RPG campaign (which is how the abovementioned story started). You set up a coherent setting, give it rules it abides by, figure out more important parts of its backstory and present-day events, and voila! It can accomodate pretty much every character.

BTW, have you read Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books? That's the kind of a thing I'm talking about. With the amount of building that went into it, everyone could create a Cosmere world, magic system and characters and never have them interact with canon characters or planets - and it'd still be recognizably a Cosmere story.

Of course, on the other hand, there are characters so powerful that the setting would look completely different if you were to take them away, but that's probably not someone who'd makes for a good main character. See: the God-Emperor of Mankind in 40K. If you plucked the guy and replaced him with someone caring, pleasant and... let's call it "psychologically canny", the setting would be completely turned on its head. In a way, it's like a "noble vs grim" distinction I've seen once. A "grim" setting is the one where the world is completely immutable, regardless of what the characters do - to continue with my 40K example, no matter how many decisive victories the God-Emperor's side gets, the Imperium is still dying. The "noble" setting is the one where a few men can change the world completely - like in Star Wars, where taking down the Emperor puts the galaxy-spanning Imperium on its knees and gives way for stuff like New Republic and First Order.

...oof, I think I've given you a small essay. tl;dr: characters change depending on the setting, but a well-built setting can carry different characters without changing, unless those characters aren't too powerful.

Spoiler: show

Technically, all of what you said is undoubtedly true. In reality... I don't really know how to describe it... it makes me physically nauseous to "transplant" characters from one world to another, no matter how developed either the world or the character is. It's like a giant knot in my stomach that starts aching when I so much as think about it and it feels as if there is a wall physically stopping my hand from touching pen to paper - sort of like a paralysis. It's like every fiber of my being starts screeching: "WRONG!" It's not comfortable.

So even though I have more than twenty pages of notes concerning Ferusch's world, including places that will never be mentioned and just barely resist creating another, southern continent for it, I could never, ever, in a million years transplant a character that is unused, because I dropped their universe, into Ferusch's world. Even when their personality or looks wouldn't be amiss in the slightest, could enrich the story, even.
I can't just go and put a character that 'feels' lime-green and silver in a world that is mostly black, red and dark grey, with hints of saturated dark blue and green! It's impossible!

*sigh* After this little discussion I feel like throwing up and my whole body aches...
Not to mention, I feel more deranged than I probably am.

No one else has this problem?

In either case, I think many stories, whether successive or simultaneous, can be told.

Spoiler: show

Yes, as long as they are with characters that were 'born' in that world and the 'web of energy' extends to them, it's possible.
But once characters of 'the first generation' die, the colour/energy/feel of a world changes for me, because their weight is missing from weave and matter, my sensibilities start revolting once more.
There has to be something to anchor these energies to the world, like legends, name giving habits or iconography, for all I care, but...something!

 ??? Yep, I DO sound like a lunatic. And I'm not helping the discussion at all...

...because I am in no way prepared to answer your other questions before going to bed. Besides you might not want to consider my opinion concerning this matter, as it is decidedly strange and I am apparently unable to express myself in a concise manner. 

Really, there is no big difference for me at all! Character and setting change together! And it's not only the influential characters that change the setting.
The only thing I can do with my characters and worlds is to try to slowly morph them by adding or subtracting strands of colour, a smell, a distinct sound or, well, "energies" 

Of course I can sit down and fill out charts that record these changes and think about the hight and length of mountain ranges, the kind of wheat that would need to be grown and how much of it, but... THE FEELS!  :'(  *rolls over in defeat*

I'll try to just sit back and listen.

This is an interesting discussion for me because I just drastically changed the setting of one of my stories. It started out as a modern-day small town setting, but I decided I could get more of a story if the characters were in a more medieval/fantasy village. And some of their traits are still there; Diana is still curious, Lucy still cares greatly about her friends, Rebecca is still the responsible older sister for Ethan. But some new traits popped up with the new setting- I figured out that Diana likes to sew, and Matthew likes to bake, and Lucy is average at both of those things. If I put them in the sci-fi setting of my other story, I would probably learn how resourceful and brave each character is, and what advantages they have that they would use in a more tense situation.

What's interesting is that I really changed the social setting than the place. It's still a small town with an old mansion on a hill, but now it's in some medieval-age world/time/society.

Thats great! *pretends to understand how you did it and is not secretly weirded out at all*
Well, at least the characters changed with their surroundings. I get that part.

What do you think you will be able to get out of the medieval setting opposed to the modern one?

The setting will only be as interesting as the writer's description of it. As will the characters. So it's important to be able to visualise or remember a setting well enough to describe it clearly to the reader, and to be able to imagine a character well enough to do the same.

And to remember that the setting is real to the character and likely the only reality they know.
I think, that's the way to pulling off even the most astounding settings, whit the suspense of disbelieve still in tact.

* Asterales ooks at two three new replies.

I type too slowly, clearly. Going to bed now.