November Is Writing Month

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Wouldn’t you know it—just as Questionable Content's Marigold’s starting to annoy me, along comes this excellent bit of silliness and she's adorable again. Jeph Jacques wins at Comics this week just for that.*

I love that QC’s characters are all so darn pragmatic and communicative. What with the entire internet NaNoing right now, I’ve had a bunch of writing discussions, and wound up lamenting to both fadethecat and my sister that I need dumber characters, because it’s a lot harder to manufacture conflict when your people are willing to Think Things Through, Question Their First Impulses, and Sit Down And Have A Conversation (speaking of Digger).

MY SISTER: Yeah, my dumb character gets into the most fun situations by far.

ME: I can’t do it. I’d be the worst sitcom writer ever. “Jane hears Sarah talking about pregnancy and sees her shopping at a maternity store. She wonders if Sarah’s pregnant, and considers throwing her a surprise shower. First, though, she asks Sarah if she IS pregnant. Sarah says no, she was buying clothes for her pregnant cousin. Jane is glad she didn’t jump the gun and mention this to her friends.”

MY SISTER: “Shawn sees Evelyn having coffee with some guy and worries she might be cheating on him. So he goes over and says hi, and Evelyn introduces him to the guy, who turns out to be her brother, Kevin, and Shawn joins them for some biscotti.”

ME: “Bob’s parents come to visit him, his roommate Lily, and his boyfriend, Phil, but they are under the impression that Bob and Lily are an item. A few confusing conversations later and they realize the misunderstanding, clear it up, and have a nice dinner.”

MY SISTER: You’re right. I’d never watch that.


And yet I love QC and Digger. Smart characters mean you need more interesting conflicts to work through. You just need a smart writer to figure them out.

And hey, if that smart writer can write wonderful badfic, well. Bonus points and candy for him!


*Ursula Vernon won last week. Y'ALL, I WAS INCONSOLABLE FOR THREE DAYS.

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

Oh gods, Ursula Vernon won so very much last week. Waaaaah :( I loved Ed, but it was right.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just about cried. Saw it coming, BUT STILL.

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

Ed! *sniffle*

Smart characters just mean you have to turn to Evil instead of Stupid Misunderstandings for conflict. :)

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

Oh, gawd, Ursula wins everything forever. Yesterday I took some time and reread from when Digger and Murai got back to the temple and Ed was there because of Jhalm being a dick. It is both heart-breaking and perfect that Ed's last words were "Name is Ed!"

I've had the stupid conflicts vs. smart characters not getting into them discussion about TV shows. I really have a low tolerance for shows that rely on characters being stupid for the plot. Once in a while, I can live with it. Everyone has their dumb moments. But when every plot could be resolved in five minutes with one conversation, the show loses me. Or book or what have you, really.

There is so much to love about Digger. Digger totally blows the Bechdel test away without even considering it. The whole quest to the monastery bit was taken on by three female characters and the fact that it was three female characters just never was mentioned or an issue or anything. It's Digger and Murai and Grim Eyes and who they are and what they're doing that's important, not that all three of them happen to be female.

[shadesofmauve]

But when every plot could be resolved in five minutes with one conversation, the show loses me.

This! After the tenth time I've yelled "Talk to each other, damnit!" at my book, I tend to put it down and read something else.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I also had this problem with later Harry Potter books ...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about the acolyte's vision when reading and wound up thinking, "Wow, handy he had a crowbar with him--oh, yeah." He'll be a much better folk hero than He-Is, though.

I can't watch most sitcoms for just that reason--I wind up wanting to scream "JUST ASK, YOU DOPES!"

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Apparently, either the majority of people love the people-being-stupid shows or networks think they do, because so much of situation comedy (and all romantic comedy films) rely on that nonsense. I have no patience for it. I'd rather have root canal without anesthesia than watch one of those.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

This may be why I spend a lot of time staring bleakly at my characters and thinking, "I am not smart enough to write a plot for these people."

On the other hand, cheating helps: with some of my very Clever characters, I used to spend a lot of time between chapters talking with the spouse about what their options were, and what the results might be, and how other people would respond, and what they could do to prevent that being a problem... Which meant that when two hours of discussion turned into a five-minute decision and plan creation on the part of the Clever Character, they looked very clever indeed, and I still had some plot.

(This also had the side-effect of one of my characters in a Secret Supernatural War setting constantly calling the mortal authorities on his enemies, who would suddenly have to explain their suspicious behavior and heavy weaponry to unfriendly people with guns without blowing their cover, while he walked out another door, whistling. It wasn't always the most exciting way the plot could go, but by the third time he did it, it was such a standard tactic it could be handled off-screen between chapters to explain why he was moving on to the next problem.)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

...long anecdote meant, in this case, "It's amazing how many Modern Supernatural War difficulties can be handled by someone actually calling 911 from their cell phone when things get iffy."

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

And there is the crux of it--dumb characters are a lot easier to OUTTHINK. It takes WORK to outsmart your smart characters.

Also, I really love your Secret Supernatural solution there. It could go down in so many ways! "Wahaha, the seven stones of An'hulle are set upon the altar, now to conduct the sacrifice--" *SWAT team bursts in* "Oh, bugger."

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

It worked remarkably well! It was fun writing a Fiendish Demon whose preferred form of dealing with problems was either "We call 911" or "We pretend to be exterminators."

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

...I would so read this. XD Is this available somewhere? Online or purchasable? (See, that's an indication of how much I like the idea, my brain doesn't immediately go to "I hope it's available free online somewhere", the first thought is "Hey, I'd buy that"!)

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

It's fanfic for In Nomine (RPG setting, mostly original characters) that...hrm. It's stuck in my LJ here and there, but mostly under friends lock, I think. I keep meaning to stick it online somewhere one of these days in its entirety, especially since I have the whole thing saved in other files now. I just haven't gotten around to doing so yet.

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

You are soooo friended now. :D I used to play In Nomine.

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I have not, alas, written much for it some time now. But! If you fling me an email address over on my LJ, I'll send you the fanfic about the demon I mentioned.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

I would totally watch that show. It could be called, "This is What Human Relationships Are Actually Like". Although, if it was too realistic the show would not provide any content I couldn't get by just having actual friends, which may explain why dumb people persist on TV (or maybe they're just playing to their main demographic).

I've had that conversation too in my head. "Hmm, I need to make sure my characters misunderstand each other sometimes, because that's what conversation is really like." I've somewhat gotten the hang of it through practice.

I've also developed a means to write dialogue with people much smarter than I am: I write the conversation as normal, and then cut most of it out, so that they seem to be making astounding leaps of logic and human understanding.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I've also developed a means to write dialogue with people much smarter than I am: I write the conversation as normal, and then cut most of it out, so that they seem to be making astounding leaps of logic and human understanding.

Hee hee! That is an excellent strategy!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Remember, there's always the Jim Butcher option: Enough hits to the head, and anything becomes plausible ;)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

*snert* I have to remind myself when my characters have head injuries or are sleep-deprived or something. "Probably not thinking real fast."

One of the most fun parts of writing Doctors! was when my narrator got bashed on the head and spent the next few pages narrating through a concussion. A lot of moments where he suddenly finds himself somewhere else, or keeps asking the same questions over and over again. Poor dope.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

One way to have a serious conflict between two intelligent characters is to give them different subsets of the facts (or some misinformation).

But an even better way is to let them agree on the facts, but have the facts be complicated, and then to have them weigh the importance of different facts differently.