Characterization

Picture a river running through a steep gorge. You stand on the edge of the cliff and below you, whitewater froths and churns against jagged rocks. Spanning the river to each side of you are a thousand narrow bridges.

Quick. Pick one.

I know - the bridges all look the same. Trust me, they're not.

What does characterization mean to the slash world? Well, that depends on who you ask.

For some, it means the characters never do anything in a story that isn't almost exactly the same as something we've seen them do on-screen. Except for having sex with each other, of course.

For others, the characters do the same kinds of things in stories that they do on-screen. If they visit art museums on-screen, they go to art gallery openings and discuss the sculptures in front of buildings in the stories. If they go to a street vendor and eat a chili dog for lunch every day on-screen, then they have a generally lousy diet in fanfic. If they pet a dog, ride a horse, and chirp back at a parakeet on-screen, then they're a major animal lover in fanfic. And they have sex.

(Actually, I like this type of story when well-written. These stories give me a slightly broader view of the men or women I see on-screen. Depending upon what else the writer offers in the story, these can be some of my favorites.)

What's next? Another step. Some writers like to explore wider areas. A character hints at being nervous in large crowds on-screen. The writer wonders what this same person would do if they were actually covering up the fact that they have full-blown, panic-attack-inducing claustrophobia. He or she writes this character being locked in a small, dark, airless room for several hours and (if the writing is exceptional) lets us ride along and watch as the character's initial unease shades into panic, then blooms into a kicking, screaming psychotic episode. If the writing is average--the writer just tells us that the character has the screaming meemies, sweats a lots, and wishes there were more air. In either version, of course, the character's loved one rescues him/her--and they have sex. The first example is great fanfic. The second is okay fanfic. Some people find it sufficient.

How about if the writer of the story in the first example above decides that the character has asthma, so that their fear of not being able to breathe is the phobia all tangled up with their very real physical problem? Okay, so the character on-screen doesn't have asthma. Or, does he? They've never said, either way, so maybe he could. So the writer decides that, for the sake of this story, he does.

I could go on and on, and talk about each tiny step that leads to completely unrecognizable characters, but I'll spare you. The point it, there are almost as many versions of a character as there are writers and readers. Make that 1,000 bridges into 10,000--and you're getting closer to the right number.

Somewhere along that miles-long row of bridges is one with your name on it.

Because, you see, you've decided you want to write a story where Blair got hit by a burst of Strange Radiation and developed Superpowers.

This is a seriously cheesy plot. (Pardon me while I gag.) But I'm not telling you not to write it - just that it's going to take work to make it work.

I suppose you still want to know how it's done? I mean, that's why you waded through all of this drivel I've been writing, right? You were hoping there was a Magic Bullet. A Secret. A Golden Key.

Well, guess what. There is. And I'm not even going to make you send us money to learn it. (I should, I know. People never seem to believe advice that doesn't cost them money.)

Spell it with me kids...E-M-O-T-I-O-N. Not just simple laughing and crying, mind you. Emotion and emotional interaction.

Are you listening to me? Put aside those damned blue tights you're sewing! Stop trying to decide if Blair wants his chest shield to read 'BB' for 'Big Boy' or 'SS' for SuperStud. Pay attention, darn it! This is important. The Holy Grail. The Pot of Gold.

It is the character's emotional reactions and responses to the world around them that define who they are. This is what defines good characterization.

Before you decide on what adventures SuperBlair will encounter, you have to know who Blair is. Get a piece of paper and a pen. Write five defining characteristics for Blair. (And, the first person who writes 'long hair' is going to get an 'F'. I mean it. Blair is not 'long hair.' Blair might be 'personal vanity', in which case wearing his hair long would be a facet of that characteristic.) 'Cares deeply about/loves Jim' might be a characteristic. If that's of major importance to you, include it. 'Cares deeply about people' is unquestionably a characteristic and can be included with or separate from the Jim one.

You need three to five defining characteristics that reflect the essence of who Blair is in relationship to himself, to people around him, and to his Love Interest (in this case, Jim). Five is better than three.

If he has any firm habits that you see as being of critical importance to helping readers see him on the page, feel free to make another list of those. A short list. You don't want to bog yourself down later.

Look at your list. (Or, both lists.) This is Blair. When he puts on those blue tights and flies off to fight evil-doers, or buzz around the world in sixty seconds, or whatever you're going to have him do, remember these things. These are what the readers care about. These are the things they see in a story that make their eyes light up and their hearts pound. These are what makes them say to themselves, "That's Blair!"

It's possible, even likely, that the Strange Radiation had an odd effect on Blair's personality. Maybe you want to change some of these characteristics.

It can be done. Like I said somewhere else, a story is a journey and your purpose is to guide the reader on this journey. Your readers will follow if they believe in you. In your characters.

You can't say - "Blair woke up and realized he didn't care if anyone else in the world live or died any more" unless you show the emotional consequences of this change. The people around him have to act like he's OldBlair until they come to realize he had changed. Then they have to change and adapt to NewBlair. And you have to show what NewBlair thinks of all of this. How much OldBlair still exists? Is he at war with himself inside? Does he remember and regret the emotional capacity he's lost? Is he evilly gleeful to be freed of the necessity to care about others? Does NewBlair still love Jim? How is his love different?

Etc.

Etc.

In the end, you might look at this story premise and realize it just doesn't work. You look at your list of characteristics and realize the guy in the blue tights no longer has any of them. He doesn't love Jim, so there isn't even any sex.

NewBlair is emotionless, so even having him run amok in a crowd and kill people seems less than fascinating. OldBlair would have killed himself before he would have done anything like that, but you decided that NewBlair doesn't care about others and that none of OldBlair is left inside of him.

What have you done? You've abandoned the character in favor of this guy no one's ever seen before. Contrary to some people's opinions, it is not sufficient just to name the guy 'Blair' to insure that the readers see him as Blair.

You wonder where you went wrong. And you decide to post the story anyhow, hoping like mad that you'll get a hundred glowing responses telling you how fabulous it is. But you don't. And you knew you wouldn't. Because, in your heart of hearts, you knew it didn't work. Do you pin your keyboard to the wall and use it for darts practice, swearing never to write again?

Only if you're a wimp. The story can be written. (You never listen, do you?)

Why did it fail? (Because it did fail. Just admit it. The best thing to do is to stand up and say it out loud. Trust me, it won't prove fatal. It will be a relief, because then you can move on.)

Why did it fail? No valid emotional point of reference for the reader.

You took everything that made Blair into Blair, all of his emotional reactions to the world around him, and you erased them. What you had left, wasn't SuperBlair, it was SuperShithead. You can, with very carefully writing and sufficient explanation, change any one of a character's defining characteristics. If you're an exceptional writer--you can change two out of five and still wind up with a Blair that 80% or more of your readers will recognize. Every erasure after beyond that will eliminate about 50% of your remaining potential readers.

You promised them a story about Blair and Jim. You gave them a story about Jim and SuperShithead. You lied, and a lot of them are going to delete your story without bothering to finish it.

Let me repeat myself. This story can be written. One teeny-tiny change that will unfortunately require you to re-write the entire thing.

Change the P.O.V. You were writing Blair's experiences as SuperBlair/Shithead, right? But if Blair is no longer Blair, it's not that much fun. The real story here is Jim. Jim's still, Jim, right? I mean, you haven't done anything peculiar to him, have you? Okay, then. Write the story from Jim's Point Of View. (Remember to make your list of defining characteristics first. This time, it's critical that at least one of them involves how Jim feels about OldBlair.)

Your real story is how the change in Blair, how the complete disappearance of the Blair he knew, affects Jim. How he feels about Blair's new coldness. How he feels about losing his Guide. How he reacts to knowing that Blair has all of this power, and no moral sense. How Jim contemplates his own abilities, trying to measure them against what NewBlair can do. Does he think he might have to fight or kill NewBlair? What does this idea do to him? What does he miss most about OldBlair? What steps does he take, what favors does he call in to try to find a cure?

Jim has the same feeling he always did, he's still the man who fits those defining characteristics you wrote down. But now he's facing a new situation. One that might change everything for him. This is a powerful situation to put a character in.

In this case, it's Jim's feelings versus his emotions as his love for OldBlair keeps coming to mind while he contemplates the fact that he might have to destroy NewBlair in order to protect the people his Sentinel powers compel him to protect.

Well-written, this could be one hell of a fine story. So, yes, it's worth the effort. Throw out the failure and write the new one. Or, keep the failure. By contrast to the heated emotions you've included in the story from Jim's POV, then the one from Blair's perspective could gain a reflected importance. You could post it as a companion piece to the first one (with any necessary re-writes that reflect the story you wound up writing from Jim's POV, of course).

You never know . . . .

Sounds tough, you say? Well, it is. And it will probably relieve you know that there probably isn't one in twenty fanfic writers who go to this much trouble. And you might not want to go to this much work either, not for a minor story.

But if you have ambitions of being a really great fanfic writer - you're going to have to put a corresponding amount of work into it. And characterization is a big part of what can get you there. If you want to write simpler stories, the same attention to characterization is still one of the major keys to winning the reader's love and loyalty.

A kind of compulsive honesty on my part compels me to admit at this point that very few fanfic writers pay attention to the kind of characterization details I've outlined above. Some of them excel as writers in spite of ignoring all of this, because they are gifted writers.

A certain percentage of fanfic writers write perfectly adequate stories, groping in the dark and getting a lot, or at least some, of this stuff right purely by chance and instinct.

And a regrettably large number of fanfic writers turn out story after story where any resemblance between their characters and the ones we see on-screen, is purely coincidental. An equally large number of readers seem to love those stories.

There's room for everyone. (Notice how fair and even-handed I'm being? It's making me crazy, but I'm trying....)

There are a substantial number of readers who don't seem to have a clue about characterization either. They read a story where Walter Skinner goes home every night, cries into his soup, tends the flowers in his window box, and kicks the cat around the house a few times, then write gushing posts to the writer that they love their Skinner because he's so vulnerable and emotional.

The fact that the weepy, weak, cat-kicking person in the story doesn't exhibit one single characteristic that looks anything like the man we've seen on-screen so often, doesn't bother them. The fact that the Walter Skinner we've seen on-screen for the last few years isn't excessively vulnerable, emotionally fragile, and terminally insecure seems irrelevant to them. To them, it's enough that the person in the story is named Skinner.

Whatever.

There are thousands of writers and readers on-line who will fight to the death to defend people's rights to write stories like this. They say that everyone's vision of the characters has the same merits and the same right to exist.

On the one hand, the radical, free-thinker in me has to agree. Everyone should be free to write whatever they want.

On the other hand, the reader in me cringes and dies a little every time she accidentally finds herself reading something like the scenario outlined above. It's not that my vision of the characters is particularly limited, and it's not that I'm not willing to be convinced that a facet of the character I haven't seen before might be perfectly valid. It's just that it takes a damned fine writer to convince me that a portrayal that's the exact opposite of what I see on-screen is anyone I care about.

And that's the bottom line. It's the Walter Skinner on-screen that I care about. If I had any particular urge to become wrapped up in weepy, whiney neurotic types, I'd be a Woody Allen fan instead of the X-Files. (If you're a Woody Allen fan and object to that remark, don't bother to write to me about it. I'm indifferent to Woody Allen, okay?)

I guess I agree that everyone's version of the characters has the same right to exist. However, in my world, not every version has the same merits.