This is great, even if it stretches my grasp of both philosophy and the english language
I'll stay out of the religious and moral discussions and return to the discussion of character build
Originally posted by Director
Moving back to a lower branch of the subject tree, to what degree do you 'build in' your character's beliefs, ethics, morals - character - from the beginning, and to what degree do you let the character evolve? Do you conciously attempt to direct the evolution to predetermined goals?
Has anyone seriously attempted a 'purely good' hero? Would such a character be worth the effort?
Last things first: No, as I stated earlier, the inner conflict, the moral flaw, the shade of grey, all the different ways this discussion has tried to describe the multifaceted human being, is missing in a purely good hero.
Touching briefly on religion, not only the old testament god but also jesus did some soul searching, lamented on his fate, lost his temper, and briefly considered if the world was truly worth the trouble
, but still the old testament tells a much more compelling story, from the "entertaining POV".
As to building my characters I can only start by echoing the value of things like the FC. I'm not as acomplished a writer as otheres here, haven't written much outside the FC, but when that is said, I did plan my character(s), but only as a rough outline.
This is where he is now, that is his belief as he sees it, this is how I wish to portrait his beliefs through his actions and this is what I believe he will ultimately end up doing as a consequence.
I DO NOT predetermine everything like MrT says, because I like the story to change gradually along with my characters, nobody has a constant personality, even when faced with confrontation, they will lie to themselves or try to decieve themselves with their own perception of their own personality and that in the end will change their personality.
Only a completely isolated person will not be influenced. He may choose not to listen or react, but he will be influenced.
Consequently I build my characters as they go along, with only broad and unspecific goals in mind. It has a tendency though for some very complex personalities and some inconsistencies.
To elaborate a little further:
Originally posted by MrT
"Shades of grey"
That, in my view, is the ideal character...be he protagonist, antogonist or nonentityist. I don't like the over-Lucas-ization of a character. Give me grey any day and leave those altruists in the closet.
Almost all of the characters I've written in the past six months have had well-defined starting points and, if they're important, also had well-defined end-points and a general outline of how and why they get from point A to point B. Only then do I begin to write. This is true of virtually every character in RRR (exhaustive preparation for that one), all of my FC characters, the "Master T" who's guest-posting in Gaijin's AAR, etc. I think that it's one of the crucial aspects of any character-driven narrative.
"Grey" yes that would be the appearance, but to me grey is black and white, tiny fragments of this and that, just like black is all colours
If you take my "grey" character under a microscope, then he would (hopefully) appear to be made up of thousands of miniscule parts of black and white as well as grey dust. Grey in itself is dull, black, blue, red, white green, yellow, at distance may appear grey but close up they will give up a palette (is that a word in english) of color, reactions, moods, and feelings.
How do maintian that detailed "potline" for your characters in a story like FC, where you constantly get bombarded by other characters view of your character's personality? Especially in a situation where the otherAuthor places motives on your character on your behalf?
I find it incredibly difficult to build my character exactly in "my image" when he is confronted with others, "no plan survives first contact with reality". Granted in your own AAR, that is completly in your own control, but then again when then chooses a second personality to react to the first character, does than alter your viewpoint on the personality of the first chracter you introduced?
Oh, boy this got a bit more longwinded than intended
Hopefully it appears as clear on text and in english as it does in my head
, if not don't hesitate to ask.
V