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See what happens when you complain? The universe gives you broadband back again. Well, for a while. I think it's about to cut out again.
I'm stuck on a character point. Normally I can think myself into most people's heads, but one particular type defeats me. They're the anti-ukes, using Whatserface's definition: the ones without vulnerabilities. No doubts, no hesitations, no insecurities, and almost by definition no empathy or ability to see how the world looks to other people. I call them dweebs for short because that's certainly how they appear in real life, but I'm not sure they're always dweebs. Certainly they aren't dweebs in their own eyes, and to write a character I have to see how the world looks to him, even if he isn't the protagonist of the story.
Fact is I did write a character like that, not once but many times, in all my Eroica fic. But Dorian feels different to me. For one, in my stories at least he's a rather benign presence; and for another, my ironic narrator could present Dorian's viewpoint straight while simultaneously indicating just where and how Dorian was so charmingly deluded. Besides, Dorian has his own sense of the ironic, which in a pinch can pass for a sense of proportion. But when the character is without humour, *and* completely sure of himself, I don't know what to do. And to make matters worse, I have not one but two of these in the latest story.
Goukou's son Kaiei is fine when seen at a distance through other people's eyes- quiet, modest, authoritative, and efficient. Up close he looks perilously cold-blooded. And the Duke's heir, Shinran, is simply bumptious, a dweeb indeed. Son of a big noise and thinking his father is as big a noise as the second of the ocean kings so no need for too much reticence in the palace. But is that the way self-confident but unimaginative people behave? especially in societies where putting yourself forward is *not* a virtue? I wish I had someone to model him on, she says fretfully, but writers always prefer the introverts and the socially lame, being almost entirely introverted and socially lame themselves. Has anyone ever done an extroverted character with a good estimation of himself and no doubts whatsoever, and made him likable?
I'm stuck on a character point. Normally I can think myself into most people's heads, but one particular type defeats me. They're the anti-ukes, using Whatserface's definition: the ones without vulnerabilities. No doubts, no hesitations, no insecurities, and almost by definition no empathy or ability to see how the world looks to other people. I call them dweebs for short because that's certainly how they appear in real life, but I'm not sure they're always dweebs. Certainly they aren't dweebs in their own eyes, and to write a character I have to see how the world looks to him, even if he isn't the protagonist of the story.
Fact is I did write a character like that, not once but many times, in all my Eroica fic. But Dorian feels different to me. For one, in my stories at least he's a rather benign presence; and for another, my ironic narrator could present Dorian's viewpoint straight while simultaneously indicating just where and how Dorian was so charmingly deluded. Besides, Dorian has his own sense of the ironic, which in a pinch can pass for a sense of proportion. But when the character is without humour, *and* completely sure of himself, I don't know what to do. And to make matters worse, I have not one but two of these in the latest story.
Goukou's son Kaiei is fine when seen at a distance through other people's eyes- quiet, modest, authoritative, and efficient. Up close he looks perilously cold-blooded. And the Duke's heir, Shinran, is simply bumptious, a dweeb indeed. Son of a big noise and thinking his father is as big a noise as the second of the ocean kings so no need for too much reticence in the palace. But is that the way self-confident but unimaginative people behave? especially in societies where putting yourself forward is *not* a virtue? I wish I had someone to model him on, she says fretfully, but writers always prefer the introverts and the socially lame, being almost entirely introverted and socially lame themselves. Has anyone ever done an extroverted character with a good estimation of himself and no doubts whatsoever, and made him likable?
Re: Even Superman had a weakness, and one that was besides Krypotnite
Shinran I'm tempted to say is too stupid to find anything scary or wondrous. But I'm not being fair to him either. If I want him to be more than a mere Device I have to let him have his own, possibly sympathetic, character. Comes the question, why *don't* I want him to have his own possibly sympathetic character? Just because Goushou doesn't like him and I'm sympathetic to Goushou?
(Goushou is no help as an example. Goushou to me is a pile of insecurities and foibles and angsty tics, and I'm only glad that other people are able to see him as a king on occasion because to me he gets perilously close to a
n authorial insertcoded female.)