The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 17 November 2010

Once upon a time, there was a character. Who had, oddly enough, a personality! And in that personality, there was some desire for new experience, for change. Some urges towards planning. Some feelings about reaching out to other people. A dash of agreeableness. And, like everyone else, there might have been a strain of neuroticism, a tendency to take things a bit too far or hard, in some areas. Put together, the character had an ocean of personality -- some openness, some conscientiousness, some extraversion, some agreeableness, and some neuroticism. High-5 for the big five!

http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/145287.html

Now the tricky part, during nanowrimo, was that this character went through some changes as the words rolled through the nanowrimo wordmill. Yes, the experiences, dilemmas, problems, and other stuff that happened along the way also caused some changes in the OCEAN. You might say there were waves on the ocean. And that character arc, as the character shifted from desiring changes to looking for more stability, or perhaps went from trying to plan everything to tackling some things as opportunities for improvisation, or decided that talking to strangers really was a good idea, or quite telling everyone yes and stood up for her own ways, or even changed from a little neurotic about spiders to being ready to squash them on sight? whatever the changes are, they're really exciting! So work the OCEAN into your story, and the waves as your character changes.

Go on, put some psychology into your story plan. And?

Write!

Sailing on the big OCEAN?

Pounding away on those nanowrimo words? Okay, this will be reasonably quick. You might want to think about your characters, right? And over in the psychology section, one of the notions is that you might use the big five personality traits as a way to look at personality. So what are these five factors?

Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

OCEAN! Or if you feel so moved, you can also make canoe out of it? And just what are these odd little words?

Openness is the desire for change, for a variety of experience. "Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience" is how Wikipedia defines it.

Conscientiousness is the planning and discipline. "A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior."

Extraversion is the outgoing person. "Energy, positive emotions,surgency, and the tendency to speak stimulation and the company of others."

Agreeableness is friendliness. "A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others."

Neuroticism is emotional edginess. "A tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability; sometimes called emotional instability."

There's lots more details over here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits including some specific items for each and every trait. But for right now, while madly tapdancing to the nanowrimo beat, keep it simple. How much does your character like new things? Does the character prefer planning or spontaneity? Are they outgoing, or would they prefer a quiet night by themselves? Do they want to help others or are they a bit more standoffish? And what is their emotional temper? Cool, simmering, or ready to boil over?

And if you're looking for instant complications, consider having a couple of characters with different views about one of the traits. Someone who wants to go to a new restaurant every time and the person who wants to go to Mom's Home Cooking diner every time are going to have a difference of opinion. The spontaneous dancer and the insurance salesman are likely to find some differences in how they look at the world. The handshaking goodfellow and the quiet observer, the volunteer and the cynic, the angry person and the rational thinker -- pair them up and watch them go to town. Five dimensions of conflict? One way to look at it.

Another twist might be to consider which of the factors has priority. Someone who likes to plan but also really likes new things, different experiences, may have a real internal conflict going on. What happens when anger runs into agreeableness? Or when vulnerability pairs up with outgoing habits?

Okay? Take your characters on a trip in the OCEAN. Openness -- desire for variety. Conscientiousness -- self-discipline. Extraversion -- reach out and touch someone today. Agreeableness -- can I help? And neuroticism -- the emotional pot boils over. Put them all together, and add some richness to your characters.

tink
(about 500 words)

original posting: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 18:00:05 JST

I, and others, have been using the word "stereotype" fairly freely recently. However, I have noticed that some of the uses aren't quite in synch with the way I use it. Therefore...

Debating 101 says always define your terms before starting, so I looked at some dictionaries.

[Webster's New World] a fixed or conventional expression, notion, mental pattern, etc.

[OAD] an idea or character etc. that is standardized in a conventional form without individuality

Interesting - one dictionary simply says conventional, while the OAD adds the notion that the stereotype "lacks individuality."

I tend to think of a stereotype as a typical person, someone you may be able to classify or categorize easily. Someone who fits (largely) in the middle on whatever scales you are using. I.e., a member of the majority, rather than one of the statistical outlyers. An identifiable "type"?

This does not mean they are necessarily a "flat" character, merely that their peculiarities are ordinary ones which may be seen in many other people.

I suppose one way to put it is that these are the people who (mostly) are the way we expect them to be and do what we might expect merely from a superficial description. The person who works to support a family (instead of having a secret laboratory, neurotic compulsion to power, or whatever). The president of a company who is doing a good job without crushing everyone in sight, embezzling funds, etc. The child who is well-adjusted.

So I go along with the idea of stereotype as conventional. That does not (to me) seem to imply they lack individuality. A conventional person - a "Father Knows Best" type, for example - can be absurdly individual and out of place in today's world. It seems to me that one of the major plotting "themes" available today is that of the conventional person faced with the uncertainty, confusion, and outright unconventional world around them.

Other people seem to consider a "stereotype" as a "flat" character, or perhaps an "Everyman" abstraction that lacks definition. An identifiable mask for the author to cloak some idea in to let it stalk around?

I don't think of stereotypes as lacking individuality. They are identifiably unique and interesting, even though they are just ordinary people who might be met anywhere.

To "break the stereotype" simply because it is expected or conventional ignores the fact that the stereotype may have grown out of very real social, economic, etc. circumstances, and there are usually many people who fit it altogether too well. Each an individual, but largely predictable. That's why people use "stereotypes" - they identify useful patterns of behavior in a simple way, allowing them to deal with people mostly in terms of the "type" instead of having to worry about unpredictable reactions.

Interestingly, Analog (Oct. 1993) has an editorial about "Nouveaux Cliches" in which Stanley Schmidt challenges writers to three points:

1. Don't confuse weak characters with strong characterization
2. Remember that human beings are not the center of the universe, or even the only interesting thing in it.
3. Dare to be fun!

His major point about characters is that some people ARE happily married, some people can manage their own lives, some people ARE the majority, yet the "cliche" of current writing is that no one has virtues, everyone is a psychological disaster area, no one can manage their own lives, marriages are all falling apart, ad nauseum.

(or as I would say, some people are stereotypes - ordinary people.)

I guess what I'm saying is that it seems possible to me to portray an ordinary person AS an ordinary person and still make them interesting. Frankly, I don't enjoy all the broken and fringe people that seem to populate current literature - they don't act like people I know, they aren't familiar, and their "solutions" seem to be surrenders.

Joe B. mentioned

- probably somewhere in the middle. I think this way of
- thinking probably helps prevent overreliance on stereotypes
- by acknowledging that people often appear "contradictory"
- merely because we tend not to accept their complexity, their
- changeability, and , like Whitman, contain, if not multitudes,
- at least small crowds. Thanks!

Joe - does this mean you see stereotypes as "flat" characters, one-dimensional characters?

Anyone - when you say "stereotype", what do you mean? How does this relate to the characters we use in writing?

Can you portray someone doing exactly what is expected - and still have an interesting, strong character?

[I haven't even touched on my thoughts about plot and setting, but they are parallel. Incidentally, anyone want to discuss the inherent stereotyping and generalization of language, of words themselves? I mean, how do you communicate if you don't share concepts?]

Any responses, comments, or thoughts gratefully read.

Apologies for accidentally bringing up a writing topic. Flog me. (no, not you, TJ.)