View RSS Feed

I create a world of finite somethings

Arashi on writing theory: How to not write machines

Rate this Entry
10 Comments
by
Arashi_Leonhart
, May 12th, 2013 at 04:54 AM (2915 Views)
I just had a two week job in which I sacrificed all my free time. Why is it I am still poor enough that going to Iron Man 3 used up almost all my spare cash?

Also, why was it that about three weeks ago it snowed, but now it gets up to abnormal 95 degree weather here? I mean, we get that kind of weather...but usually it starts in July. Why did Spring just completely skip us?

Why do my upstairs neighbors fuck so loud that I can hear it normally, but now they decide they also have to do it with the windows to their apartment open?

Why do I have only complaints right now?


So I was just thinking on something someone said about GB's writing...probably Seika in her longass review. About how he stopped writing people and they all come across like machines that spout out standardized responses to their anime archetype or whatever. Anyway, the thing I keep thinking on is how with fanfiction specifically regarding anime characters, we get that a lot. Characters often act on the specific cliche they are built around and do not really deviate--it even comes up in filler anime arcs for long-running series, where the writers of the show have to do things with characters that aren't theirs, and it shows.

It happens on the meta level, too, to an extent. I was thinking of one of the few Naruto fanfics that I'd read back on Darkscribes when Darkscribes was still a thing and how characters were much more aware of the specific relationships each other had when in-series they never showed that kind of perceptiveness or interest. Everyone knew about Lee liking Sakura, or Hinata liking Naruto, and they all had something to say on it. I guess we have to deal with that too, since there's all the stuff about how much Archer knows about the HGW and its participants or how knowledgeable Shirou, Rin, and Sakura are about magic, or what Kohaku is truly capable of that isn't over-the-top "I'm sending you to another dimension!" CP gags. I mean, it's one thing if the story being written is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but it can be quite another if it is meant to be taken with enough seriousness.

Of course, the thing about it is that they are, ultimately, part of a fictional, fantasy world that does like to use those cliches or gags even when being fully serious. Sure, Kagetsu Tohya and Hollow Ataraxia are both more comedic in nature, but even within Tsukihime and Fate originally, you have certain things that are still acceptable in an anime/mangaesque world that you still probably wouldn't see in real life. A big change in life like moving from one house to another to reconnect with distant family members. The sudden increase of an everyday guy's connection with a gaggle of girls that under the right conditions want to jump him. The happenstance of even meeting a True Love within the first seventeen years of your life. Tsunderes. You just have to accept a certain amount of, dare I say, trope-ish stuff that accompanies animu.

But then, how to not let those building blocks just completely take over a character or setting? Even if labeling Rin a tsundere bugs the crap out of you, denying that she is one is kinda impossible. Saying that's all she is would be wrong, though, especially since she's not particularly guilty of it in like the Fate route.

One of the reasons I dislike using the first person perspective is that it can fall into that sort of easy-to-fall-back-on state where everyone is their archetype and nothing more a lot easier. It makes it so you can't see from that person's perspective. Of course, you can get other things to do that work for you, from observations the speaker makes and the way things are framed, but you're limited to the sort of things that a character in their position would notice. I tended to cringe when writing parts of Fate/Far Side because when Hisui, Kohaku, or Akiha were not the focus of the story, I felt like they became much more cliche and anime-esque because I couldn't make the sort of noticeable character out of them that I wanted when the speaker wasn't paying as much attention to them. I'm kind of happier with Shared Resonance because I could freely flip between perspectives when it comes to how I wanted to see the characters portrayed.

I'm thinking of this a lot now though because Went Left flips around perspectives a lot and now that's kind of making a lot of noise in my head. Do you hear voices? Do you know Bosco?

I think that's where GB kind of misuses the slice of life aspects in his stories, yet came so close to doing really really well with in Hill of Swords. The moments where we get to sit down, quietly, and the characters have a chance to just talk, rather than scenes with a few things going on...that's where you have to pour everything into character. I think a lot about how in that story, Siesta became little more than a running joke about reading Fifty Shades of Grey porn, evil cookware, and boob suffocation, when in the part that she and Shirou are talking about war and nobles and all, she felt real to me. I mean, they even still make jokes in there about threesomes and all, but unlike other parts where that's brought up, it doesn't feel like a gag.

I don't really have specific things to say on how to get there, more just observation I guess. But I think to avoid the machine-like quality of archetypes spouting off tired and tried characterization that could be shipped off to any other character that shares similarities, you have to pursue the use of your tools carefully. I'd suggest against making everything talking heads--I know my stuff suffers from that even--but setting down the rules in your reader's mind by having something intimate like that is probably a nice start. I mean, even Fate and Tsuki are pretty slow and quiet to begin with (such that any animu that tries to adapt their stuff always takes a couple episodes to actually get going) so we can establish personalities and the setting first. And even when those establishing moments have those anime cliche elements, there's often slight twists on them that will distract from the obviousness of it all. Girl-next-door archetype Sakura waking Shirou up for breakfast comes to my mind first, but it is a bit different that Shirou isn't lazy in bed but fell asleep doing work in his garage.

I guess that might be right there some advice. If you're gonna use those animeish devices, turn them around a little bit that says something with it. Don't just do it for a punchline to a joke or action sequence or romantic moment, but have it suggest something at the same time. Preferably something character oriented, and maybe even something that's deeper than simple "this character is a sleepyhead" or "this character overeats." Something that hints at something greater.

Maybe. I dunno.

God I've got a lot to catch up on.
Categories
Uncategorized

Comments

  1. Vigilantia's Avatar
    So basically, make the characters "more" than the surface cliche? Have the cliche but delve deeper and make them more than just an anime-role?

    Kind of like how Rin is a tsundere, but she's like that due to how Tokiomi raised her with big expectations/responsibilities. She's cold because she basically had to raise herself for 10 years and as a Magus, she is expected to be cold and calculating even though she's actually nicer on the inside.

    On the issue of literal "talking heads," do you find you need to 'continue' describing a character's physical traits after you've introduced them the first time? I find I can describe a character's feelings/actions, but for all the reader knows, the characters could be naked in that scene and no one would know. Not to mention, if you don't mention their physical appearance after a few chapters, people might forget what they look like?

    @Screaming sex neighbors: Now you know what living with Shirou and Sakura would sound like. Dohohohoho.
  2. Seika's Avatar
    Why do my upstairs neighbors fuck so loud that I can hear it normally, but now they decide they also have to do it with the windows to their apartment open?
    There have been many occasions when I've wished that either the walls in this house weren't so thin or that a certain one of my housemates would get a girlfriend who was a bit more ... constrained during sex.
    (Vocally constrained. I've no idea if they're into BDSM. They did manage to break the bed, though, and had to explain it to the landlords).

    So I was just thinking on something someone said about GB's writing...probably Seika in her longass review. About how he stopped writing people and they all come across like machines that spout out standardized responses to their anime archetype or whatever.
    I remember bitching someone out for that sort of thing, and it might even have been Blessing, but probably wasn't the latest huge In Flight review. My personality complaints there (other than being totally at odds with canon personalities, obviously) were that Blessing sounded - if I may be excused for my bluntness - as if he placed on the autism scale. Everyone had to have their distinct and separate personality modes to switch between and there was no suggestion that he had an understanding of organic emotion and socialisation.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vigilantia
    SOn the issue of literal "talking heads," do you find you need to 'continue' describing a character's physical traits after you've introduced them the first time? I find I can describe a character's feelings/actions, but for all the reader knows, the characters could be naked in that scene and no one would know.
    Read professional fiction. Good quality stuff, not the random Twilight-tier crap. If you're keeping an eye out for this kind of stuff, you'll generally find that the authors run comparatively light on physical descriptions, even at first introductions. There's a reason people often have an image of the character in their head which looks very much at odds with, e.g. the person cast in a film or TV adaptation. Fanfic authors over-value those descriptions hugely.

    Not to say that you shouldn't avoid talking-head syndrome by including physical actions, but a character doing something doesn't then mean that their traits have to be constantly referenced if there's no necessity for it.

    Not to mention, if you don't mention their physical appearance after a few chapters, people might forget what they look like?
    Mind, this just seems like a silly worry to start with.
    Updated May 12th, 2013 at 06:07 AM by Seika
  3. Arashi_Leonhart's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vigilantia
    So basically, make the characters "more" than the surface cliche? Have the cliche but delve deeper and make them more than just an anime-role?

    Kind of like how Rin is a tsundere, but she's like that due to how Tokiomi raised her with big expectations/responsibilities. She's cold because she basically had to raise herself for 10 years and as a Magus, she is expected to be cold and calculating even though she's actually nicer on the inside.
    Well, that's kind of an obvious bit of advice, "do more than make them two dimensional" is so obvious that it really shouldn't need to be said. Knowing that Rin is the way she is due to various more complex issues than just "she's a tsundere" is on the right track, but that's not something you can exactly bring up regularly in narrative. I guess my suggestion is more along the lines of something more general, like "do things that makes sure your audience knows that they're more than just reciting those lines, n-not like it means anything, stupid!"

    On the issue of literal "talking heads," do you find you need to 'continue' describing a character's physical traits after you've introduced them the first time? I find I can describe a character's feelings/actions, but for all the reader knows, the characters could be naked in that scene and no one would know. Not to mention, if you don't mention their physical appearance after a few chapters, people might forget what they look like?
    Oh, no, not even that, but I know that one criticism of my work is that characters are often seemingly just talking back and forth and moving through whitespace rather than two people amidst a moving, breathing world. Think, Nisioisin and the Monogatari series when I say talking heads.
  4. Altima of the Gates's Avatar
    Oh, no, not even that, but I know that one criticism of my work is that characters are often seemingly just talking back and forth and moving through whitespace rather than two people amidst a moving, breathing world. Think, Nisioisin and the Monogatari series when I say talking heads.
    So you feel that the characters are essentially pulled apart from the world, and time stops for the conversation/infodump? Like Seika said, there really is no need to be overly worrisome about that. Unless they are performing an activity, or you want to note a particular thing like the character noticing a lie by the body language of an individual, then talking bead syndrome should be allowed. You are writing a story, not doing a screenplay where you have to note many elements. Its up to the audience to visualize things, and as long as you get the atmosphere of the conversation down, its satisfactory.
  5. DezoPenguin's Avatar
    The nice thing about Nasuverse fanfiction writing is that the characters are actually more than their cliches. I despise the tsundere archetype, but Rin is one of my favorite characters, period, because of how instead of saying "this character is a tsundere" as a personality trait, she was instead given a series of various different traits and background elements that instead produced her tsundere-ness as a consequence of those other traits (okay, probably in the writing process it was the other way around, but it holds together for the readers that way). Unfortunately, some characters really are nothing but generic anime/manga cliches with a hair color, and exploring their depth is really just making stuff up as an author...

    Quote Originally Posted by Altima of the Gates
    So you feel that the characters are essentially pulled apart from the world, and time stops for the conversation/infodump? Like Seika said, there really is no need to be overly worrisome about that. Unless they are performing an activity, or you want to note a particular thing like the character noticing a lie by the body language of an individual, then talking bead syndrome should be allowed. You are writing a story, not doing a screenplay where you have to note many elements. Its up to the audience to visualize things, and as long as you get the atmosphere of the conversation down, its satisfactory.
    It helps if these scenes are set someplace either while something else is going on (say, if the characters are talking at a backyard barbecue, then there are natural pauses where food has to be prepared, plates handed out, bites eaten, etc.); conversely, they can also be set where nothing is going on: if they're sitting in beach chairs at the seaside, there's no reason to interrupt the flow of "talking heads" with anything else and the audience accepts that; you can then save any description additions (a seagull squawking as it flies by, say) for particular points when you want to break up the dialogue or call attention to sudden silences, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seika
    My personality complaints there (other than being totally at odds with canon personalities, obviously) were that Blessing sounded - if I may be excused for my bluntness - as if he placed on the autism scale. Everyone had to have their distinct and separate personality modes to switch between and there was no suggestion that he had an understanding of organic emotion and socialisation.
    That does sound like what Arashi was talking about, though, the "machine-like" quality of characters. It's as if each person has a dial, and that dial is turned at regular intervals to different personality settings, rather than moods flowing naturally from one to another. Here she's being tsun-tsun. Now she's in dere, blushy, cute mode. Over there she's in lecture mode. Though having one character who acted like that would be kind of interesting...if you wanted to show someone as being psychologically damaged in some way.
  6. Vigilantia's Avatar
    @Dezo: So you mean something more like "I can see the machine code where the programmers set the "sad scene 54" cinematic to play. It's over by the waxing nostalgic scenery." Kind of like in video games where they can be sad due to the story yet they'll be cheery in their victory battle dialogue or they'll be mad in a side scene and immediately switch to being normal because the game designers screwed up meshing two cinematics/scenes together.
    Updated May 12th, 2013 at 03:49 PM by Vigilantia
  7. ItsaRandomUsername's Avatar
    When you said you were going to write on how to not write machines for some reason I thought this was going to be an extended engineerial rant on people not knowing hard facts and the science of mechanics and making up implausible contraptions without even knowing how to physics.

    Obviously, this was wrong. Mostly because to my knowledge Arashi isn't pursuing a degree in engineering.
  8. Arashi_Leonhart's Avatar
    I suck at hard sciences. And math.
  9. Lycodrake's Avatar
    Darn, I was hoping for a SYBIL System commentary, Arashi. ;~;
    XP

    So, basically: build off of the cliche without re-using any of the same material? (Lyco likes metaphors/similes and the like - and talking in third person, old news, that.)
  10. Dantalion's Avatar
    IRUN: Engineering is overrated, I can't build machines (yet).

    On a slightly related tangent (wrt Vigilantia's post), writing characters for a game and coding the game simultaneously is a weird experience - on one hand, you're trying to make "living" characters with depth, and on the other, you're reducing those characters to lines of commands.