From the inside...
Nov. 19th, 2005 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranOkay, with the benefit of a bit of sleep and a cup of coffee, let's have another try...
The thing that I really don't like is not quite about character. It's about people or groups of people existing only as they are seen from the outside.
From personal experience, I've come to expect that things are never quite the same on the inside as they seem from the outside. There's a sort of texture that I'm used to seeing in real life - little difference, big difference, things you wouldn't expect. If everything is exactly as you'd expect it to be, or how you'd first imagine it, then it trips a mental alarm bell and signals that something's not quite real.
Now, in some stories, a different texture from reality is exactly what you want. Fairy stories or allegories, perhaps. But for this story, I want a realistic feel.
In The Silver Bowl, I've got a number of people who exist only from the outside. They have a role to serve in the story and they do it. They have a "what they have to do" rather than a "what will they do". And part of the problem is that always doing what they have to do for the story isn't giving the right texture for the story. It's tripping my alarm bells, and making me think that they're not real people. (Actually, some of the "people" in story aren't actually real people, so this is right for them.)
The thing that I really don't like is not quite about character. It's about people or groups of people existing only as they are seen from the outside.
From personal experience, I've come to expect that things are never quite the same on the inside as they seem from the outside. There's a sort of texture that I'm used to seeing in real life - little difference, big difference, things you wouldn't expect. If everything is exactly as you'd expect it to be, or how you'd first imagine it, then it trips a mental alarm bell and signals that something's not quite real.
Now, in some stories, a different texture from reality is exactly what you want. Fairy stories or allegories, perhaps. But for this story, I want a realistic feel.
In The Silver Bowl, I've got a number of people who exist only from the outside. They have a role to serve in the story and they do it. They have a "what they have to do" rather than a "what will they do". And part of the problem is that always doing what they have to do for the story isn't giving the right texture for the story. It's tripping my alarm bells, and making me think that they're not real people. (Actually, some of the "people" in story aren't actually real people, so this is right for them.)
