Friday, April 30, 2010

Blog Chain: Character Variety

It’s blog chain time. :) This round was started by Sandra. She asked:

Have you ever created a character different from yourself in some significant way, such as (but not limited to) different gender, race, ethnic group, religion, or sexual orientation? If so, what, if any, research did you do to portray these differences? Was this character a main character, secondary character, or walk-on? Did these differences have an impact on the story?

I’m relatively new to writing, so I feel kind of lame answering this. I started my first novel just over a year and a half ago, and the protag is a white female like me, so nothing significantly different there. There are male characters in the story, but since it’s told in first person, we never get the story from their point of view.

I tried to write something different last November for NaNoWriMo, and I started a story with a teenage boy protag. For “research”, I read books with male POVs and grilled my husband—since he was a teenage boy once upon a time. ;) That story fizzled out plotwise, but I think toward the end there I was starting to understand how the teenage boy’s mind works. I’ll probably go back to it when I’m done with my current WIP.

As far as writing a character from a different race, ethnic group, etc., I feel like I’m still getting my feet wet on this whole writing business. Someday, I’d like to tackle something like that, but for now, I’m not sure I could do it justice or make it sound authentic.

What about all of you? Are your characters significantly different from you?

Be sure to check out Shaun’s post from yesterday (there’s still time to enter his giveaway of The Deathday Letter ARC while you’re over there), and Rebecca is up on Sunday. :)

18 comments:

  1. I'd say so. I've written from different races, different sex, different religion, different socio-economic background...all kinds of stuff. The only one I did research for, per se, was on Catholicism.

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  2. Haha, my husband is my question answer man too. My protag is a pre-teen boy, so I'm always asking my husband questions like, "What did you and your friends do for fun? What types of things did you collect when you were a kid? What did you think about girls?" He gives me the weirdest looks, lol. :D Great post!

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  3. My MC is male, in his late twenties, and a military man through and through. So, yeah, that one's pretty different. My last WiP did have a character that reflected me a lot, but there were enough characters in there that I had some good differences. Interesting post.

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  4. I enjoy researching like it's a day at the beach, so it's fun for me to try to get into the head of someone different from myself. Unless they're male. For some reason I just don't feel as sure of myself as when I'm not writing a girl/woman.

    Oddly enough, writing a guy is a lot harder for me than putting myself in the shoes of a girl who was born 100 years ago in a kumpaniya of Romani chal, or a woman from the Agean Bronze Age.

    They're a mystery to me, I guess!

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  5. I quiz my teenage daugters friends all the time as part of my "research" for my stories. Great post Abby.

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  6. Significant others are a big help when writing characters of the opposite sex. ;) I think it's important to get them right, even if they're not the focus of the story. Write on!

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  7. My husband's definitely been a sounding board for my male characters and their experiences. It's funny -- I'm more concerned I'll get teen voices wrong than grown male voices, even though I've been a teen. I appreciate your wanting to wait to write different characters until you feel you can do them justice.

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  8. Great post. Out of seven POV characters in my current novel (I know, that's crazy), five of them are male. I once wrote a story from the POV of a deaf girl. I did a lot of research (mostly just reading books) to try and get that right. (You can actually read that one on my blog if you're interested. It's called "Among the Silent Stars."

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  9. Don't feel too bad, Abby. I'm in the same boat as you (or at least I feel that way). Since we all have to start somewhere, there's nothing wrong with cautiously exploring characters other than ourselves. It sounds like although you maybe don't have tons of experience with this, you're open to it and will probably do well as you learn more.

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  10. I have six brothers, I find this helps when writing about boys. I research for days before I write, you can only write what you know.

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  11. I written from the perspective of a female fallen angel -- that hurt my mind to try to do in a valid manner -- I mean how many fallen angels do you know?

    And if that answer includes any number above zero, I could be in trouble!

    Don't forget about Lilah's LAST LINES BLOGFEST. I had to post my entry early due to work. I look forward to reading yours, Roland

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  12. I must admit, I haven't done "research" per se, however, as a shrink I've met a lot of people and have heard a lot of stories. Plus, it's kind of my day job to see the world through other peoples' eyes. So, I guess that counts for something, LOL!

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  13. I've tried the boy MC thing, and I kind of loved it. My plot fizzled out a little bit, too (well, didn't really fizzle out so much as got overwhelming and was going to require a big rewrite, so I shelfed it for awhile.) I have ethnic secondary characters and friends, but MC? No. I don't feel like i'd do it justice, but I hope to some day. If I'm going to do it, I really want to do it right.

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  14. Writing a book with a teenage boy protagonist sounds hard! I could imagine that it would take a while to really find that voice - good luck getting back to that project!

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  15. Nice post! I'm always asking Husband what he'd have done/said/thought to help me get into my male characters' heads, too.

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  16. The inside of a teenage boy's mind is freaky scary. Major kudos for the attempt! Pushing our boundaries is part of the fun of writing!

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  17. Great post, Abby! I tend to write my protags as white girls, because, well, I'm a white girl! ;) In my latest WIP I made my female protag's ethnicity hispanic. But that wasn't a huge leap for me either. My kids are both half hispanic! :D

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  18. In your honour and in the honour of wall the Writwrs and Poets, I published an ilustration.

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