How to write a convincing character with a opinion that differs from the author's?
So I wrote a short text recently in which the character has a very strong political opinion (anti-LGBTQ), which in addition is totally different to my own opinion. Now, I wanted to make the character as realistic as possible and used real arguments that people with this opinion use. Other participants said that they were not sure if I myself as the author share the same opinion and yeah, that would be a problem if someone thinks I'm some anti-LGBTQ after reading that text.
So how can I write a character whose opinions differ from mine but without making the character unrealistic? The stories are from 1st person view so that makes it a little bit more difficult as:
- I just can't make the person change their mind
- I can't change the point of view either
- Making a statement at the end would somehow ruin the whole feeling
- Making unrealistic arguments would be unrealistic
EDIT: I'm asking especially for short texts. In my case my test was for a Poetry Slam and I am completely new. In short texts I don't have the time to introduce a character and often just have to make him do his wrong things without being able to tell the audience more about him/her
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/38970. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
3 answers
Dig until you discover what fundamental "truth" the bigot rejects. That will usually be the opposite of some fundamental "truth" you fully accept.
Accept that people are rational. Reason proceeds from axioms, these are the "givens", statements of fact we find self-evidently true, meaning we do not think they require any proof, they are just true! We refuse to argue in circles about why they are true, we just cannot believe they aren't true.
Unfortunately, we don't all believe in the same set of axioms! Sure, we can all accept 1+1=2, but how about the statement that "God exists", or "An eternal soul exists and there is a life after death"?
I can get into arguments with my own family about those; and they usually end in "I just cannot believe that," by one side or another. I take those arguments literally, to mean the person I am arguing with has so much invested in believing their axiom, that it would be emotionally devastating and life-changing to reject it. e.g. My sister believes in the Christian God and her life is organized around that and she will die believing that, no amount of reason can change that, because for her the fact that God exists means all arguments to the contrary are flawed, and must be wrong because they violate a given.
Something similar will be for your anti-gay character. I personally am liberal, any kind of sex between consenting adults doesn't bother me; as long as nobody is manipulated, deceived or feels coerced. But in the end I am a "bigot" too, that opinion of mine is based on my own fundamental belief system, things I think are absolutely true. My opinion on this cannot be changed: I just cannot believe the fundamental changes that it would take to make me oppose homosexual sex, or displays of affection, or marriage or raising children or anything else related to it.
That is what you need to find for your character, and often it will just be the opposite of one of your own fundamental beliefs. You need to find what they cannot let go of, for whatever reason, that leads them to reason that homosexuality is wrong and must be prevented and is damaging society in some way.
That may be something personal to them: They can't stand the idea that their offspring will not reproduce and give them grand-children.
Or it may be a different kind of personal thing: God said so, and they can't stand the idea of the slippery slope that results if they start to believe the Bible can be wrong. It would make them question their faith, and their faith is a major component in their emotional stability, they've invested thousands of hours of emotional engagement with it. They cannot give that up, so without any good reason in your eyes, they reject your argument.
Just like you refuse to accept their arguments, because their arguments are based on fundamentals you cannot believe in.
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Audiences always confuse the author with the narrator, and your chosen format makes this particularly difficult. Slam poetry is typically confessional in nature, which means that your audience is even more predisposed to view you as speaking for yourself.
Being completely honest, I wouldn't even try this in this format, personally. But the larger question is a good one. I'm facing a similar issue myself, since the first-person narrator of my new book is racist --unintentionally, and without malice, but clearly racist. Here are my suggestions:
Add another voice to interrogate your character's positions. In your format, you could make this poem a dialogue between two different voices. In my book, I've made sure that there are other characters who identify and call out my MC's prejudices.
Allow your character to evolve. Maybe your character's perspective changes over the course of the text. This is tricky to pull off without it seeming forced, but it can be extremely effective if done well.
Tone it down a little. This might seem like betraying your character, or being unrealistic, but you have to remember that realism is just a technique. It doesn't take that much to clearly imply noxious views for a character, and a more full rendering can be unpleasant or distressing to the audience, which is probably not what you want. For my book, I had to ask myself if I would feel comfortable reading my own book to my children. I ended up cutting a couple of particularly egregious passages.
- Allow yourself a little distance from the character. Again, this may seem like a betrayal of your artistic commitments, but look at it from the viewpoint of connecting with the audience. What they currently think they are experiencing is a bigot spewing bile at them. They can't enjoy that as art. They'll be able to appreciate this character more as a character. This might be something as simple as a one line intro: "So I was talking to my neighbor, old lady Henderson, and she says:" and then you launch into your poem. You can still do your best to depict her from her point of view, but now the audience knows it isn't you.
- Interrogate your own choice to present this work in this fashion. You may not have any conscious agreement with these views. But have you really put yourself in the place of someone in the audience who might feel targeted by them? To quote transgressive comedian Sarah Silverman, talking about her own early work:
Just cos I am liberal and I say I’m making a character study of an ignorant person – the intention was good, but whatever. Now I know more about this phrase ‘the liberal bubble’, I know that saying ‘I’m not racist, so I can be racist to show racism’… well social media taught me that racism doesn’t need me to help people understand racism, because it’s everywhere.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38981. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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If the readers think the opinion of your protagonist is your own opinion, then I'd guess the problem is not that the protagonist has that opinion, but that the protagonist's opinion is not or not sufficiently challenged in the story. That is, the book actually seems to promote that protagonist's position, which an author of different opinion usually won't want to do.
Now it might be that the other participants only read a small excerpt of your story, then it probably doesn't matter much; anyone reading the full story will hopefully see that this is not your real opinion. But if after reading the whole story the impression prevails, you probably want to do something about it. Not by changing the protagonist, but by challenging the protagonist.
For example, you might explicitly show a case where the protagonist's prejudices turn out to be false, but the protagonist brushes it off as exception to the rule. If that happens a few times, then the reader will see a pattern of denial here, and thus recognize that you don't share those prejudices (or you would not have explicitly written those cases).
Or maybe someone else makes a good argument against the position, and the protagonist does not see how to refute it, but simply dismisses it as stupid argument because it doesn't fit into the protagonist's world view. This will again be a hint that you don't support the protagonist's position (or else, why would you put an argument against it without refuting it?)
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