Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

66%
+2 −0
Q&A How to ensure that neurotic or annoying characters don't get tiring in the long run

A character has to have an arc and be seen to move along that arc. You can't show the reader the same thing they have seen before, you have to show them development -- which may mean development of...

posted 5y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48000
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:57:27Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48000
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:57:27Z (almost 5 years ago)
A character has to have an arc and be seen to move along that arc. You can't show the reader the same thing they have seen before, you have to show them development -- which may mean development of the character, but more often means development of the situation in which the character finds themselves. But development of the situation has to mean development of the character's response to the situation -- because if the character's response does not change then, as far as the character's arc is concerned, we are not moving.

It really isn't about what the character's characteristics are. Literature provides us with characters of every stripe and variation. They will get boring if they don't have an arc and if they don't move along that arc. They will remain interesting as long as there is development occurring.

Literature really obeys a few pretty simple laws that operate pretty much without regard to subject matter. The challenge of writing is to put convincing flesh on a familiar set of bones. There are a few basic rules about how to be convincing, and they too have very little to do with specific subject matter. But the rules of how to be convincing are far from informing the whole of the art. In the end it comes down to your powers of observation and your ability to find just the right words and sequence of words to show what you have seen.

A how-weird-can-I-be approach to literature is not going to get you anywhere -- not because being weird is problem -- lots of literature is very very weird -- but because worrying about weirdness takes your focus off the basics: the foundations of story and the perceptive observation and description of the human condition.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-09-15T12:01:48Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 5