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trieduntureOh dear Lord, is she really writing another...
and other people who wanna write good too
Today's topic: Fanfic Characterization
they are what they've always been
Last week I yakked about the basics of characterization for original characters so this week I want to talk in what I hope is a concise and helpful way about the state of characterization in fanfic. Get ready for some ranting incoherence, y'all!
Part One: They Do Not Belong To You
I don't mean this in a copyright sense; I mean in an artistic sense, these characters are not yours. But they also don't belong to Fox or the estate of PG Wodehouse or whatever corporation "owns" the rights to the characters. In the purest sense of the word, these characters belong to the world. If you are writing fanfiction about them, odds are these characters are well-known the world over, and they belong to every single fan of their show/books/movies/radio plays.
So the first step is to relinquish any hold you feel you have on these characters. This is difficult to explain; I'm not saying you can't love and cherish them. Indeed, I hope you do! I mean you can't feel any ownership towards them. You didn't create them. There was some other creative mind behind their creation, very rarely the "owner" of the characters' copyright, but some other mind nonetheless.
In this way, you prepare yourself to accept their established characterization, the qualities that keep them "in character" or IC. This is opposed to "out of character" or OOC. I am still baffled by folks who proudly label their fanfiction as OOC. If you are purposely changing a beloved character into something unrecognizable, then why would you expect me, a fan of that character, to care about your piece? Yes, there are times in fanfic when a character can be pushed or prodded into doing something OOC, but it should be logical and disciplined in its execution or else you are wasting your audience's time.
*deep breath* Sorry. I went on a tangent there, didn't I?
Part Two: Keeping In Character
This hardly bears saying, but the most obvious way of keeping your dudes in character in fanfic is to study the fucking canon. If it's a lengthy canon, perhaps you don't need to study all of it. (I still have about 75% of Wodehouse left to read!) But you should familiarize yourself with enough of the canon to feel comfortable in identifying key characteristics of the major players.
What do I mean by key characteristics? Well, upon seeing the first episode of House, anyone can see that House is not a cheerful person; he's rude, brusque, grumpy, etc. It's not ALL there is to House, but it's the groundwork of his character, the rock, if you will, that the rest of him is built on. I find it helpful to try and distill a character I'm just learning into a single sentence:
Jeeves is a valet who prides himself on his intelligence, efficiency, and neatness.
Bertie is a wealthy young man who, while not very bright, is very sweet.
Wilson is a diligent doctor with a weakness for people in trouble.
Cuddy is a lonely, ambitious woman who rules the hospital with a gentle fist.
These one-sentence characterizations may not be all-encompassing, but they help when building a fic because that way, I can compare every line of dialog or action to this tiny nugget of "IC truth" to make sure I'm on the right track. Because, in my mind, these things should not ever change for that particular character unless I'm writing something totally cracky (which I wouldn't).
Part Three: What To Do With Conflicting Signals
Oftentimes, especially in a lengthy canon or a canon that is put together via committee (like a TV show), there will be conflicting information about a character. For example, in one Sherlock Holmes story, Watson states that Holmes loves the city and would be loath to leave it; in another, later story, Watson states that Holmes often feels compelled to visit the peaceful country.
Well, which the fuck is it!? It can't be both! Thanks for nothing, canon! Right?
Calm yourself, you adorable shaking petal. This is where your mettle as a fanficcer is tested. Take what you know about a character and make an informed decision which part to believe in, if you need to indeed make a choice for your particular story. As for Holmes' love of country vs. city, I think it could logically be both. Holmes is a man like any other (well, maybe not ANY other...); he is inflicted by changing moods and such; he might feel one way at one point in his life and another the next. Only if I had a reason for characterizing him one way or the other would I choose between the two interpretations.
Another way to deal with the problem of conflicting characterizations is to discard the *ahem* part of canon that is not up to the required standard. This is a drastic measure and should only be employed in the most blatant cases. For me, one such instance is the episode of House wherein House spends the entire hour attending to a rape victim with no other interesting symptoms. Though the script writers went to great lengths to prove that this situation met with the established characterization, it is my opinion that it was superfluous, heavy-handed story-telling that didn't give its subject (and its characters) nearly enough credit. If the sole piece of characterization gleaned from these scenes was that House had been abused as a child, well, I could have told you that. What I didn't need was an hour of House wondering why he had been placed in such an OOC situation to prove it. At any rate, House isn't the type to hand out sympathy, even if the victim has undergone the same kind of struggle as he has. Do you think House would make friends with another cripple? Or another famous doctor? He's just not built for that kind of empathy. That's what Wilson's for.
So I resolutely ignore that piece of canon that tells us House can develop an emotional attachment to a rape victim. For me, it just doesn't mesh with all the other data I've collected.
Part Four: Wut About Teh Fanon?
Good question, subtitle. Like a lengthy canon, a healthy fandom can develop its own rules of characterization, be it conscious or sub-. It's a sticky subject: on the one hand, I love that the public is wresting control from TPTB and taking charge of the characters they so love; on the other, I sometimes don't agree with the decisions of the masses and that can lead to some discomfort. This is especially true when a fanon becomes so powerful as to BECOME canon for the fandom, with no one protesting it.
For this reason, I would advocate to approach a new fandom as one would the canon. Study it closely; read all the BNF's work if you can; find out what's working and what's normal, what's unusual and what patterns the fics usually follow. Keep an eye out for cliches! This is so, so important. If you notice 40 out of 100 fics starting in the same room, keep that in mind. Sometimes it's good to learn how to do the cliche properly; most times, it's better to avoid the cliche or come up with a new way of presenting it.
For example, after watching all the Jeeves & Wooster TV shows, I read a ton of fic. I think I can say I've read every single one. I then read two or three books of the canon. I formed my opinions of the canon characterization and meshed it with what I knew of fanon. Then I proceeded on my merry way, but even with all that study, it wasn't enough! Earlier I noted that Bertie would never curse. Now, after reading a canon novel I just bought, I see this isn't the case. It's not often, but the boy can shout a "damn!" if need be. I was wrong; back to the drawing-board for next time.
I don't know if it was fanon or just the limited canon I had read, but I had never before seen Bertie curse. So naturally I assumed he never did. Stupid me! Characters are more flexible than you'd think; be prepared to constantly be reassessing them, especially if your fandom exists as a canon that is still in progress. Like when an episode of House showed that House had learned magic tricks as a child before losing interest in the subject! Such a natural part of his character, something that fit so well, that I hadn't realized before. If I had thought about it a little harder, maybe I would have realized it and wrote something about it before the canon got there first. Perhaps this is the way fanon is born: when we add something intrinsically natural to an existing character that keeps them IC. We should all strive towards this.
Part Five: Good Lord, there's a lot of parts to this. Conclusion nowz?
In conclusion, fanfic characterization means that you are working within a preexisting framework that should only be tampered with after much thought and study. You should do this and exert this energy because these are characters that you, presumably, love. You should wish to keep them intact and IC.
Gestures, vocal patterns, dialog, and above all, actions, will all need to pass the IC test before you use them. This gets easier the more you study the canon and the (useful) fanon. It's a delicate balance of creating something new and exciting using an old character. But you can do it! People have been doing it since the beginning of time with archetypes and folk stories.
If you're really stumped and thinking, "Would s/he do this or say this?" I would say practice caution. It's always better to err on the side of IC than fall off the dangerous precipice into OOC territory. That's not to say you shouldn't push the characters, but hopefully the characterizations are strong enough to withstand that pushing.
Remember that, at the very best, you are a faker. Your are faking your way through writing this character, and your best hope is to come a little bit closer to approximating the character as he appears in canon. You are copying, and that's all there is to it. If you can mimic a character well enough, then you are doing your job.
Questions? Disagreements? Rants and beatings about the head and neck? I'm all a quiver with anticipation.