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Characters and Real People are not alike
15 years ago
General
There's a saying that goes: Reality is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. Something which is a great coincidence in real life would get you dirty looks from readers; they can believe the impossible, but are irritated by the improbable. Real life is rarely as neat and tidy as fiction, where problems at the beginning are at least mostly resolved in the end. The story also typically has things which only relate to the story in them - you don't see the characters going to the bathroom, paying their bills, or digging in their garden because these things are boring and unrelated to the story. Fiction only focuses on the interesting parts, and let's face it, 90% of life is not interesting.
The trick with the above, then, is to make fiction appear realistic, close enough to real life to fake it.
The same holds true for characters.
You want a character to have struggles which normal people have. You want them to have traits, beliefs, behaviors which real people do. You want them to feel real. But they don't act like real people, and if they did, it will hurt your story. Why?
Real people are hard to understand. Human psychology is that a person's Beliefs have no impact on their own behavior. This creates inconsistency. Furthermore, we do things that don't even make sense to ourselves; smart people do really stupid things. Our moods and emotions and actions change with the moment or the day. We alter our rules and perceptions to benefit us, we assume we are better than we are. Most people are complex too, with many interests and experiences that make them who they are.
Real people are also less interesting. The job of a policeman or spy is mostly paperwork and waiting around, then a bit of excitement. Compare how many times a policeman may fire his weapon compared to a cop in a movie. The same holds true for people's lives. They may have a bit of excitement, but it's not fascinating. They may be interesting, but it's not that compelling. Rare few are as intriguing as characters we talk about today.
Meanwhile, a fictional character is easy to understand. When you understand who they are as a character, their behavior is always consistent with that. If a fictional character does something inconsistent with what we understand about them, it's seen as a literary no-no unless there's a damn good reason for it. Because everything they do can be explained. These characters can be summed up with a few words; their concept and identity are simpler than their real-life counterpart. The contradictions, the interests, the personality traits and experiences are stripped, dumbed down, and refined.
That refining is important. Because characters are also more than real people. Your action star is more badass, more bold and dangerous than any real life counterpart. Your cop is more clever, more sleuthy, more full of grit than any normal man has a right to be. To paraphrase an author on this topic, even your most boring and unremarkable character is more exceptionally normal and unremarkable than your Average Joe; it's his defining characteristic. Characters have more fights, more sex, are more interesting and do more than real people ever could.
Not only are characters simpler, but their lives and conflicts are simpler. Mostly because of the demands of a story - James Bond struggling with his mother's terminal illness and his Bingo addiction makes for a less thrilling Bond film. We don't need those distractions, as after a point they add nothing to the story or character.
Why? Part of it is because, as previously said, it's easier to understand. But the other issue is that it's more enjoyable and entertaining to read about. We read about things which we are not, which we wish we could be. Again, even if we want to read about "slice of life" characters dealing with the issues we do, those characters are personifications of those things, standing out more starkly as representatives, and thus need to embody those things. That requires a sharper focus of their being.
Of course there's the distinction between over-the-top and realistic. Over the top though is its own genre, where the reader or viewer doesn't care so much about sympathetic characters, they suspend their disbelief for the entertainment value. But what about realism?
That goes back to the notion of believable fiction being real-like. You want your characters to feel real and believable. To do this, you don't copy real people like I've illustrated above, you provide a consistent, understandable, well-defined character who has one or two issues that real people deal with. If you do that, then the audience will be able to truly sympathize and believe everything they experience, even if the characters never have to deal with diarrhea or save the world while fretting about their mortgage payments.
The trick with the above, then, is to make fiction appear realistic, close enough to real life to fake it.
The same holds true for characters.
You want a character to have struggles which normal people have. You want them to have traits, beliefs, behaviors which real people do. You want them to feel real. But they don't act like real people, and if they did, it will hurt your story. Why?
Real people are hard to understand. Human psychology is that a person's Beliefs have no impact on their own behavior. This creates inconsistency. Furthermore, we do things that don't even make sense to ourselves; smart people do really stupid things. Our moods and emotions and actions change with the moment or the day. We alter our rules and perceptions to benefit us, we assume we are better than we are. Most people are complex too, with many interests and experiences that make them who they are.
Real people are also less interesting. The job of a policeman or spy is mostly paperwork and waiting around, then a bit of excitement. Compare how many times a policeman may fire his weapon compared to a cop in a movie. The same holds true for people's lives. They may have a bit of excitement, but it's not fascinating. They may be interesting, but it's not that compelling. Rare few are as intriguing as characters we talk about today.
Meanwhile, a fictional character is easy to understand. When you understand who they are as a character, their behavior is always consistent with that. If a fictional character does something inconsistent with what we understand about them, it's seen as a literary no-no unless there's a damn good reason for it. Because everything they do can be explained. These characters can be summed up with a few words; their concept and identity are simpler than their real-life counterpart. The contradictions, the interests, the personality traits and experiences are stripped, dumbed down, and refined.
That refining is important. Because characters are also more than real people. Your action star is more badass, more bold and dangerous than any real life counterpart. Your cop is more clever, more sleuthy, more full of grit than any normal man has a right to be. To paraphrase an author on this topic, even your most boring and unremarkable character is more exceptionally normal and unremarkable than your Average Joe; it's his defining characteristic. Characters have more fights, more sex, are more interesting and do more than real people ever could.
Not only are characters simpler, but their lives and conflicts are simpler. Mostly because of the demands of a story - James Bond struggling with his mother's terminal illness and his Bingo addiction makes for a less thrilling Bond film. We don't need those distractions, as after a point they add nothing to the story or character.
Why? Part of it is because, as previously said, it's easier to understand. But the other issue is that it's more enjoyable and entertaining to read about. We read about things which we are not, which we wish we could be. Again, even if we want to read about "slice of life" characters dealing with the issues we do, those characters are personifications of those things, standing out more starkly as representatives, and thus need to embody those things. That requires a sharper focus of their being.
Of course there's the distinction between over-the-top and realistic. Over the top though is its own genre, where the reader or viewer doesn't care so much about sympathetic characters, they suspend their disbelief for the entertainment value. But what about realism?
That goes back to the notion of believable fiction being real-like. You want your characters to feel real and believable. To do this, you don't copy real people like I've illustrated above, you provide a consistent, understandable, well-defined character who has one or two issues that real people deal with. If you do that, then the audience will be able to truly sympathize and believe everything they experience, even if the characters never have to deal with diarrhea or save the world while fretting about their mortgage payments.
Even if you never write about it, you have to consider that even your most awesome spy character must spend a lot of time doing things like chatting with his neighbor about the best time to plant begonias; otherwise, without that at the back of your mind, the excitement of the moment of action loses something.
Another thing that really annoys me in fiction is when the characters are either on the same level or slightly below that of the reader or viewer, or have less knowledge than a real person in that position should simply for dramatic effect.
A prime example was an episode of "Bones" I saw where the main character came across a skeleton that had male and female features, as well as facial bones ground down to reduce the superorbital torus. It took an agonizingly long time for the main character to figure out that this was a male-to-female transsexual.
I would argue your average character does have a more exciting life than real people. Yes, you have your stories where extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, but those things are likely also more extraordinary than what normally happens in real life, as well.
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Even if you never write about it, you have to consider that even your most awesome spy character must spend a lot of time doing things like chatting with his neighbor about the best time to plant begonias; otherwise, without that at the back of your mind, the excitement of the moment of action loses something.</i>
I don't buy that. You have to understand your character in order to write about him, but that level of minute detail has no impact on your ability to write him. You don't need to know your spy's favorite cereal growing up if it never comes up. What you need to know about characters is who they are, and irrelevant details isn't as important as the things that are important to them.
Another thing that really annoys me in fiction is when the characters are either on the same level or slightly below that of the reader or viewer, or have less knowledge than a real person in that position should simply for dramatic effect.
That can also happen due to lack of research, as well as for the purposes of the story, but yes I think those are meh. Authors typically change things though for the sake of fiction. CSi is a good example. Crime techs do not interview suspects, do not follow leads, they show up after the police have done everything, pick up the pieces, and go back to the lab, then forward all the info to the police. They are middle men. But that's not Interesting.
A prime example was an episode of "Bones" I saw where the main character came across a skeleton that had male and female features, as well as facial bones ground down to reduce the superorbital torus. It took an agonizingly long time for the main character to figure out that this was a male-to-female transsexual.
... wait, what? Why would a transexual's bone structure change? I don't care how much estrogen you pump into yourself, it's not going to alter the width of your forehead or the way your hips/legs are angled. o.O
What people want when they say they want "realism" is in fact verisimilitude, something that feels real instead of being real. The same way you have to sculpt miniatures with unnaturally large hands and feet, and given them oversized weaponry, to make them look correct.