Hey all, I'm not entirely sure if this is the right forum for a thread like this, and I'd also like to apologise if this topic has been covered before (I looked and couldn't find anything, but AW is soooo huge).
I've beta-read a load of novels for AW members now, and I wanted to make an observation of a trap that a surprising number of amateur authors seem to fall into (and it has made me think that I am probably equally guilty of). It is this: the belief that simply telling the reader that your MC (or anyone else) is a "good person" is sufficient, and that the character can then do, say, and think almost anything, and we, the reader, must still consider them "good", just because the author says so. I would rather judge for myself based on the character's actions, thanks, rather than have the author inform me of my opinion.
I've become quite sensitive to it now, and have noticed professional authors are also sometimes guilty - I have just finished Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth, and he has one character (spoilers follow, whited out) who burns down a church, risking the lives of others for his own selfish reasons, but we are still expected to consider him a "goody", just because he's young and handsome and Mr Follett tells us that the character is good.
Another example that has just occurred to me: Francisco D'Anconia, or whatever the chap's name is, in 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. Despite Ms Rand's (slightly desperate) assertions that he was a great and noble person, I thought he behaved like a conceited little ponce in dire need of a good slapping from someone (preferably Dagny, she was the real hero in that novel).
I'll admit that I have been slightly irritated by this tendency on a few occasions now when beta-ing. For instance: one novel I beta'd, featured a scene in which an almost total stranger told the MC (and therefore the reader) that the MC was "a good man", despite the stranger not having a shred of evidence to support this claim, nor indeed any reason to say it - how often do you say that to anyone, even your family and friends? In fact, the only knowledge the stranger had of the MC was that he was involved in activities that were morally questionable, at best. On another occasion, I took issue with an author continually labelling one of her MCs as an upright kind of cat (and inevitably, he was tall and handsome etc), when I thought he was egotistical, supercilious, nowhere near as righteous as he seemed to believe, willing to gamble with members of his family's safety just for some petty personal point-scoring........... the author was very nice about it and agreed that the character was more ambiguous than she had pegged him in the narration, but I could tell that my criticisms hurt her feelings a little bit.
So yeah, I guess the point of this slightly meandering rant, is that I think it would be well for all of us to pull ourselves up from time to time, and ask whether our love of our MC is blinding us to their faults, and if perhaps we should let readers judge for themselves, rather than using our own god-like omnipotence in our story's universe to try and influence their opinion.
I've beta-read a load of novels for AW members now, and I wanted to make an observation of a trap that a surprising number of amateur authors seem to fall into (and it has made me think that I am probably equally guilty of). It is this: the belief that simply telling the reader that your MC (or anyone else) is a "good person" is sufficient, and that the character can then do, say, and think almost anything, and we, the reader, must still consider them "good", just because the author says so. I would rather judge for myself based on the character's actions, thanks, rather than have the author inform me of my opinion.
I've become quite sensitive to it now, and have noticed professional authors are also sometimes guilty - I have just finished Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth, and he has one character (spoilers follow, whited out) who burns down a church, risking the lives of others for his own selfish reasons, but we are still expected to consider him a "goody", just because he's young and handsome and Mr Follett tells us that the character is good.
Another example that has just occurred to me: Francisco D'Anconia, or whatever the chap's name is, in 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. Despite Ms Rand's (slightly desperate) assertions that he was a great and noble person, I thought he behaved like a conceited little ponce in dire need of a good slapping from someone (preferably Dagny, she was the real hero in that novel).
I'll admit that I have been slightly irritated by this tendency on a few occasions now when beta-ing. For instance: one novel I beta'd, featured a scene in which an almost total stranger told the MC (and therefore the reader) that the MC was "a good man", despite the stranger not having a shred of evidence to support this claim, nor indeed any reason to say it - how often do you say that to anyone, even your family and friends? In fact, the only knowledge the stranger had of the MC was that he was involved in activities that were morally questionable, at best. On another occasion, I took issue with an author continually labelling one of her MCs as an upright kind of cat (and inevitably, he was tall and handsome etc), when I thought he was egotistical, supercilious, nowhere near as righteous as he seemed to believe, willing to gamble with members of his family's safety just for some petty personal point-scoring........... the author was very nice about it and agreed that the character was more ambiguous than she had pegged him in the narration, but I could tell that my criticisms hurt her feelings a little bit.
So yeah, I guess the point of this slightly meandering rant, is that I think it would be well for all of us to pull ourselves up from time to time, and ask whether our love of our MC is blinding us to their faults, and if perhaps we should let readers judge for themselves, rather than using our own god-like omnipotence in our story's universe to try and influence their opinion.
