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bedlamsbardSo today in writing workshop, my instructor said something that I disagree with a lot, and something you all know that I, especially, disagree with: that character is dependent on setting.
To an extent, it is. After all, a character is shaped by their circumstances and by their environment. That doesn't mean, however, that the core of the character themselves is necessarily shaped by the setting. I write a lot of AU, and a lot of that AU is set somewhere other than twenty-first century New York City: the best example would probably be "Answer When They're Called to Serving", where I took the CSI:NY characters and put them in a situation very, very different from the one they're in canonically. But does this mean that the characters are, at their cores, different people? No -- because character doesn't change. The circumstances that will shape a character change, but their personality doesn't, so it doesn't necessarily matter where you set your characters so long as their personalities are constant. Core personalities don't change whether they develop in twenty-first century Manhattan, wizarding England, or the Pegasus Galaxy. They can be the same anywhere, you just have to make it believable.
Have I mentioned how much writing for fandom has made me a better writer? So, so much -- I mean, even in the small things, like writing to a limited wordcount. (200-250. Everyone else is freaking out, I'm going, "Guys? Guys? I've written 100-word stories before -- hell, I've written one sentence stories before. This is not that bad.") Of course, this means I have very, very set opinions about the whole writing thing, because I've heard so many different interpretations of what it is, enough so that I've established my own opinion and process. I'm not available to brainwashing about What Is Right, because I've been around long enough to know that nothing is right.
To an extent, it is. After all, a character is shaped by their circumstances and by their environment. That doesn't mean, however, that the core of the character themselves is necessarily shaped by the setting. I write a lot of AU, and a lot of that AU is set somewhere other than twenty-first century New York City: the best example would probably be "Answer When They're Called to Serving", where I took the CSI:NY characters and put them in a situation very, very different from the one they're in canonically. But does this mean that the characters are, at their cores, different people? No -- because character doesn't change. The circumstances that will shape a character change, but their personality doesn't, so it doesn't necessarily matter where you set your characters so long as their personalities are constant. Core personalities don't change whether they develop in twenty-first century Manhattan, wizarding England, or the Pegasus Galaxy. They can be the same anywhere, you just have to make it believable.
Have I mentioned how much writing for fandom has made me a better writer? So, so much -- I mean, even in the small things, like writing to a limited wordcount. (200-250. Everyone else is freaking out, I'm going, "Guys? Guys? I've written 100-word stories before -- hell, I've written one sentence stories before. This is not that bad.") Of course, this means I have very, very set opinions about the whole writing thing, because I've heard so many different interpretations of what it is, enough so that I've established my own opinion and process. I'm not available to brainwashing about What Is Right, because I've been around long enough to know that nothing is right.